finally a small upgrade to my system

[Maggi]

Hi Y'all !

A good soul was too kind and so, I was able to swap my olden Asus P2B-S running an OC'ed Celeron566@850 and my beloved Parhelia, plus 200.- € cash, for an Asus A7V, 768MB of PC2700 DDR, running an Athlon XP 2400+ (Thorton) and a Sapphire Atlantis 9600 non-pro with 256MB DDR.

So far so good ...


Obviuosly, I am planning to quench out every single ounce of performance and during my research, I found three major topics that I'm planning to pursue:

1. trying to make that Thorton a Barton
2. trying to unlock the CPU's multiplier
3. OCing the heck out of the Radeon (since it's only passively cooled and the core is running at 325 MHz already)


Questions to #1.

is it really just a matter of closing the open L2 bridges (and a portion of luck, of course) ?
got any nice links to illustrate ?


Questions to #2.

seeing the different approaches on the net, what procedure would you recommend ?
- modding CPU or MoBo ?
- closing L1 bridges or shortening pins ?
- got any nice links to illustrate ?


Questions to #3.
how much effort should I put into cooling ?
- just add a fan or replace the HS with something spicy ?
- how about cooling the RAM ?
- got any nice links to illustrate ?


As usual, any valueable feedback and pointers would be greatly apreciated ...

[Indiana]

For the Radeon, I can add some points:

1. I have a Radeon Mobility M10 (=9600 Mobility) in my notebook that should be quite the same performancewise as the Radeon9600 non-Pro. Although this card is NOT a benchmark-runner, I think it delivers very steady and fully useable framerates throughout most games, often even with 4x FSAA/8x aniso in the most used 1024 resolution. A major strength of the card (provided you have a good CPU) is that the framerates, while not spectacular are very even, so there's not really much stuttering - at least not here.

2. most of the Radeon9600 GPUs are good oc'ers even with bad cooling. I can oc the Mobility in my notebook (where the cooling never is anyway near decent) up to >450MHz (from originally 338 MHz) without any problems. So you should not need additional cooling for some nice GPU overclocks, provided the case cooling is good.

3. Ram oc'ing is a very different matter and severely depends on the quality of the RAMs that are used on your card. I can't get my notbooks M10 RAMs to work at higher than ~245MHz (originally at 189MHz), no matter how cold it is....

[Maggi]

Thanx for insight, Indiana !

I'm planning to get the Arctic-Cooling VGA Silencer, so I guess 400MHz core should be possible ...

The RAM that is used on the card, seems to be using old packaging, ie. Sapphire wanted to get rid of old stock, but since it runs at 200 Mhz (400 DDR), it might be enough to run in sync with the core.


For the CPU, I'm looking at the Thermaltake Volcano 12 Extreme, which seems to be a fair bang for my bucks.

[Maggi]

wheeee ...

I just ordered the Volcano 12 for only 29,- € and the VGA Silencer for a cheap 13,92 €

[UtwigMU]

WRT to CPU heatsink - check if you can get Thernalright SK7 somewhere in the retail chain. Otherwise check out Thermalright AX-7.

It depends wether you want to overclock. I built a box for bro using Arctic Cooling Copper Silent2 on Athlon 1900+ - very quiet, CPU at low 50's under load, case temp at 36 (not high airflow case).

If you're not going to overclock get that it's cheap (half the price of TT Volcano 12), silent and works - rated for AthlonXP 3400+. Just don't expect extreme overclock.



EDIT: I see you pulled the trigger. You paid a bit too much for volcano as it's 25.50 Euros in a shop 15 minutes of walk from here and we generally have higher retail prices than Germany and can only wish for German online prices (gunstiger.de).



As for question number 2:

I'm not into Thorton modding, but if it can be done by connecting pins, I'd go that way at least untill i find out wether it works.


If you unlock other half of cache and it doesn't work, you can still go back. You can also resell CPU as the modding won't leave any evicence.

If the pins aproach works, you can then permanently mod it through bridges.

As for pinhacking tips, check www.ocinside.de

[Maggi]

Thanx Utwig...

I placed the order via my company, because we had to order some other stuff anyways and thus I save package and shipping costs. Also, it was the cheapest offer that I found over here.

and yes, I am planning to OC that puppy and the Volcano 12 is rated for 3600+ ...

[Tomasz]

For Questions 1 and 2:
Before doing any modding, make sure that your Thorton isn't superlocked. Most AMD processors manufactured after week 39 of 2003 cannot have their multipliers changed and cannot have their extra cache enabled (in the case of Thortons). There is no known way to bypass this in hardware. In either case, the L1 bridges have been factory closed for quite some time, so you shouldn't have to touch that -- just use WCPUID to test whether multiplier adjustments stick.

For Question 3:
With some active cooling, (unless you are very unlucky) the core speed should increase significantly (up to the 400-500 MHz range) However, if I'm not mistaken, this Radeon comes with 5ns ram, right? That will probably not overclock very well. It's rated for 200 MHz. I would be suprised if you could get 220 out of it... maybe increased voltage would help -- but I would not expect much from the RAM, if it is the 5 ns variety.

[Wombat]

Re: finally a small upgrade to my system

Originally posted by Maggi

Questions to #2.

seeing the different approaches on the net, what procedure would you recommend ?
- modding CPU or MoBo ?
- closing L1 bridges or shortening pins ?
- got any nice links to illustrate ?

I've tried both CPU vs. MB approaches, and greatly prefer modding the motherboard. Aside from having to take the MB out of the case, it's almost no effort. It's much easier to get the work right, and much easier to undo if you so choose. Plus, you can sell or RMA the CPU if you need.

