It is true that the ATI Radeon 9800 non-Pro's memory needs to be a Samsung. It just needs to be a Samsung memory chip, and heck, it can be 3.3ns chips. I can say that you can't just overclock the video card with Rage3D tweak tool to find out if the video card can do ATI Radeon 9800 Pro speeds. That's just plain wrong. Why? Because I've done it. I have overclocked the non-Pro to Pro speeds, and I get massive screen corruptions. Even overclocking the non-Pro to modest gains, but still not reaching Pro speeds, due to 3.3ns chips (~303 MHz rating), the overclocking wasn't near Pro level. So, I flashed the non-Pro bios to a Pro bios, and booted up into Windows. Ran fine. Didn't lock up, no texture corruptions, no signs of bad overclocking whatsoever.
There's a big difference between just overclocking the non-Pro via Rage3D tweak tool versus overclocking the non-Pro via flashing the BIOS. Flashing via BIOS alters the video card's memory operation. I believe it gives the RAM more voltage to achieve higher clock rating (it took my video card rated memory 3.3ns to 2.8ns!). If you learn anything engineering class (electrical), you would know in general, more power means faster clocking (and more heat), but not necessary stable at all times, as there's a limit. As for flashing the non-Pro BIOS, go for it. Only if you have a Samsung memory though. All others, don't bother doing it.
Go to this website and read about it:
http://duhvoodooman.com/9800NP/9800conv_1.htm
There are more webpages out there talking about flashing. Search via Google. In general, it's basically if you got a non-Pro card, and have Samsung 3.3ns or faster timing (e.g. 3.3ns, 3.0ns, 2.8ns, etc...) you should give it a shot. Of course, if there's a failure, you can revert back to non-Pro state. Read up on that as well.
Originally posted by: hansmuff
Moddable to PRO: Depends on the memory on the card. Many NP don't go over 310mem or 325mem. PRO speed is 340mem. Try the Rage3D tweak tool before flashing BIOS to find out if your card can do 380 core/340 mem with no artifacts. Even then, why bother? Why risk messing up the card if all you need is to install rage3d and have it clock the card to desired speed after you boot Windows?
Don't forget that the 9800 NP is a PRO with lower clocks and different memory chips (most of the time, anyway). A PRO bios would not get you more pipelines or a 256bit mem path; you already have both on the NP.