New Baught Saphire 9800 128mb pro.

[catattack]

Hey guys... I just baught one of these and its being delieverd to me at the moment. Any big pointers to help me out? Maybe some do's and donts? Thanks!

[Stewart]

Do get a copy of 3DMark 2003 and a game or two, as well as Power Strip, and see if the card can do stock XT core and mem speeds. If so, either leave it at that, or flash the BIOS to an XT.

Do replace the stock cooler with an Artic Cooler or Zalman if you do this.

Do post this is the Hexus Graphics forum, where it's supposed to go.

Don't swop it for some magic beans.

[BUFF]

Download the latest Cat 4.5 drivers (I prefer Omega's version particularly for overclocking).

If you haven't upgraded to DX 9 do so as the ATI drivers need it before they install.

If your existing card is nVidia make sure that you thoroughly clean out the existing drivers before installing the ATI.

Try to give the card it's own power supply cable - if you must share give it the first feed.


Get a game like Far Cry & enjoy!

[catattack]

own power supply cable?... I'm confused, what do you mean by that?

[silentphoenix]

If you were previously using a Nvidia card make sure you use that driver clean program (me thinks you can get it from www.driverheaven.com or somewhere) before you install you're new drivers.

DO NOT listen to Vaul's last comment, magic beans have great retail value if you manage to get them to sprout - as a matter of fact, ive got a few spare if you want to trade

[Stewart]

He means give it a power cable to itself, not one that shares other devices; and if you must share, give it the first feed.

There are many cables coming from the PSU, and some will have more things attached than others. Try to keep the others on the same cable as the 9800pro to a minimum.

[silentphoenix]

Hmmm... does it make a difference which cable is connected to the 9800? At the mo, im only using to of the 3 cables on my enermax - 1 for fans ad one for the HD, CDR, floppy and 9800 (on the splitter).

Would it distribute the load on the PSU, if I put the 9800 on the other cables?

[Howard]

If it's a half-decent PSU it won't make a blind bit of difference what cable you use

[Romanov]

thats got me worried I have a 550 watt CWT PSU but I use a sahred cable for my radeon should I not do this?

[steve threlfall]

thats got me worried I have a 550 watt CWT PSU but I use a sahred cable for my radeon should I not do this?

Nothing to worry about at all. Its just to make absoloutley sure that the card gets enough juice- you would know if it wasnt getting enough power as the card wouldnt be performing well.

Its fine as it it, especially with a cwt 550

[Firelord]

I think ATiTool is best OC program and second all other comments

[oralpain]

Yeah ATiTool is quite useful. I also prefer the omega drivers, very small loss of speed in a few things, but far better texture quality.

[CrapshoT]

Radlinker imho is the best oc tool but i wouldn't try to clock it too high with the poo stock cooler.Get a arctic silencer vga cooler AND some copper ramsinks for the cards memory.Then OC it like hell !!!! I would also disable fast writes and VPU recover.check the smartgart to make sure its at AGP 8x times.Also make sure you have DX9 installed.
Anyway forget about OCing your card for now,just get yourself playing the latest games!!!!!!!!!

[SilentDeath]

thats got me worried I have a 550 watt CWT PSU but I use a sahred cable for my radeon should I not do this?

You wont have any problems with performance, howver if the cable gets past its rated current, about 9A iirc for standard psu cables, then they will get hot, the plastic melts, and you get a fire, not nice ....

[Stringent]

Heh got a loaded shuttle with a 250W PSU and a 9800Pro, stuff you lot with your fancy 550W

[Stewart]

Fancy 550w? I'm only on an Antec 350.

As long as its a quality make, I really can't see anyone needed a 550w monster at the moment. Well, as long as you don't want to run a 6800Ultra, of course.