Confused with new 9700Pro

Some of you may know that R-Tek sent me a 9700Pro instead of a 9500np which was good news to begin with but now I'm just left confused.
http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=24672&page=4

My current 9500np does 380 core and 310 mem and give 18k in 3DMark 01 in my main system.

I've put this new 9700Pro into my Shuttle and started to overclock using Omega drivers and radlinker, the core seems stuck a 344Mhz which isn't great in my book. The mem is currently at 324 but it's too hot to touch at the moment, this is using stock cooling.


My 9500 is using RAM chip coolers and an Artic cooler which I know helps overclocking but not that much, could the PSU be making a difference by providing a more stable current? (It's a Tagan 480W).

So what should I do? Keep the 9500 and sell the 9700Pro on eBay? Or should I try the 9700Pro with an Artic Cooler and some ram chip coolers in my main system with a better PSU?

A few other things.

Now that the 9500 is softmodded to 9700 is it exactly the same as a 9700Pro feature wise? i.e 8pipelines and 256Bit mem bus?

I've read about softmodding the 9700Pro to a 9800Pro and some people have even flashed the bios to a 9800 bios which provides more voltage to the GPU, could this help?

Hi Furton, first of all, I have a 9700np flashed to a pro (with samsung mem) and that is KEY, if you have good mem on the 9700 (samsung 2.8ns) keep that and flash it to pro (this relaxes the latencies on the memory in the cards bios and allows a greater overclock), oh and definitely stick an arctic cooler on it. My card went from a max 355 core to 380 core....massive difference.
I get 19100 in 3dmark2k1 on my rig (see sig).

Well I have Samsung memory so I'm assuming that's a good start, is there different type of samsung memory on these?

Since the core artifacts at 344Mhz I think I'll move my Artic Cooler over to this 9700 and see how well it does with that on.

Also, can the 9700 be voltmodded like the 9500 to give more vcore to the GPU?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Furton

Well I have Samsung memory so I'm assuming that's a good start, is there different type of samsung memory on these?

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yes, ideally what you want is GCA2 2.8ns - what do the markings on the chips say?

the difference in core clock is entiryoly becuase of the cooling. Leave the bios's alone... not worth the effort..

Get decent cooling, keep it below 50c and vmod it to 1.7v and you will be able to get around 450mhz on core, enterily dependant on cooling. Stock a slk800 or other decent cpu cooler there that would work well..