Poll: How did your 9500 mod turn out?

[Gooberlx2]

Well, I tried both underclocking and FSAA/Anisio all with checkerboards. Guess my card just won't do it, oh well. It's still a nice upgrade from a geforce1.

 

[Athlex]

I gambled and won last week with a Sapphire 9500 NP from Newegg (pretty sure it has Hynix RAM). I'm still not wild about ATI's drivers, but this was a great upgrade from my 8500. Morrowind and UT2K3 are much happier now.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Eventually I'll be doing a full system upgrade anyway, and I'll just keep this card on my (what will become a...) linux box. I want to see what happens to prices because of the GeforceFX

 

[CBone]

My mod turned out sweet.

OEM 3.3 ns Infineon memory. standard Bios/ latest catalyst drivers.

OC'd 34X/310 for now.

Just software.

Purchased from googlegear. 0.50 2nd day shipping.

 

[PsychoPif]

How can I know what type of memory is on the card ?

I see here 3.3 ns Infineon or 3.6ns Hynix ram but how can I tell which is on the card I buy.
Is it a brand thing ? or do same card have sometime 3.3 and other 3.6 ?

And I see most of you are using the Saphire from newegg.com... Is there something special about these card ? Cause I'm in Canada and for some stupid reason they don't want to ship to me.

 

[Athlex]

PsychoPif,
There are numerous reports at the Guru3D forums that retail boxed Sapphire 9500 non-pros don't work so well. Most of these retail boxed cards have a black PCB, so you might try to get a hold of an OEM one with a red board if you can find one. Both the Guru3D and Rage3D forums have lots of good info, definitely worth a look.
/atx

edit: As far as brand, I'm pretty sure that only Sapphire and Powercolor make "amateur" 9500s with the 256 bit memory bus. ATI only sells the 9500 Pro which has a 128 bit memory bus.

 

[HotrodPC]

ATI OEM RADEON 9500 128MB DDR BULK Powered By ATI Manufactured By Saphire Technologies from Newegg. Riva Tuner software script. No artifacts . Core overclocked to 310. Mem overclocked to 297. My 1st ATI card and it is great. Fresh install of xp pro and no problems. Upgraded from geforce 2 mx. Red ati pcb. 3.3 inf mem. dx 9 and cat 3.0 Too bad this old system is holding it back. 1600xp on iwill kk266 mobo with 512mb of pc133.

 

[zephyrprime]

I see here 3.3 ns Infineon or 3.6ns Hynix ram but how can I tell which is on the card I buy.

It's pot luck. Some stores seem to have more of one kind than the other. Maybe the 3.6ns boards are the older boards? Who knows.

 

[Auric]

Prolly a concurrent alternate supplier. Some high-volume stores have had both versions and they are both on 3.0 PCB's. The Infineon are rated to 300 MHz instead of 275 so seem nice to get but I wonder if they are actually tested after marking and these ones are sub standard because noone (including meself) seems to be able to clock 'em higher than 310. I could crank the 3.3ns on my 8500 to 330 without problems -of course performance did not increase significantly over the 303 I normally ran 'em at though.

 

[Lecho]

I just got a Sapphire Radeon 9500 128MB from Newegg and the Riva Tuner mod worked perfectly with no artifacts. The card has the 3.3ns Infineon chips. I think the Hynix chips are the same ones used on the 9500 Pro. The default clock is 275MHz for the 9500 and this is exactly what the Hynix chips are rated for. The Infineon chips are rated for 300MHz, so it is no surprise that those with these chips are having better luck reaching 9700 speeds. It is prolly just a manufacturer difference. It is also possible that they are switching over to the 3.6ns chips to save some cash too. My 3DMark score is higher at 2.4GHz without overclocking than my Ti4200 3.3ns overclocked at w/ 2.7GHz. Overclocked speeds are Core/Mem: 330/305. I am slightly surprised it worked this well.

Intel Pentium 4 1.8A@2.4
ASUS P4B533-V
512MB OCZ DDR333 CAS 2

Default 9500 Score: 10787
After enabling pipelines: 12908 (quite a jump!)
Overclocked: 13551

 

[lebe0024]

I just got mine from newegg today:
3.3 Inf Ram.
I used the wizzard hack, (could understand rivatuner, but I think they do the exact same thing in the end)
... and .... IT WORKED WOOOO HOOOOOO no artifacts whatsoever

CPU: xp1600 @ 166*10.5 = 1759 MHz
256 Mushkin PC3000 @ fastest timings

DEFAULT CLOCKED 9500 NP 128MB: 10700
DEFAULT CLOCKED soft9700 : 12900
soft9700 @ 300/300 : 13300

I haven't seen how high I can clock it yet though, but I'm excited. The GF is over right now, so I obviously have to watch american idol with her instead of play with my new toy ...... crap.

 

[JuicyFruit]

Got 13421 in 3DMark first time, but now getting 79115.

UT2k3 is running very very smooth at 16x12, max everything with 4x AA and 8x AF.

Any ideas why my scores are so off?

edit: Nevermind. Got 13675 after I sorted out what I did wrong the 2nd and 3rd time. High scores are with no AA and no AF. Lower scores are with 4x AA and 8x AF.

I supposedly have a Sapphire 9500Pro OEM 128 but the pcb is red and the cpu fan says ATI. Weird. But 3DMark and even my display properties sees my 9500PRO as a 9700.

