Turning a 9500 into a 9700?

[Guest]

I'm ready to buy a videocard (going to be used for only agp4x) and i was looking at radeon 9500's on ebay. When looking at them I stumbled upon a few..

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2303781215&category=3762

Like that one. I've seen 3 non-pro radeon 9500 built by saphire that say they have extra pipelines or something that lets them be turned into radeon 9700 with only software. I've also seen some pro-ones that just say they are overclockable. Are these some sort of magical video cards here? Has anybody tried it, and what is the performance of it compared to a radeon 9700 and a radeon9500 pro?

 

[vegandago]

that is indeed true... I don't hvae the link to the tutorial handy but there is a website that tells you how to do it. it is definitely one of the more complicated mods out there though

"There is no dark or light side, only power and those too weak to seek it."

 

[andyk]

It is not possible to turn a 9500 into a 9700 (pro or nonpro - it doesn't matter)
The 9500 and 9500 pro only has a 128 bit memory bus.
No software in the world can suddenly make 128 copper traces appear on a PCB. Sorry to disappoint you, but thats the way it is.

However it might be possible to turn a 9500 nonpro into a 9500 pro. If the two cores are the same, then it might be possible to turn on the 4 extra pipelines, but I doubt that this is the case: The R300 core is very big and I think ATI would be foolish not to physically remove the 4 pipelines and thereby save manufacturing costs.

Regards
Andreas

Edit - I have been prooven wrong... I didn't check the info on this.

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by AndyK on 01/26/03 08:37 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Lrd_Mince]

Actually, you can turn a 9500 into a 9700 pro. Here's the link I assume vegandago was referring too: http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/story.html?id=1041719082

With that method, which includes changing some resistors on the card and OC'ing it you can sometimes recieve faster frame rates on the modified 9500 than a "stock" 9700 pro. I was contemplating doing just that but decided it was probably safer to just get a 9700 pro, which I did.

 

[andyk]

Damn.... didn't know!

It still baffles me why ATI is using 256 bit bus on the 9500 PCB.... and why they're not removing the 4 pipelines on the 9500. I realize that the would had to through a separate tapeout to remove the 4 pipes, but considering it could result in greater yields from each wafer (smaller core) it seems strange to me. And also.... Why is ATI using a PCB with a 256 bit. When you bouble the amount of traces the PCB becomes more expensive to make, but I guess it is not that great of a difference.

I also wonder how it is possible to suddenly change the bus to 256 bit. I mean, it seems strange that this is possible (I'm an IT enineering student and I have dealt with memory controllers a few times).

If you have a link to a more in depth article about this please post it.

Also.... my excuses for being a bit arrogant..... I gues I have to check the info a bit better next time.

Regards
Andreas

 

[jclw]

The forums at Rage3d.com, Guru3d.com, and overclockers.com all have more info. The pipelines and memory bus width are all limited by software (in the drivers). The deviceID and subID of each card tell the driver how many pipelines and how wide a memory bus to enable. By modding the driver you can tell it to use 8 pipelines and a 256bit memory bus if you have a 9500 built on a PCB with a 256bit wide memory bus. You can tell a 9500pro card the same thing, but since it already has 8 pipelines enabled and the PCB only has traces for a 128bit memory bus it won't do anything.

Or as someone else mentioned, you can move resistors on the core to change the deviceID, but I'd stick with the software method because if it doesn't work all you have to do is re-install the original driver.

It looks like if all eight pipelines work on a GPUs it goes to speed testing and gets placed in the 9700pro, 9700 or 9500pro bins. If not all eight work it goes in the 9500 bin. Yeilds must be better then expected because the majority of GPUs used in 9500 look like they in fact have eight fully functioning pipelines, and most even run at 9700pro or greater clock speeds. Of course some have defective pipelines, and you get artifacting. But again, all you have to do is re-install the original driver which disables four pipelines.

I do similar things to the FireGL drivers. Change the device ID from that of a FireGL 8800 card to that of a Radeon 8500 so you can turn your Radeon 8500 into a "FireGL 8500" (The FireGL 8800 and Radeon 8500 are the same core, and nearly identical in all other ways as well).

*Dual PIII-800 @900 i440BX and Tualeron 1.2 @1.74 i815*

 

[Guest]

Well, i'm going to buy a radeon 9500 today. The only questions is if this doesn't work, whats the performance difference between the radeon 9500 and the radeon 9500 pro?

 

[dhlucke]

It's enough. That's why it's a gamble. If you want guarenteed performance, buy the card that provides it. Alternatively, buy the card someplace where you can easily return it

<font color=red>
<A HREF="http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?dhlucke" target="_new">Forum Assassin</A></font color=red>

 

[10GHZ]

only the 128mb version 9500 non-pro can be turned into a 9700. since its the only 9500 that comes with a 256bit memory bus and uses the same pcb as the stock 9700

 

[vegandago]

thank you Lrd Mince... actually my link was

http://www.designtechnica.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=58&page=1


but same thing

"There is no dark or light side, only power and those too weak to seek it."