Sapphire 9800np > 9800pro where??

[BBingUK]

Hi, I've been reading about the fact that its possible to flash the bios of a 9800np to make it a 9800pro. From what I can gather it seems to work as long as the ram chips are made by samsung and are 3.3ns or faster, 2.8ns seem to be the best.
Apparantly Sapphire 9800's seem to be made with these chips, so does anyone know of any UK retailers at the moment who are selling Sapphire 9800's which have the samsung ram chips??

Cheers in advance
Will

[SilentDeath]

afaik the only difference is the gpu and mem speed, but the nonpros might be locked. sapphire make alot of there cards unlocked, while other manufactureres lock them, so imo go with sapphire, my 9700np is unlocked. (its the device id should be 4e44 for unlocked 9700np or pros, and 4e45 for locked 9700np/pros, i dont know what it is for 9800 but i think its 4e47/8 or something.

3.3ns chips will only get ur mem to 320mhz, mine can only goto 313.5. mine has infinetion, which arnt as good as samsung, might b why they clock worse.

[BBingUK]

Yeah, I've heard that outa the two Samsung is the best especially for getting to the pro speeds. It seems that flashing with the pro bios increases the voltage to the ram chips, this has been confirmed on other boards where people who couldn't get above a certain speed could easily surpass it after the pro bios flash. I just need to find out now somewhere that definatly has Sapphire cards with the samsung chips

Will

[SilentDeath]

ram will clock better with higher voltage, which needs hardware modifications (connecing a pin on the voltage regulator to a 20k pot, then to ground)
its more likely that the bios flash gives more relaxed timings - more latency, than increasing voltage, but i might be wrong- as soon as i found out mine was factory unlocked i didnt need to research the bios flash

[SilentDeath]

also y r u getting a new card, which costs ~£300, while ur GeForce4 Ti4200 @ 275/550 is easyly good enuf untill good dx9 stuff arrives, imo wait till the r420 is out then the 9800p will be half what it costs now
also there is r360 coming out soon (just a 9800p with ~450/900 clocks as stock)

[BBingUK]

I'm just a sucker for speed and wasting money I guess I might wait though and see how well Halo and Half-life 2 go on my setup then if its not what I'm happy with I'll go with the upgrade.

Cheers
Will

[GuruJockStrap]

All Saphire 9800 non pros contain 3.3ns Samsung ram. It's only the Connect 3D and Powercolour 9800np's that might have either 2.8ns(very rare), 3.0(infinion, which is pap for overclocking) or 3.3ns.

I've got the Saphire 9800 non pro(3.3ns) and it's currently sitting at 400mhz for the core and 340mhz for the ram. That's with no cooling mods to the card and without the bios flash. Completly stable and artifact free at those speeds.

Got a Vantec Iceberg cooler arriving soon, so I'm gonna remove the retail heatsink/fan and also the shim and apply a better thermal compound. Also getting AS Aluminia Epoxy so I can slap some heatsinks on the ram. Gonna see if I can push it a bit more and if I can't, it's bios flash time.

[Axion]

Originally posted by GuruJockStrap
All Saphire 9800 non pros contain 3.3ns Samsung ram. It's only the Connect 3D and Powercolour 9800np's that might have either 2.8ns(very rare), 3.0(infinion, which is pap for overclocking) or 3.3ns.

I've got the Saphire 9800 non pro(3.3ns) and it's currently sitting at 400mhz for the core and 340mhz for the ram. That's with no cooling mods to the card and without the bios flash. Completly stable and artifact free at those speeds.

Got a Vantec Iceberg cooler arriving soon, so I'm gonna remove the retail heatsink/fan and also the shim and apply a better thermal compound. Also getting AS Aluminia Epoxy so I can slap some heatsinks on the ram. Gonna see if I can push it a bit more and if I can't, it's bios flash time.

not true people have got 2.8ns samsung on sapphire boards

[acidrainy]

Hmmm.......

/me gets torch out....
They are samsung on mine, which part of the number gives away the speed?

[SilentDeath]

look on this page:
http://www.samsung.com/Products/Semi...ily_cd=GME0203
if uve got 128mb 9800pro, or if uve got the 256mb (ddr2?) this page:
http://www.samsung.com/Products/Semi...ily_cd=GME0902


GuruJockStrap 3.3ns is suppost to be about 310mhz iirc? are u using ramsinks on them? my infinion 3.3 gets to 320mhz (9700np0 but i havent tryed since i changed the gpu heatsink, need my watercooling b4 i clock the ram again
also 9800p some use 450mhz ram chips iirc, its the other parts limiting it, esp the heatspreader at the back if it gets hot (on some1ns card the plastic bits holding the heatspreader on started to melt) , maybe the cause of the infion being crap if it draws more power.

[GuruJockStrap]

Originally posted by Axion
not true people have got 2.8ns samsung on sapphire boards

Very rare and you'd have to be extremely lucky to get 2.8ns on a Saphire 9800np.

|SilentDeath: 3.3ns is rated to 303mhz. I'm extremely happy with 340mhz that I got from my Sammy 3.3ns ram. That's with no additional cooling whatsoever and the original bios. Got some AS Alumina Epoxy arriving shortly which I'm gonna use to slap on some heatsinks I got left over from 2x Thermaltake memory cooling kits. They're the nice, blue aluminium heatsinks. Just need to cut them up to fit on the ram.
I've even read of some people getting their 3.3ns ram on the 9800np getting speeds of 360-380mhz with the bios flash!
I think the reason with 3.3ns success is if you look at the link you posted, the 3.3ns is in the same family/production as the faster 2.8ns, and just like cpu's, they're getting speed binned if they're not making the grade. Looks like samsung are getting good yields from their ram.