Overclock your 9500 Pro & 9700

Zarathustra · Dec 19, 2002, 12:04 PM

Well it turns out the 9500 Pro and 9700 have almost locked core and memory clocks. The best my friend Brent over at [H] was able to do was underclock both the core and memory. That's definitely not what us overclockers want to hear. But thanks to warp11 in this Rage3D thread, it is now possible to overclock the 9500 Pro and 9700. What you have to do is modify the card's BIOS with the below hex value:

Address Line: 00000070h
Originally: 44 76 4E 37 91 08 02 10 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Edited: 44 76 4E 37 90 08 02 10 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Here is an already modified BIOS for the 9500 Pro provided by warp11. According to the above thread, this method has been proven to work. Right now this is the ONLY way to overclock a Radeon 9500 Pro & 9700.

Silmarillon · Dec 19, 2002, 12:45 PM

is this BIOS perfectly safe to flash on a Radeon 9700 non-Pro, considering that the BIOS has been ripped from a 9500 PRO? I mean, are the BIOSes of these two cards absolutely identical??

digitalwanderer · Dec 19, 2002, 01:14 PM

But if I were in the market for a 9500 Pro and haven't been keeping up on ATI lately out of spite, which 9500 Pro would you recomend for overclocking & modding? Preferably compatible with the above posted bios...

Zarathustra · Dec 19, 2002, 06:37 PM

Hell no don't use that BIOS on a 9700! You have to modify your own for the 9700. Use ATIFlash to save your original BIOS (and latter to flash the modified one). Use this beta of Radedit to edit your BIOS as described above. Thanks to Omega for the above files

Dr@gonZ · Dec 23, 2002, 02:22 PM

i want to get 9500pro but it not out yet over here(australia)

~~Optimummind~~ · Jan 12, 2003, 05:55 PM

At first I was pretty excited about the prospect of purchasing a 128MB ATI Radeon 9500 and turning it into the 9700 but I thought, hey, GF FX is coming out this month or the next. Then, I also remembered the terrible experience I had with ATI concerning driver issues. So, I've decided not to go back to ATI and stick with nVIDIA again. Can't wait for the FX!!

BobyJo · Jan 14, 2003, 03:34 PM

I ordered the Sapphiretech R9500 pro from Newegg.com, but by the time they filled my order, they had sold all the Sapphiretech cards. They substituted the ATI Radeon 9500 Pro in place of the Sapphire tech card. I called and was told that they should have a new shippment coming in just two or three days down the road. They gave me a RMA # to return the ATI card. I just left the ATI card in the box, for a few days, the Sapphiretech cards never came in, then they took all the Radeon 9500 cards from thier site. So I am stuck with this ATI Radeon 9500 Pro DDR128. I have flashed to the Warp11's bios and it can be overclocked now. I can get about 340 from the core, but only about 315 from the memory. The card scores 13001 in 3dMark2001se, and I am very satisfied with this score, considering I am running a 1800+ processor. I guess I am wishing for nothing but I was wondering if the driver hack would do any more for this card? I know that the hardware hacks are pretty well out of the question, I don't know if the software would be a viable aid. Or will this software driver hack even work with my card? Thanks BJ

Optimummind::Since 12/2001 the major reviewing sites across the world stated the drivers for ATI was equal or better than the drivers for nVidia video cards. Since we sell both, we have to install drivers for both these cards. We actually have more problems installing nVidia drivers with a nVidia video card than we do with an ATI video card and ATI drivers for that video card.
So please don't start throwing rocks and stuff at this post. This is a fact. Stated not by just me, but by several reviewing sites across the country from Jan 2002 through about April 2002. At this time ATI has been pumping out new drivers at a better pace than nVidia ever had. Maybe the coming of the new video cards will show a good picture of how they are doing now.

Zarathustra · Jan 14, 2003, 05:23 PM

Nope all the software and hardware hacks do are enable the 4 disabled pipelines on the 9500. The 9500 Pro already has those pipelines enabled. Reason the mod is so kickass is because the 128mb 9500s have a 256-bit memory bus like the 9700, unlike the 9500 Pro and regular 9500 which have a 128-bit bus.

nz_skater · Jan 22, 2003, 10:01 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Dr@gonZ
i want to get 9500pro but it not out yet over here(australia)

I'm in New Zealand and I picked one up for $380NZ for my brother?

Nuke209 · Feb 8, 2003, 09:30 PM

i tried on my sapphire ati 9500pro and it wouldn't...wussup?

Nuke209 · Feb 14, 2003, 11:32 AM

my 9500pro is now a 9700
hahahahahaha

URWORSTENEMY · Mar 8, 2003, 08:00 AM

I see from this thread im a little bit behind the times, but then again, i never had a 9500Pro to be concerned about its ocing capabilities

But hey, like the post says 'better late than never'

Ive just ran the BOIS flash on my Sapphire 9500Pro and hey presto, it works

Even for a n00b like myself i found the method easy to follow and it worked first time, no problems at all.
My first real brush with overclocking and im very impressed with the results

Major credit must go to Warp11 over at Rage3D.
Ive now clocked my 9500Pro to 311/622

Check out me 3DMark2003 below me siggy

nme

***craig5320*** · Mar 8, 2003, 08:07 AM

Nice NME, I wasn't permitted to flash the bios when I reviewed it

URWORSTENEMY · Mar 8, 2003, 10:27 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by craig5320
Nice NME, I wasn't permitted to flash the bios when I reviewed it

Thx buddy,
I wasnt sure whether to clock it or not, ive read quite a few horror stories were bios flashing is concerned,
and was worried i might screw things up

Fortunately it was realllly simple and its given me the 'oc' bug

nme