x700pro and xt...no diff?

[MikeMurphy]

I purchased the retail x700pro and was pleased it would do the 500/500. The xt gpu was stock at 475, so I have no complaints. What I am curious about though is the memory.

The XT and PRO version both have the same memory, however the PRO versions seem to RARELY be able to reach the XT speeds over 525 if I remember correctly. I thought this might be attributed to the memory timings for quite some time, then I did a check on both of the BIOS' and found the timings to be the same. Many people hit a relative brick wall at 500.

What could be attributed to such a huge difference in speed? The pro stock is 435 or so, and the XT is 525, yet has the same memory.

Could it be volts on the GDDR3? Can voltages be modified in the ATI BIOS'? Is there anywhere to download schematics or just a full layout of each of the boards?

[v142]

if both cards use the same chips its prob the voltage

[MikeMurphy]

Any ideas on modding the memory voltage? I cannot seem to find ANYTHING on these cards since everyone seems to go with the 6600GT.

The frustration!!

[MikeMurphy]

I have downloaded the Rabit ATI bios tool, but it does not cover voltages.

Are there any other BIOS tools that I could play around with this?

[Geforce4ti4200]

have you removed the heatsink? I wouldnt be supprised if its an underclocked x700xt core. This exactly happened to one guy. ati cancelled the few x700xt they made cause of x800 and x800xl so now they only have x700pros, you got lucky yours is really an x700xt underclocked

[don_vercetti]

i doubt you can raise vdimm in BIOS for the x700...you'd probably have to do a hardmod for that.

An underclocked x700xt isn't really much to get excited about though, it's not like you can get extra pipelines. Just a slightly higher clock speed.

[Geforce4ti4200]

thats still good, its like paying for a slower model and getting a better one. example is I buy a 3000+ winchester and it does past 3500+ clocks, my $160 winny just clocked better than a stock $300+ winny. He paid x700pro money for his x700xt :D

[MikeMurphy]

My thoughts are to just get the most out of the product purchased. Even beit 10mhz on the memory, it may as well be done!

I wish I knew how to do a hardmod on this bastard!

[don_vercetti]

the jump from x700pro to xt isn't exactly massive is it?

stuff to get excited about would be my Geforce 6800nu which i've modded to basically a 6800gt, nets me 12,000 on 3dmark03 and i purchased it for £145. Or my athlon xp 1800, oc's to 2.5ghz. That's getting the most out of a product, and something to get excited about.

Sorry for being so "put downish". I'm in a slightly snappy mood.

Just a little question that popped into my head. Assuming you're getting those extra 10mhz for general use, rather than benching, would you still do it if it shortened the lifetime by a lot?
Totally off-topic btw.

Incidentally, you're sig says no name RAM. Is it DDR333? And you've overclocked it to 442mhz, with those timings? And Dual Channel? AND 1T? Not bad. That's damned impressive, i gotta say.

[MikeMurphy]

Don,

Yeah I would pass up lifetime, but I doubt a little extra voltage on the memory would have any negative effects.

I am running PC3200 ram, which is actually made in 1999, and the divider I am using is DDR333. But I am pretty happy, 220 is not bad for stock timings, 1T and all running 1gb of memory in dual channel! I was running PC4000 ram on my NF7-S with a stock FSB, that was sold, picked this up, and now im running crummy ram. Go figure =(

Actually the jump from the x700pro to XT is significant. the pro runs at 425/435, and the XT runs at 475/525. Seems fairly significant to me anyways. I find it VERY odd that the XT runs the 2ns ram beyond its rated limit, STOCK! There must be something more to this card. I am not stopping until I have a 6600GT killer!

I am sure it can be done, but there seems to be little interest in this card.