Advice for 9700 PRO Overclockers

[Chalky]

Here is some unsolicited advice for 9700 PRO overclockers. I had a 9700 PRO
and put an Arctic Silencer on it--the noise level was much better but i got
carried away. Well, I overclocked it to death and lost about $250 for a few
more measly frames per second. I wound up buying a 9800 PRO to replace it
and this thing does what the 9700 can't. 6X aa and 16x anisotropic filtering
in Unreal T 2004 demo without a hitch. I can't say that it is worth spending
the money to upgrade--in my case I had no choice, but if that is what you
after you are better off just selling your 9700 PRO and applying the cash
towards a new card than burning it out overclocking and modding. I'm tempted
to rip the heatsink off my new card and put the vga silencer on it, but I'm
afraid to try it. That's my spiel.

ChAlKy

 

[John Hall]

Good story. I bought a 9800 non pro, overclocked it for a week to pro
speeds with the stock cooling and discovered that it could easily run as a
pro. Then I discovered how to flash the bios and make it a pro and I did.
The card now runs like a charm. I don't overclock it beyond 9800 pro
speeds.

Why did I do it? It wasn't for greater performance because the increase in
performance wasn't really noticeable. All my sims and games ran smooth as
butter with the non pro, and they still run smooth as butter. I guess I did
it because the possibility of doing it was there and I'm a bit of a hardware
nut. As for performance there just isn't the payoff worth the risk. The
few frames per second that are gained just aren't noticeable and if you are
really having trouble running a game smoothly, overclocking is not going to
help. You need a hardware upgrade. My approach to video cards is to wait
around two years between purchases, then when you buy you end up with a
significant upgrade. I had a Geforce 3 classic before I upgraded to my 9800
flashed pro. There was not a huge jump in frame rate, but I can now apply
4xAA and 8xAF with absolutely no lag in performance. Love it!

JK

 

[Julian Richards]

Good story. I bought a 9800 non pro, overclocked it for a week to pro
speeds with the stock cooling and discovered that it could easily run as a
pro. Then I discovered how to flash the bios and make it a pro and I did.
The card now runs like a charm. I don't overclock it beyond 9800 pro
speeds.

I've got my 9800SE running with 8 pipelines at XT speeds.

Why did I do it? It wasn't for greater performance because the increase in
performance wasn't really noticeable. All my sims and games ran smooth as
butter with the non pro, and they still run smooth as butter. I guess I did
it because the possibility of doing it was there and I'm a bit of a hardware
nut.

I agree. I don't have any real reason for doing it either. But I did
it anyway.
--

Julian Richards
julian-richards "at" ntlworld.com

XP Home
L7S7A2 motherboard
Powercolor 9800 SE 8 pipelines with Omega drivers
1 GB RAM
10 GB + 80 GB HDs
CD+DVD/CDRW drives