Hercules 9800 SE to 9800 PRO Softmod success

shinzon

Well as a treat for myself for christmas, i went out and bought my myself a hercules 9800se aiw

And now im sitting here with the new 3.10 softmod drivers and have 9800 PRO performance, this card really is so versatile as regards sofmodding, sorta like the 9500 to 9700 pro softmods

Very impressive frame rate even on HALO (demo that is)

Just like to say a big thank you to whoever originally posted about these cards in here earlier

just remember though its pot luck whether you will be able to soft mod some of these cards, some will remain just 9800ses


if you look at this months PCZONE magazine, there benchmarks for this card are comparable to the sapphire atlantis 256 Radeon 9800 pro

Happy days

cant wait to turn everything on in half life 2 lol

Shin

tman

yeah, i just read that in PCZone, pretty fecking cool if you're one of the lucky few that it works for.
if i was buying a new card right now, thats what i'd go for.

RicardoSmith

There seems to be a lot of duff ones though

OfflerCrocGod

So basically it's a lottery?, umm dont know wheter that would be worth it then:(, I suppose if you dont *need* a top of the range card a 9800se is good enough and if it does softmod:D - sweet!. Anyone know how many actually succede?, a rough number like 1 in 10, 1 in 5.....

Creamy Goodness

what ppl on the overclockers.co.uk boards are doing are buying two or more at a time and try to soft mod them, out of the three they might get one to softmod if not they sell the remainder or all the cards to ppl and buy a fresh batch of cards.

seems pointless to me cos ppl will never pay full price for a card that has been used.

shinzon

tis strange that some will remain 9800 ses while the rest can be softmodded, really cant understand how ATI or hercules can let these cards slip through (not that i mind lol)

unfortunately it is a lottery with these, I had a choice between 3 of the same card in PCWORLD today, dunno why i picked the one i did (they were all the same), musta been sheer dumb luck.

Apparently in the pczone article, the only way to really tell is run 3dmarks fill rate test and if its between 2000 and 3000 your softmod is stable and working

my one after testing is 2956.4

Shin

milltown

It's basically got to do with the yields from the silicon wafer fabs. In much the same way that Intel or AMD don't know for sure until they test the processors whether they can sell them as 2.4 gig or 2.6 gig etc. A 2 gig chip has quite likely come off the same wafer of a few hundred chips that a 2.8 gig comes from. They test them and a chip that passes muster at 2 gig but fails at 2.4 is simply sold as a 2 gig chip.

As the lower end chips sell in more quantities than the high end stuff, if the yields are high (high proportion of chips passing all the tests) it doesn't make financial sense to sell the top notch gear at knock down prices so the flawless chips end up in the lower end cards/boxes that sell the high volumes and cover the costs. They also go into the top end gear where they sell for higher prices and maintain the prestige.

This is the whole reasoning behind overclocking and why some chips or chips with specific part number are known to overclock better than others.

Intel took a bit of a pasting in the press a while back when it was found that the Springdale or Canterwood chipset mobos (whichever is theoretically the lower spec one) they sent to the press for review were much better than the same product bought in a shop. Their excuse was that the better chips ended up on some boards because the yields were better than expected and there was a shortage of the lower chips. It was of course pure coincidence that these boards were sent to reviewers.

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by OfflerCrocGod
So basically it's a lottery?, umm dont know wheter that would be worth it then:(, I suppose if you dont *need* a top of the range card a 9800se is good enough and if it does softmod:D - sweet!. Anyone know how many actually succede?, a rough number like 1 in 10, 1 in 5.....

Some have bought as many as 5 and they have all failed. So it really is a lottery.

Creamy Goodness

Originally posted by shinzon
I had a choice between 3 of the same card in PCWORLD today, dunno why i picked the one i did (they were all the same), musta been sheer dumb luck.

you bought the card in pcworld, i'm surprise it worked let alone softmoded how much it cost as a matter of interest

OfflerCrocGod

I was thinking the same think PCWorld???:eek: :eek:!

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by Cr3m0
you bought the card in pcworld, i'm surprise it worked let alone softmoded how much it cost as a matter of interest

yeah i`m curious too?

shinzon

Bought alot of things in PCworld, everything i have bought has worked so far lol

the card was 279

Shin

Col_Loki

Just as a by the way there €215 Here , JES computers , dont mean it as a bad thing just incase other people are viewing this thread and looking to buy one.

Nice to get one that softmods €279.............. worth the money IMO , it seems the Herc cards are having over 50%+ success rate from what ive been hearing ...... saphire much lower % rate.