[Maggi]

Thanx a lot, guys !

I hope, the ordered parts come within the next days and hopefully, I'll find some time over the weekend, to rip it all apart for finding out what model and stepping the CPU is and if I can find out some more details for the Radeon ...

[Maggi]

Originally posted by Tomasz
... just use WCPUID to test whether multiplier adjustments stick.
...

is WCPUID offering a softmod for preliminary testing without having to toy with pins and bridges ?

[Indiana]

Originally posted by Maggi

The RAM that is used on the card, seems to be using old packaging, ie. Sapphire wanted to get rid of old stock, but since it runs at 200 Mhz (400 DDR), it might be enough to run in sync with the core.

I'd expect only about 250 - 280 MHz for the RAM, unfortunately. But as said, the GPU should go way over 400MHz (I'm able to get it up to 500MHz even in the notebook, but then the thing is getting very warm - no pixel errors or crashes, though).
OC'ing the GPU alone does further increase the performance with the Radeon9600.
Running the GPU and RAM in sync is not necessary nor especially beneficial (since the card is made for async operation you don't gain speed through sync'ed clockrates), so just oc every component up to its limit.

One VERY important point (hope it's not too late): make absolutely sure the R9600 you get does not have 64Bit wide RAMs - unfortunately there seem to be quite some 9600 non-Pros with only 64 Bit wide RAM out there and they perform like crap.
Unfortuately most often those are not clearly described as having 64Bit RAM - damn ATI and their board partners for creating such a mess.

[rylan]

fyi unfortunately the older thorton cores don't overclock as well as the new barton 2500+ cores. However, odds are you got an unlocked cpu and you probably don't even have to connect the bridges. I'd slap it in the system, make sure it boots at stock speed then change the multiplier up slightly and see if it sticks.

[Maggi]

Originally posted by Indiana
...

One VERY important point (hope it's not too late): make absolutely sure the R9600 you get does not have 64Bit wide RAMs - unfortunately there seem to be quite some 9600 non-Pros with only 64 Bit wide RAM out there and they perform like crap.
Unfortuately most often those are not clearly described as having 64Bit RAM - damn ATI and their board partners for creating such a mess. [/B]

Thanx for the notes, Indiana ...

Do you have an idea how to find out what kind of RAM is used ?

Originally posted by rylan
fyi unfortunately the older thorton cores don't overclock as well as the new barton 2500+ cores. However, odds are you got an unlocked cpu and you probably don't even have to connect the bridges. I'd slap it in the system, make sure it boots at stock speed then change the multiplier up slightly and see if it sticks.

Hi Rylan,

if I have an unlocked CPU, I'd rather try to lower the multiplier, for getting the CPU's FSB up to 166, so that it would run in sync with my memory.

As I said earlier, I'll rip everything apart, as soon as my new cooling components arrive and then I'll have a look, what exact model I have.

[Indiana]

Originally posted by Maggi
Thanx for the notes, Indiana ...

Do you have an idea how to find out what kind of RAM is used ?

The 64Bit versions should be labeled as R9600SE, but unfortunately many manufacturers don't do this correctly.

I would ask the vendor specifically which width the ram interface of the card in question has and let him give me a confirmation that it is indeed 128Bit wide before buying anything.


This link could give you some more information about this stupid issue (unfortunately it's nearly the same with NVidia, there many of the lower priced cards only have a 64bit wide ram interface, too ).

Here's a quote of the linked Thread:

Viele Hersteller haben die Radeon 9600 NP Karten um 64-Bit beim Speicherinterface kastriert und die R9600 Pro EZ/VE/LE sind dann die einzig sinnvolle Alternative zwischen 120-130 Euro (Vgl. R9600 Pro EZ für 123 Euro oder R9600 Pro VE für 127 Euro). "Echte" R9600 NP Karten mit 128-Bit Speicherinterface gibts kaum mehr und werden meist durch die R9600SE Karten ersetzt. Oftmals ists nicht klar, ob ein 64-Bit oder 128-Bit Speicherinterface verbaut ist. Hier gibts ne Sapphire R9600 für 127 Euro, das könnte eine mit 128-Bit SI sein, die angebote für ~100 Euro sind meist abgespeckte Versionen, oftmals stehts aber (noch) nicht dran, da blicken noch einige Händler nicht durch. Gigabyte z.B. bietet eine R9600 (111 Euro) und eine R9600SE an... BEIDE haben aber ein 64-Bit Speicherinterface (Vgl. GV-R96S128D und GV-R96128D!!!). Vormals stand das "S" für "Small Interface" (o.ä. ) und man konnte sicher sein, dass man ne R9600NP ohne "S" nen 128-Bit SI hatte. Das hat sich schell geändert, weil Gigabyte mal kurz auf ihrer Seite das 128-Bit Speicherinterface rausgestrichen hat und nun eigentlich 2 (fast) identische R9600SE Karten anbietet. Deshalb ists jetzt teilweise sinnvoller, sich ne EZ/VE/LE zu holen, wenn man nur 125 Euro z.B. ausgeben möchte, anstatt dass man zu einer R9600/SE greift, zumal es dann auch nur noch 5-10 Euro Preisunterschied sind... So ändern sich halt die Zeiten.

[Maggi]

Sapphire rulez ...

Although, my variant (256MB) is not existant to this page

http://www.sapphiretech.com/vga/9600.asp

according to this link

http://www.sapphiretech.com/product-matrix/full_retail.xls

I have 128bit memory (my card is in line 18 of that Excel sheet)