Sweet indeed.

 

[lebe0024]

It's because you're using AF and AA.

 

[JuicyFruit]

There seems to be a high pitched noise coming from my system. It definitely wasn't there when I had the Geforce 4 in there.

Oh well, can't complain. I see that my memory is Infineon. Does anyone know what it'll overclock to? 3DMark crashed last night while it was looping on 350/310. I'm back to 330/310, the default speeds for the 9700Pro.

 

[jaybee]

Originally posted by: JuicyFruit
There seems to be a high pitched noise coming from my system. It definitely wasn't there when I had the Geforce 4 in there.

Oh well, can't complain. I see that my memory is Infineon. Does anyone know what it'll overclock to? 3DMark crashed last night while it was looping on 350/310. I'm back to 330/310, the default speeds for the 9700Pro.

Sounds to me like it's drawing too much power. What kinda psu & system you got?

jaybee

 

[JuicyFruit]

I have an Enermax 431W, maybe 1 month old.

P4 2.53 @ 3Ghz
Alpha Pal8942 with YS-Tech fan
512 mb Corsair DDR 400 @ 421DDR
P4B533-E
SB Live 5.1
NewQ equalizer
Leadtek Winfast 2000XP tv tuner
1 x 80gig WD 8mb
2 x 40gig Maxtor 7200rpm
Pioneer 16x DVD slot
Lite-On 48x CD-RW
Floppy
Cold Cathode
4 x Case fans
Logitech MX700
Microsoft Internet KB

and the 9500PRO.

My psu should be able to handle that, right? My last two purchases were the Logitech and the 9500PRO. I don't remember it making this sound after I got the mouse, so I'm pretty sure it's the video card. Just not sure why it's making the noise.

I think I have 2 additional splitters for the psu. Would putting the power for the video card on a different line help? The Enermax pretty much has 2 lines and I have one side going to all the stuff in the front of the computer and the other line takes care of my motherboard and fans and cold cathode, I think.

This high pitch noise is nothing big compared to what my friend's experiencing. Since HIS installation of the 9500PRO card, he's reformatted twice. Hahaha. He's not dumb but he's gotta be doing something wrong. Our cards and system are pretty much identical (same mobo, cpu, hds, mem, os). He says he's afraid to touch anything on his computer for fear of it crashing.

I haven't had any problems. . . . yet. Yes, my fingers are crossed.

 

[WarSong]

How do I change my vote? I originally put "thinking about it" but now I need to change it to "Software mod, no artifacts"

Sapphire 9500np 128MB successfully Soft9700'ed and O/Ced (without changing bios) to 330/297. Zero artifacts. Perfectly stable.

 

[SickBeast]

hey good for you warsong. that means 18 worked and only 8 didn't (software mod). those are very good odds in my opinion. damn it's tempting...anyone wanna buy a R8500?

<EDIT: Are the people that got the Sapphire cards to work using the black pcb cards or the red pcb? Thanks...>

 

[WarSong]

red pcb for mine

 

[sxr7171]

Are the people getting artifacts also getting boosted 3Dmarks or are the artifacts so bad that you can't really run 3Dmark? As I understand it there are two different software mods, has anyone successfully used the 'other' mod to make their problems go away. I guess someone would have mentioned it if they had, but I guess I have to ask.


Also, it would be nice if people would mention if they are using DVI or Analog with their reports of success or faliure (I know it has nothing to do with 3d but maybe there is some correlation, and I'm looking for anything that would help make this meet my risk tolerance level and possibly others).

 

[JuicyFruit]

Analog for me. Was waiting for the 20" Dell lcd but it seems that they're no longer carrying it.

 

I want to change my vote, I got my card in and it's working like a charm.

Saphire Radeon 9500 non-pro (from newegg.com) w/ Infineon 3.3ns BGA DDR
Athlon XP 1600+ @ stock speeds
512MB (2x256) Generic PC2100 DDR @ Turbo settings
Epox 8KHA+ KT266A Motherboard
RivaTuner Software Mod on Cat 3.0a's
Latest VIA Hyperion's
Windows XP Pro

I have not seen a checkerboard yet My score went from 9890 to 11318 on 3dmark 2k1SE running defualt benchmark. Not bad for a pokey 1600+ and everything running stock speed, even the vid card.

Fill Rate (Single-Texturing)
(MTexels/s)
After - 1547.9
Before - 927.0


Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing)
(MTexels/s)
After - 2174.1
Before - 1103.4

 

[SickBeast]

i have a feeling that the artifacts that people are noticing are caused by heat. try underclocking your cards a bit to see if they go away. i have a feeling that when you open up the extra 4 pipes it further stresses the card, so backing down on the core and memory speeds would make sense to me.

 

[lebe0024]

The checkerboards are not caused by heat.

I don't get any artifacts in any games.... BUT, when I join a game in counterstrike, right before it changes display resolution (when it goes into console for connecting and such) I get the checkerboards in a flash. So, I click on the game, then in a flash I see my desktop with white checkers, then the consol screen with no artifacts. I have never seen the checkers other than that one moment. wierd huh? this makes me think it's not an issue with "faulty" pipelines.

 

[Killrose]

Madhatter0 What are you doing with an 8HKA+, a 1600+ CPU @stock speeds? I have'nt seen a 1600+ that wouldn't do at least 1800+ speeds @ stock voltage and even just OK cooling.

PUMP it UP!!!