Legit Reviews

How can I flash my Sapphire 9800Pro to an XT?

you cant necessarily, if you take off your heatsink does it say r360 or r350 on the core?

Xerxes wrote:you cant necessarily, if you take off your heatsink does it say r360 or r350 on the core?

aw... do I have to? I got it a couple weeks ago I can tell you that much.

yeah, you need to make sure it has the R360 core, and i believe the Samsung 2.8 memory.
You will have to replace the heatsink anyway, the stock isn't good enough to cool that once flashed, it generates much more heat. there are some good guides out there for doing the mod.
Let me know what brand and model and I'll poste the right guide for you.

Oh I forgot, I have to put on a Arctic Silencer video card cooler anyway, so yea I can take off the heatsink. First I need to see how far I can overclock it with stock cooling, so I can write a review. Duh, sorry I had a brainfart

I have an arctic cooler on my X800 pro, works great. I run it at 520/1100 without any problems, everything maxxed out for Far Cry and Doom 3. It does get warm, but not bad at all. When it comes to the video card, I recommend artic Silver Ceramique instead of 5, just too small of an area to risk shorting something out.
I would also before you flash the BIOS recommend using ATI Tool and O/Cing it to the XT levels and running it like that for a few days. If it can handle the heat without any artifacts or problems, only then would I consider flashing the BIOS. You might end up being very happy with it unflashed and simply O/Ced.

ATI Tool will also tell you what core you have on your card.

Go here: http://www.rojakpot.com/ , and look up this acticle, The Radeon 9800 Pro To Radeon 9800XT Mod Guide Rev. 5.0!
Lots of good info.

ati tool reads it off the bios so it wont tell you if you have a r360 when the bios says r350

I like ATI Tool because I find it to be the best O/Cing utility, i also like the fact it gives you the GPU temps.
Regardless, if you are going to flash the card, you are going to have to remove the stock cooler, take a little "goof off" or 99% alcohol and clean the core off, then you will know for sure what type you have. Also, I'm not sure if the memory on that card has any passive cooling. I also am not sure about the Arctic Cooler (the X800 does). I'd recommend putting some heat sinks on the card memory if you O/C it or flash it. And like I said, take your time. O/C the card to XT levels, run ATI tool to make sure there are no errors, then game on it for quite awhile. You need to make sure you can sustain the card before you flash it. I'm seeing lots of complaining on these other boards where people flashed their cards, they're dropping like flies. Sapphire explained that they don't advise flashing the cards, although they have the same core, the reason alot of them were chosen for lesser cards is that they had problems running at their supposed speeds, so they flashed them to a lower card.

Xerxes wrote:ati tool reads it off the bios so it wont tell you if you have a r360 when the bios says r350

That's strange, when I flashed my R350 card with the XT Bios ATI tool still saw my core as a R350 and not a R360.

I have plenty of heatsinks to put on the video card, don't worry. I'm probably going to wait a little bit before I overclock it. I'll need to get some of that Arctic Silver stuff, I just have AS5. Although I did use that on a video card waterblock just a few days ago...

was it a hacked bios or a true xt bios?

A10Pilot3 wrote:I have plenty of heatsinks to put on the video card, don't worry. I'm probably going to wait a little bit before I overclock it. I'll need to get some of that Arctic Silver stuff, I just have AS5. Although I did use that on a video card waterblock just a few days ago...

AS5 == Artic Silver 5??? if you have some why are you getting some?

infinitevalence wrote:

A10Pilot3 wrote:I have plenty of heatsinks to put on the video card, don't worry. I'm probably going to wait a little bit before I overclock it. I'll need to get some of that Arctic Silver stuff, I just have AS5. Although I did use that on a video card waterblock just a few days ago...

AS5 == Artic Silver 5??? if you have some why are you getting some?

No silly, Artic Silver "Ceramique" is what I meant...

I've heard of people flashing cards with the r350 cores, it still worksbut from what i heard actually sewrves no purpose.
all in all video Card flashing is very hit and miss. Example.
gigabytes X800 Prow/VIVO comes with all 16 pipes enabled, so it is really an XT. HiTechs only needs a BIOS flash, as do the cards from Power Color and Sapphire, alot of the others have been laser cut, so they require a hard mod.

Xerxes wrote:was it a hacked bios or a true xt bios?

The bios I used was a beta bios for a 128 meg version of the XT that was never produced........ It didn't do much for my card except make it run hotter. My card was seen as a XT in all programs but with a R350 core............. :twisted: I've run about 6 or so different bios on my card so far with the Giga Cube bring in the fastest benches.............

Where can I download ATI Tool to just o/c my pro, not flash it to an xt?

You can get it here...................

http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/

thanks!

I'm going to see how far i can overclock before and after i switch heatsinks, when I switch heatsinks I will check what core i have

You should beable to get aroung 20-40 MHz more out of the card with the Artic Cooler. What model of the cooler did you get??