Getting Mem on 9800PRo (R360Core) 8E Samsung chips to run faster

[Entity_Razer]

Well read the topic title :)

I'm currently hitting a stone wall at 393MHZ. It just gives artifacts. Now I haven't done any mods except flash it to a 9800XT gigacube bios. So what can you people advice me to clock it further? I'm aiming for 410 MHZ on the MEM at least but I Don't know if I'll be able to reach that. At the moment I'm still missing 3 chips that need sinking because the Zalman HC-P is in the way,not enough clearence to sink those last chips (thinking about buying a VF700,any good?)

Now What I also wanted to ask. is Vmodding also good to get rid of artifacts or are artifacts purely heat related and not volt related?

and finally. I'm thinking about buying some of those small aluminum heatsinsk for like 20 cents per piece or something, what should I sink on a 9800pro? (Pro PCB) or is there except ram and GPU nothing to cool?

[xman01]

you need to voltmod
also you could play round with the mem timings

[Entity_Razer]

where can I play around with the mem timings? And is there a pencil mod for the RAM? I know a pencil Vmod for the core but the ram i don't think so :s

[mcnbns]

I don't think you need a vmod for your RAM just yet. With my R360 flashed to XT I could run the RAM at stock voltage and timings at 405MHz just with little sinks on them. (Aiming an 80mm fan at them might have pushed it up to 410MHz.)

If there is any way at all to get sinks on all the RAM, then do it. Either way putting a fan on them will help.

As for timings, downloading ATiTool and poke around.

If none of that works, then I'd break out the soldering iron. :)

[felinusz]

I would voltmod your card. That Samsung RAM sees it's best gains at around ~2.85V, any higher often causes instability, but a boost to ~2.85V of VDD should net you at least another 5 MHz.

Definitely sink all of the chips on your card, that's fairly important ;). Since you've already flashed your card with the Gigacube BIOS, your memory should have **at least** 400 MHz in it.

After you voltmod, I would also put a little heatsink on the VDD and VCORE voltage regultion ICs, if only for peace of mind.

Also, if you haven't done so already, cut a 120mm blowhole in the side panel of your case, and mount a 120mm fan so that it blows directly over your video card. Makes a *HUGE* difference to both your core and memory overclockability.

Good luck.

[Entity_Razer]

120 mm fan is actually just above the GPU :) I couldn't put it right next to GPU because my OPM1 fanb from zalman blocked the way :p

and as said, is a zalman VF700 better then the C version heatpipe cooler?


PS:

How safe is the "poke around' method. I do wanna be able to use the card :p meaning, if you set to tight timings or something in bios and comp locks up, you can reset bios. I don't see battery and jumper on my graka?
:p

[felinusz]

Sinceyou aren't actually flashing the card's BIOS with the new timings, the 'poke around' method is quite safe. You mess up and lock up or BSOD, you simply reset your machine, loading up the card's stock memory timings from it's BIOS.



120 mm fan is actually just above the GPU :) I couldn't put it right next to GPU because my OPM1 fanb from zalman blocked the way :p

and as said, is a zalman VF700 better then the C version heatpipe cooler?


PS:

How safe is the "poke around' method. I do wanna be able to use the card :p meaning, if you set to tight timings or something in bios and comp locks up, you can reset bios. I don't see battery and jumper on my graka?
:p

[Entity_Razer]

if ti BSOD's or lock up or gets corrupted image (like I got :p: ) is there a change of permanent damage? I mean, I won't let it run ik that for 5 minuts off course, but you know ...


edit:
http://www.techpowerup.com/articles/overclocking/vidcard/56

are the chips that i'd need to sink the VDDQ and VGPU's? I'm fairly certain on the VGPu (speaks for itsself :p: ) but the VDDQ I don't know if thats the one because you also have just VDD and VREF