9800 Wow

[Plod2151]

Got the new graphics card yesterday. A sapphire 9800 pro 128 and added an arctic cooling vga cooler. Only one word WOW. Was using a radeon 7000 prior too yesterday so you can imagine the excitement this card has caused. Will play anything with the graphics wapped right up. the VGAcooler is brilliant. Easy too fit only took 5 mins and the card was back in. Only downside too it was the surface of the sink wasn't very smooth could run your nail down it and feel the ridges. Shame its the only part of the kit that fails it. Also after playing on ravenshield for a while noticed my system temp and cpu temps have increased since installing the new card but was bound too happen.
Also how far have people pushed their 9800 with the arctic cooler. Bit of a newby too overclocking. Tried pushing my XP 3000+ and now matter what i do it become unstable. Programs will get errors and xp will close them or windows will shut down all together. Relaxed my memory timings. Increased the core voltage too 1.8 and it still does it any ideas???
Would recommend the 9800 pro too anyone. If you are getting the arctic cooling VGA be prepared too lap the heatsink its a must.

[Stewart]

Hehe, it is a good card. I remember when I first got my 9800pro, was very impressed. I stuck a Zalman ZM80-C heatpipe cooler on it, and clocked it to stock 9800XT speeds, just for that extra bit of grunt.

Grab a copy of Power Strip and go slowly, 5mhz at a time, core and mem. Run 3DMark 2003, play a game for a while, and if everything's sound, go again. When you get any sort of problems (glitches on screen, tearing, etc) ease of by 10-15mhz on core and mem, and Robert's your Father's Brother.

Crystal?

As for the CPU, well, if your memory timings are relaxed, and the voltage is up nice and high, and it still isn't stable, then you might just have a CPU that doesn't want to do more than 3000+.

Give the voltage one more push, and run SANDRA CPU tests. My 2600+ will do 2.2, but never 2.3, no matter what I do.

Enjoy the card.

[Kezzer]

yup, that card has got a WOWness factor of 5

[ERU]

Seconded entirely

[Ravens Nest]

I tell you what im the same i give it a 5, but some people are never happy i upgraded a friends PC from a ti4200 to a 9800 pro and he seemed hard pressed to notice the difference (Probably needs an eye test ) i eventually got him to admit it was a little faster

[steve threlfall]

If you have the arctic vga cooler then surely you can flash the card to an xt? That may give you a better increase than trying to overclock it