MSI 9800 - overclocking woes

[snikipierowicz]

Hey all, I recently bought a MSI 9800 Pro for my system. It runs
stable at default speed; I've played Doom 3 for hours at a time (no
artifacts), and looped the 3dmark 2005 successfully (if not at decent
frame rates, but that's another story). It plays nice with some other
games I have as well. However, my overclocking attempts have been
frustrated. I seem to have a have hit a wall with the card at (390/360
– core/mem). The core in particular, causes artifices in RTHDRIBL at
anything approaching 400 MHz, and lockups 3Dmark at 412 MHz after a
few minutes of running the default benchmarks. For reference, the card
defaults to 378/338 MHz.

In theory, I should be doing better then this. I have the green PCB
version of the card, with a large HSF over the memory and GPU. I've
read about people's experiences with this card. The general consensus
seems to be that the MSI 9800 Pro is essentially a 9800 XT in
disguise, and can easily hit XT core/memory speeds or beyond. I do not
want to remove the HSF from the card to verify whether or not it is a
R360 core, though many people have reported this to be the case. Even
if it is not, I believe the card should be hitting slightly higher
speeds then I've been able to achieve.

My system
CPU - P4 1.6A @ 2.4GHZ w 512MB RAM @ 375 MHz
Motherboard – ASUS P4S533 - SIS 645DX chipset (4X AGP slot)
OS -Win XP Pro
Catalyst ver: 4.9

Prior to the 9800 I had a Geforce 4200 in my system, which was
completely stable. After purchasing the 9800, I also did a complete
windows reinstall to remove the possibility of driver issues. Though
my system is overclocked, I get the same results with my 9800 at
default and raised speeds.

What would you try to push this card further? Or is it a lost cause?
If so, what is to blame?

 

[Crimson Liar]

Your card is performing beyond its rated specs. If you wanted guaranteed
9800XT speeds, you should have bought a 9800XT.

Crimson Liar

 

[Cristián Pérez V.]

I have the green one, and it's overclocked to 437/372 with no problem!!!!!!,

Check the ventilation and temperature of your computer...

Or maybe is the Power Supply Unit , I had a generic 350 watts that couldn't
handle the card, I changed to one with 480 watts (Thermaltake) ;-).

Regards.

 

[First of One]

Might be worthwhile to remove the heat sink, clean off whatever gunk MSI
used as thermal interface, and reinstall the heat sink with decent thermal
compound over both the GPU and memory.

You don't need a R360 core to hit XT speeds. Mine is an ATi-branded R350 and
hits XT speeds without problems.

 

[Pete D]

ATI tool will tell you what the core is, mine is an R350. I am using the
latest Omega drivers. MSI are not exactly premium so there may be some
variation. Currently mine is running at 395/345 and running perfectly with
Doom3.

 

[C Perez]

Atitools won't tell you exactly the if the core is a R350 or R360, it just
reads the BIOS, in this case is the one from the 9800 pro model, so reads
R350. But many people had checked fisically that the core of the MSI 9800
Pro is the R360 indeed.

Checking at naked eye is the only way to be sure about the processor.

 

[Pete D]

That may be true but the MSI's are cheap and nasty and will most liekly be
an R350. My MSI clocks up a bit but not that much so is probably also an
R350 as well.

 

[C Perez]

My MSI 9800 pro can be overclocked to 453/368 without artifacts, clocks
given by Atitools and checked with 3dmark03 and 01,

I've read in the forums that many people can even get higher than that, bad
luck for you...

 

[Pete D]

Mine is the red card and this morning it shat itself. Lots of crap on
screen, can just see windows and thats about it, lots of short lines.