Radeon 9500 Mod into a Radeon 9700

[yoggi]

Hi! I would like to hear from someone that can confirm if the following roumors or "guides" is true.
http://www.vr-zone.com/#2817 here is an article that discribes how to mod a 9500 card into a 9700 card by doing somthing to the resistors. If this is true Ati has just inactivated the 4 pixel pipes that are on the Radeon 9700.
But how about the memory?? 256bit on the 9700 and just 128 on the 9500 card. This is a thing i think THG should try and see if it is true.. Thx Micke

 

[vigraph]

I agree, I've seen an article on www.xbitlabs.com saying the same thing. They claim to have gotten the info. from the guy's at www.overclockers.ru. This seems also too good to be true but makes sense as the 9500(128mb) is physically identical to the 9700 with 4 of the pipelines turned off.

This would make a great mod article for Toms hardware but maybe crosses some political lines that THG may not want to get involved in.

Chris

 

[Squints]

Maybe something i'll try when my 9500pro starts to show its age. And if I end up breaking it I'll have an excuse to buy a new card lol.

 

[vigraph]

Unfortunately it won't work on a 9500pro, it will only work with the 9500 non pro 128mb version, if you look at the 9500 pro it actually physically differs from the 9700,9700pro and the 9500(nonpro) quite a bit. So don't go tearing apart your card yet. You can crack the bios and overclock the 9500pro a bit though.

 

[edurm]

I read an article too, on

http://www.digit-life.com/news.html?1070#1070


I would like to read THG comments about this subject but anyway this is a big hoax and soon or later another site or magazine will buy the idea and make a total report on it ...


In any case worth a while to be connected on the this polemic subject ...

 

[papasmurf]

use bablefish and look here:
http://www.overclockers.ru/news/newsitem.shtml?category=2&id=1041715156

If this actualy works I am going to buy me a 9500!!!

smurf A- I saw you leave with smurfette
smurf B- oh man as soon as we got out of the bar she started smurfing me
smurf A- shut the smurf up
smurf A- right in the smurfing pariking lot?

 

[10GHZ]

i've read this also over at PCPOP china, its a pretty respectable site, and they say they have done it themselves and the performance doubles in almost all cases, only a couple of frames behind the stock 9700. once you overclock the card a bit, it performance exactly the same as a stock 9700

 

[10GHZ]

i've read this also over at PCPOP china, its a pretty respectable site, and they say they have done it themselves and the performance doubles in almost all cases, only a couple of frames behind the stock 9700. once you overclock the card a bit, it performance exactly the same as a stock 9700. i'll be getting my 9500 128mb version as soon as it comes out in australia, gonna sell my 8500 for 100 australian

 

[edurm]

Anyway LET US KNOW, if you buy a R-9500 and make the MODIFICATION post on THG forum, EVERYBODY wants to Know

Thaks

 

[amebapk]

i just ordered one. upgrade from 8500 to a 9700 pro for around $160 really a good deal.

 

[edurm]

i just ordered one. upgrade from 8500 to a 9700 pro for around $160 really a good deal.

It is NOT from 8500 to 9700, but 9500 to 9700

 

[amebapk]

no, i mean i have a 8500 now, i ordered a 9500 then mod it to 9700 pro. isn't it from 8500 to 9700 pro?

 

[14Dx]

I have a 9500 Pro, but it only works with the non pro version? Not that I'm planning to do this mod or anything, just curious.

If its not broken, you're not trying hard enough.

 

[Crashman]

Wait: Enabling the other 4 pipes should only make it a 9500 Pro! Tom's said the 9500/Pro only uses 128-bit memory, while the 9700/Pro uses 256-bit memory.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[papasmurf]

yes that is right, all you are doing is enabling the other 4 pipelines to make the memory 256bit rather than 128bit which effectively doubles the memory bandwidth 9500 8.8gb bandwidth 9700 17.7gb band width the 9700 is only clocked slightly higher than the 9500 and when you use the 9700 bios file (you have to) you clock your card at the 9700's stock speed. overclocking above that makes it more than possible to get to 9700 pro levels.

smurf A- I saw you leave with smurfette
smurf B- oh man as soon as we got out of the bar she started smurfing me
smurf A- shut the smurf up
smurf A- right in the smurfing pariking lot?

 

[10GHZ]

http://www.pcpop.com/view.asp?type=news&id=8614

you also need the new bios 2 i think, down the bottom of the article you can download.

 

[yoggi]

Of course youre right

 

[oymd]

No..it will not work...
U need 2 things to get it to work..and i strongly doubt u'll find either of them:
1- A radeon 9500 on a 9700PCB ( 6 layer vs 8 layer)
2- That 9500 should have 128MB

 

[Crashman]

You mean they actually use 256-bit RAM in 128-bit mode on these things? I find that a little hard to believe.

<font color=blue>You're posting in a forum with class. It may be third class, but it's still class!</font color=blue>

 

[hellcatjr]

dunno, but sounds intreasting, it only makes sense that they have only turned off the 4 pixel piplines, for one it costs nothing and it is a easy cut off i guess.. but i have a 9500 non pro and will look further into this,

 

[edurm]

I just read that is works, at www.theinquirer.net


Radeons transformed for real
Hardware Mcmodification

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=7058

 

[hellcatjr]

Here's my conclusion that it DOES work, since i am going to test this when my card arrives in the mail. Anyways i think that is completely why ATi released the pro version, it only makes sense that they print all of the cards on the same style, since it saves on spendings but to boot moving a resistor to reroute the current to disable the 4 pipelines is a budget way instead of printing an entirly new set of cards just for the 9500, but since they did with the pro it is virtually impossible to do this, since it is a pure dual bank of 128bit ... can't wait to try this out =)

 

[10GHZ]

the 9500 128mb BBA uses the same pcb as the 9700, the 128mb memory is 256bit. thats y it is possible to mod it to a 9700
providing that you've solder the correct parts and also flash the bios with 9700 bios.
at the moment, it is not possible to mod a 64mb version 9500 into a 9500pro, since ATI never released a 64mb 9500pro, therefore, there is no suitable bios for the job

it is also possible to mod a 9500 and 9700 to a M1 or X1.
http://www.pcpop.com/view.asp?type=news&id=8605

 

[hellcatjr]

ok just for all the non believers that this isn't possible the possible JUST happend.... here is the link for more info...

http://discuss.futuremark.com/forum/showflat.plCat=&Board=techdisplayadapters&Number=1665428&page=&view=&sb=&o=&fpart=9&vc=1">

Only problem is that there were a few artifacts in the advanced pixel test.. other than that he stated that it ran stable, and when he clocked the card down to a 9500pro verison the artifacts left, which is most likely caused by the ram either being slower or the fact that the voltage is a bit off, but for the non believers eat up, since this not so good card could save you up to 150 bucks if u have the know how and are capable of doing so....

 

[hellcatjr]

Sorry that link was incorrect,

9500:
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=5561993

9700 modded:
http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=5564580

Also with the misconception everyone was having, the 9500 only truely struggles because of the 4 disabled pixel pipelines, which kills its multitextureing fill rate and single texture fill rate, those are what to note on, because all real world games performance is based off of fill rate.
Fill Rate (Single-Texturing)(MTexels/s)
911.0

jumped to

1535.1

while...

Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing(MTexels/s)was

1085.5

while it increased to

2169.3

it is doubling in scores on fill rate, now that 9500 non pro isn't so bad is it =) i should be recieving mine 2marrow or thursday, laughing cuase i thought i bought a POS but thanks to my soldering class and what not i should have some system posts of what my marks will be =). I'm stoked =)