Need help from Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB owners

pRAyNz

I got a new Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro 256 MB for replacement today, but I`m really irritated, it uses 8 chips of DDR(1) RAM (instead of 16 of DDR2), it`s BIOS is labeled: "R360 Hynix DDR BIOS W THERMAL CONTROL" (instead of "R350 Samsung DDR2"), the RAM is clocked at 337 MHz (instead of 351 MHz) and there are no RAM sinks, but a much more massive GPU-cooler than on my original card.

But the card itself is labeled "Radeon 9800 Pro" on its back, I don`t see an overdrive tab in the display config (like I expected because of the BIOS` title), there`s no dust or something and everything smells like "fresh from the fab" (otherwise I would have thought someone used it/RMA`d it before).

Please, if someone has the 9800Pro256 with DDR1-RAM have a look at it`s BIOS-title (using "Savebios" and "radedit" for example) and if it`s not "...R360 Hynix DDR BIOS W THERMAL CONTROL..." tell me and mail me the BIOS, if possible - which enables me to check if only this string has been changed or if this card could be a crippled Radeon 9800 XT...

Edit
I voted "It`s propably a crippled R9800XT" because I want it to show me the results without more clicking - and I`m still hoping...

RebelWolf

Not sure this is going to be real helpful for you, but over on the OCFaq forums, there is a post up from someone who bought a 9800Pro with 256 meg of ram on it, and it's the XT PCB, with a R360 chip.

He claims his has a 9800 Pro bios on the board, but went into no details.

Personally, it makes me wonder if some manufacturers are "downgrading" XT's that either couldn't manage the clock rate, or had some other error like the thermal probe not working correctly, something on the same lines as how the 9800SE's came into existance.

RebelWolf

Sire

I had a pro but there was no overdrive tab at all that is only with the XT and the 360 chip is the XT chip. I got now the XT from Club. and its a great card

pRAyNz

@RebelWolf
Thanks a lot, I`ll have a look.
Uhm, BTW do you know if ATITool for example gets the chip version from the video BIOS or directely from the chip? - If its from the hardware my question is answered, because it reads "R350" which means it`s a common R9800Pro 256MB DDR1 with modified BIOS. - In this case something would still be strange...why should anyone flash a modified BIOS without tuning anything (I know of) but the BIOS string (the device ID is the regular one and I guess the clockings are standard for the DDR1 variant)
I think no matter what comes out I have to contact Sapphire to get some more information about this.

That was exactely what I was hoping and AFAIK it`s quite common too, to slow down processors if there`s need for low-end or mainstream (GeForce4 4200, Athlon TB 700, Barton 2500... )
Given a good cooling this could mean there`s an enormous overclocking potential compared with other 9800Pros

@Sire
Sure, but ATM there`s still a chance that this here is not a R350/9800Pro but a slowed down R360/XT-chip like in the case "RebelWolf" wrote about.
(And maybe even useful parts of the hardware sensor are existing and only waiting for the right BIOS to be flashed...)

The_Neon_Cowboy

I'd remove the cooler and look at whats on the video chip

pRAyNz

Yep, I`m going to do this. - Am just waiting for the Zalman heatpipe to arrive here.

Edit:
Just had a look at the ->report<- by the user who`s Radeon Pro 256MB is based on a XT-PCB and the picture of his card looks like my current card
From the linked posting:
That`s it! - Now everything fits - I`m really happy now!

Edit:

I flashed the ATI XT BIOS on it, installed the Zalman heatpipe and am running benchmarks since some hours. Everything I tried works, no flaws - Overdrive is showing up and reports 56 Idle and 63 load-temperatures