Cyrus

i was tempted my self having had a trusty 9500 non pro that softmodded but in the end i decided i couldnt take the risk that it wouldnt mod and bough the leadtek 5900lx which is the same as a fullblown 5900 cept with 2.8ns ram instead of 2.2ns, a 9800 pro is faster with fsaa and aa enabled but if the card didnt softmod the 5900 would cream it

the 5900 was only £10 more than 9800se from ocuk

btw theres a guy on ebay (username ericuk) thats selling gteed soft modding 9800se's hes the guy i got my 9500 from

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by Cyrus
i was tempted my self having had a trusty 9500 non pro that softmodded but in the end i decided i couldnt take the risk that it wouldnt mod and bough the leadtek 5900lx which is the same as a fullblown 5900 cept with 2.8ns ram instead of 2.2ns, a 9800 pro is faster with fsaa and aa enabled but if the card didnt softmod the 5900 would cream it

the 5900 was only £10 more than 9800se from ocuk

btw theres a guy on ebay (username ericuk) thats selling gteed soft modding 9800se's hes the guy i got my 9500 from

I can't decide myself. I prefer the Nvidia drivers but the Radeons seem to have better IQ and are easier to cool silently. I link the idea of the AIW functionality but I'd like to be able to use it with my laptop. So I'm thinking of getting a USB2 AIW-Like breakout box for that. Sims seem to perform better on the Radeons though.

Cyrus

i dunno mark ive broken a rad installing a zalman, there are a lot of little capicitors? around the core, break one and u are screwed

ill be puttin the new zalman on the 5900

Woden

€279 i'd rather guarantee my purchase of a 9800 pro for €325 for the powercolor one on komplett, it doesn't have aiw but still...

cyrus how is that 5900lx working out for you? does it overclock well?

davelerave

i heard that powercolor use cheap components ,maybe better to get a different make

Woden

the components aren't cheap however they do you memory that will just give radeon 9800 performance which means there is no real room for overclocking

other then that its fine as it still has to fit the profile of a 9800pro

Cyrus

5900lx is a cracker specially for the price, noisey with stock hsf tho, i have it zalmaned!

Woden

yeah it even looks noisy , did you see the sparkle version on overclockers it seems to have a more reasonable cooling system also komplett have a gainword now for bout the same price which is effectively an LX version

Sparky191

Gainwards used to be excellent cards before all that messing with the problem GF4's that they had. The Radeons run cooler though and that makes them easier to cool quietly. Anyone used one of those Artic Coolers? I wonder how quiet are they? Or is the Zalman the only real silent solution?

The Brigadier

http://www.radeon-shop.de

These guys will sell you a Herc 9800SE AIW guaranteed to Softmod. They test before shipping and charge a premium for ones that softmod. They do the unmoddable ones for 200....

RicardoSmith

Still works out about €300 for a graphics card. Not exactly small change.

The Brigadier

I thought they were only charging €250?

Cyrus

got my leadtek at 500/1000 now with the zalman faster than 5950 speeds :eek:

Woden

whats the rest of your system have you got any benchmarks? 3dmark01 or anything?

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by Cyrus
got my leadtek at 500/1000 now with the zalman faster than 5950 speeds :eek:

What did you need to do that?

The Brigadier

Well my system is giving me

c18,000 3DMark2001
c6,500 3DMark2003

This is with a P4 2.4b at 2.97Ghz
Radeon 9800SE AIW @ 9800 Overclocked to radeon 9800XT
1024MB 2700DDR
Abit BH-7 Motherboard

Cyrus

Mines P4 c @ 3ghz 512mb Pc4000 ram @ ddr 500 Leadtek at 500/1000

I get 18000 in 01 and 7000 in 03, i really need to get a 2.8 c that will do 3.5 and run the memory in sync

The Brigadier

I know I am falling down with only running single channel memory, and If I had an 800Mhz FSB P4 I would get a boost...

Woden

interesting scores there i would have thought you would be a bit higher with that processor

i don't have 03 yet will wait for broadband to download it but i get 17500 with a xp2500+ @ xp3200+, radeon 9800 pro (not o/c), 512 mb pc3500 @ pc3200 and an abit nf7-s v2.0

data

Cyrus

interesting scores there i would have thought you would be a bit higher with that processor

me? to be honest im not surprised a p4 at 3ghz is prolly equivalent to a barton @3200, and 01 is very system dependant

Woden

yeah but even james with his XT only gets 500 more, perhaps it is his slower ram?

The Brigadier

Slower single channel RAM and 4X AGP slot?

Stark

AGP 8x only gives 2% performance increase over AGP 4x. Perhaps the current graphics cards aren't enough to saturate the 4x bus.

Woden

yeah my ram is single channel, one stick of 512 don't know what affect the speed of the agp slot has

zoro

this may sound stupid to some

if i buy a hercules 9800se, and try to softmod it to a 9800 pro, and it FAILS.... what happens?

does my pooter go up in a funny green smoke, does my monitor cave in on itself? or do i just "do something" and it all goes back to 9800se goodnes??

Daniel

Woden

i think you just change the software back and it goes back to the 9800SE AIW goodness thats not a bad mid range card

Col_Loki

Yea basicly your left with a 9800se which you can then overclock if you like . It is roughly the same performance as the 9600pro (mabye a little less), you could take the other road which would be a 9600xt (would be a better performer) for a bit less.

Sorta depends if you want to have a chance of getting a 9800pro AIW .


PS Theres a good chance that your will monitor cave in unless you take out your cd drive (if your loading the drivers with a shovel );) .

Is a nice card to have and is a pretty good performer either way.