Anyone sucessfully hack the Radeon 9800se?

[tiblot]

Just wondering ive anyones gotten it to run like a 9800 pro.. if so what brand card and stuff?

I hear the Powercolor 9800se's are pretty good to hack

 

[Matthias99]

The softmod actually turns it into a regular 9800, not a 9800Pro. Although if the core and memory can take it, you can overclock it to 9800Pro speeds after activating the other pipelines.

Any card with 256-bit memory (which the Powercolor ones seem to have) has a chance at actually having 8 working pipes. The success rate is apparently not terrific, although someone posted a few weeks back in the Video forum about doing it successfully.

 

[Cheetah8799]

I saw someone posted I think in the video forum that they softmodded to a 9800 pro and that it works fine for them. Might be the same thread you refer to Matthias99.

 

[tiblot]

yeah, i was wondering about the success rate. The Powercolor is on sale for like ~$150. Is it worth it to take that risk?

 

[formulav8]

There is someone in the FS/Trade forum that is selling one that he modded to a 9800 Pro. It is a Powercolor brand.


Jason

 

[tiblot]

oh cool lemme check it out

 

[flexy]

you cant say in general whether the SE is easy to hack into a 9800/Pro. I dont know about the PCB of the Powercolor SE right now..it depends what layout the PCB is. Some SE cards are only 128 bit memory interface.... (the cards with the memory chips 'in line'). The other cards with the two mem chips on the side and two at the top ('L' type arrangement( are the ones with the 256 bit memory layout. (Like the 9800 Pro).

a) first...you need to be lucky to get one of these L-type memory boards to make sure you get the 256bit memory.

in addition

The SEs have 4 of the 8 pipelines disabled. The driver-HACK now tries to enable these 4 additional pipelines. But there is only a 50/50 chance that the 4 other pipes work (from whjat i heard) , if they dont (checker artifacts in benchmarks with the other 4 pipes open- ) then no hack can make these 4 pipes work because they're defunct.

If you're out of luck you spend $150 on a card with only 128bit bus and 4 not working pipes
If you're lucky you get a card with 256mem bus...and you can open/soft hack the 4 pipes....and then you have a 9800 Pro

Personallly, i'd stay away from the SEs...get a NP and flash to Pro

Edit: you might also wanna look at memory brand/timings. If it comes with some noname/infineon memory chips then dont expect clock rates like you can get with Samsung memory etc. Then you might not be able to reach Pro speeds and have to go lower.

 

[tiblot]

Hey, newegg has the powercolor SE's for $158. They have a picture of them and the memory chips are definately L shaped. The product is also described as 256 bit. So I think we're good on that end