Graphics My crap clocking Radeon 9800pro - R360 core

I have a crap clocking R360 core 9800pro, the max clocks I can get with stock cooling is 400/370 and thats a good day, do the R360's clock worse then the R350's? and will the XT BIOS update help the overclocking or likely to bugger the card because it cant handle XT speeds...

Thankyou, you have all been great...

'doc

 

From what I have heard and read, the general consensus is that the R350 core over-clocks better than the R360. That's all open to your specific card, system, yada yada yada.

It also seems that flashing to the XT BIOS can give better performance...but maybe not over-clocks. The thing is, the XT is clocked higher than the 9800Pro. And on stock cooling your Pro may not be able to handle it. I have seen where one guy edited the XT bios that he was flashing with to make the core and memory clocks the same as what his Pro was at stock. He apparently got some improved performance out the card that way.

 

What the above said

The 360's dont clock as good as the 350's. Best bet is to try better cooling and then flashing the bios. But if u run into problems make sure u have a sparce pci graphics card handy to revert back to the old bios

 

Hi i am new here but i just wanted to tell you my story, I had a saphirre radeon xt, but being shrewd i sold it for £200 last week and ordered a x800xt.
In the meantime i also bought a saphirre 9800pro128mb for £112.

Now.. i got advice from a mate and he informed me i could flash the card to xt speed as all new 9800pro's from saphirre are using the r360 core. i went to a site called http://rojakpot.com/ anyways there it has a full tutorial on how to identify that you have the right card etc etc.

after reading and testing "i am competant but not silly enough to fry the card"

i found that my card with stock cooler and hynix memory at radeon xt speeds
412/365 scored just as much as my previous 9800xt did. i had no artifact at all. it goes on to say that even if the card is 128mb you can still flash the bios to xt .

point to note apparently is that if you do flash the bios the advance pixel shaders are also upgraded with the flash. "i dunno its what it said on the site"

i overclocked the card to 420/380 and it scored more on 3dmark o3 then my 9800xt 256mb did! I was kinda shocked cos i felt i coulda had a 9800pro and saved a fortune.

anyways cut a long story short your 9800 pro overclocked to 420/380 even without the flash will out perform a 9800xt @stock speeds. i would reccomand tho. "and i intend too when i get my x800xt" is to replace the heatsink that comes with your 9800pro if you are really going to run the card at xt speeds or you might kill the card.

rojakpot.com

hope i helped

Amd64 3200 "newcastle" cpu
msi neo mobo
1gb corsair ram cas 2.5
2xseagate 120gb 10,000rpm "raid 0"
9800pro "soon to be xt if it ever arrives"
soundblaster audigy 2
dvdrw etc etc
modded shiney case blah blah

 

I know my cooling is crap, i got the new Arctic ATI silencer from Article Cooling, the one not in the shops yet for review, but they sent me the one for a pro 256mb or XT :/ so i need to send it off to another team member, real shame as i have it here and could mod it to fit but Arctic cooling wont let me!

AFAIK the XT runs at higher voltage? thus enabling me to get higher clocks, hoping the BIOS flash will up the volts, can anyone confirm, also rikbikboo what were your clocks before you flashed?

thanks

'doc

 

I personally flashed 1Sapphire 9800PRO to a XT, and I'll flash another within the next few days.

Yes, the voltage will rise a tad, since the 9800PRO R360core is just a undervolted 9800XT core...


Cheers,
Mike

 

AFAIK the XT runs at higher voltage? thus enabling me to get higher clocks, hoping the BIOS flash will up the volts, can anyone confirm, also rikbikboo what were your clocks before you flashed?

thanks

'doc[/QUOTE]

when i ran the card at 412/365 and 420/380 i had not modded the card.

out of box speeds were 378/337 so a decent oc even without the xt bios

i have yet still to flash it but i was very happy with what it did out of the box.. when my x800xt arrives i will start to play with it for modding, but until then i have to treat it like gold i need my pc games lol.

i will keep u informed

 

Mine's R360 and sitting nicely at 411/378, just waiting for Tweakmonster RAM Sinks and Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer.

 

'Doc mines teh same, 410/370 is the absolute MAX benchable, above that and it craps out. Gives some sparklies in 03 on nature as well.
400/365 ish seems fully stable though. A better cooler should help things along nicely. Not sure if this one is a R350 or 360 core yet, still on the stock crappy cooler

 

can any1 say vmodddddddd do itttt . check the rojakpot site for a tut. my pro does 450/390 w/ stock vs and with a vga s

 

Havent read the whole of this thread, but heres some FACTS that you seem to have not relised.

1) Stock cooling is crap. Do NOT use stock cooling, or how far you overclock with stock cooling, as a benchmark as to how good a gpu is!

2) R300, R350 and R360 cores are all almost EXACTLY the same. The arcitecture is the same, and only has very minor changes. These changes do not affect any of the following:

-1) Overclockability. Lots of people think that it does.. just a myth.

-2) Performance of the cards if clocked to the same speeds. Nnote that some drivers will optimise for different cards, which may result in differences.

However the pcb and components used in the cards are quite different, infact about everything was altered between the different versions, main alterations:

--1) Power regulation - was made more efficient and able to supply mroe power. The heatspreader on r300's was removed from r350/r360, this is the result of less power being wasted.
9700s have a stock voltage of 1.5 (mine measured 1.48)
9800pros have stock of 1.7.

--2) Memory chips - Better chips were needed to go with the higher clocked cores.

--3) Coolers. The stock ones are still crap, very crap... most manage ~80c full load. A modified cpu cooler will get that down to less than 50c full load.


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What you should do for better overclock:

1) If gpu is hot to the touch when under load - I would say 50c is hot,enough to burn my finger anyway, then you should get better cooling or your overclock will be limited by heat. Anyone that uses a stock cooler based on or very similar to a referenace stock cooler will be limited by heat. Collers like the artic cooling silencer will not limit you by heat nearly as much as the stock ones will..
If heat is limiting your overclock, then increasing voltage will not help much, if atall. It could make it worse, and you could kill your card.

2) Voltmod it. For 9700s stock is 1.5 - this gives most cpus the ability of 390-410mhz without modification. Mine, at 1.48 could goto 410mhz and was limited by voltage, not heat.
With r350 and r360 cores, stock voltage is atleast 1.7 (im unsure what r360 uses...). Based on my 9700np this should be good for 450mhz overclock - but other things will start to limit the card here.


If you cant get 400mhz Murdoc then thats a very good indication that yours is limited by heat.

If someone could measure the Vgpu voltage for a 9800XT it would be usefull to know... If not Ill look it up later in one of the guides...

 

Yes, R360's tend to overclock less than R350's. However stock cooling is your problem... it's total junk on 9800Pro's.

 

One of my mates who just bought a 9800Pro from lowestonweb got an R350 that does 400/380 artifact-free on stock cooling, pretty shoddy really. My Powercolor R350 is a legend, 450/380 artifact-free just on stock, and extra cooling really hasn't helped it much (though voltmod and scary heatsink soon). I think the problem with the R360 Pros is more to do with the fact that they're undervolted XT cores (why they don't all clock to XT speeds), but there's stil luck-of-the-draw to figure in there.