Overclocking my 9700

  • Thread starter Thread starter D. Sutton
  • Start date Start date
D

D. Sutton

I'd like to play with my 9700 a bit and overclock it a bit. I'm
planning on taking it slow and being pretty careful. Is there a good
website that provides some information on the correct way to do it, as
well as show which, if any, utilities are the best to use? I
downloaded Rage3Dtweak39C but after installing it, my system started
to lock up before making any changes to the card at all. Any other
utilities you guys can recommend?

Thanks.
 
I'd like to play with my 9700 a bit and overclock it a bit. I'm
planning on taking it slow and being pretty careful. Is there a good
website that provides some information on the correct way to do it, as
well as show which, if any, utilities are the best to use? I
downloaded Rage3Dtweak39C but after installing it, my system started
to lock up before making any changes to the card at all. Any other
utilities you guys can recommend?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

Time to discover the best driver set for ATI around..!!

http://www.omegacorner.com/
(new site .net, has conflict with other site it looks like)

Click on ATI RADEON at top, then pick your OS, and then get the 2.5.51
set. (based on the CAT 4.6's.) Uninstall your ATI control panel from
ADD/REMOVE and then click on the Omega file. They aren't certified so
don't panic when you get 2 warnings.. click through those and make
sure you install the RADLINKER/RADCLOCKER program as well. He includes
alot of extra goodies with his driver sets and you will find a program
called ATItool which will test your card for artifacts, as it finds
the highest overclock for CORE and MEMORY. This tool is VERY safe,
almost too safe since it recommended a clock that was a lot lower then
what I set it at manually.

Join the discussion about his drivers at:

http://www.driverheaven.net/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=12


Pluvious
 
Thanks for the info - fantastic drivers and tools. I turned up the
core speed to about 365 with no problems, but only increased the
memory clock to about 275. Not sure if I can go much higher, or if the
huge offset in the two is worse than reducing the core and raising the
memory even more.

Regardless, my 3dMark score rose from 4100 to 5300. This 9700 is
pretty good...

Thanks again.
 
D. Sutton said:
Thanks for the info - fantastic drivers and tools. I turned up the
core speed to about 365 with no problems, but only increased the
memory clock to about 275. Not sure if I can go much higher, or if the
huge offset in the two is worse than reducing the core and raising the
memory even more.

Regardless, my 3dMark score rose from 4100 to 5300. This 9700 is
pretty good...

Thanks again.
Click to expand...

You should be able to hit 310-320Mhz with the memory easy.

Minotaur (8*
 
Thanks for the info - fantastic drivers and tools. I turned up the
core speed to about 365 with no problems, but only increased the
memory clock to about 275. Not sure if I can go much higher, or if the
huge offset in the two is worse than reducing the core and raising the
memory even more.

Regardless, my 3dMark score rose from 4100 to 5300. This 9700 is
pretty good...

Thanks again.
Click to expand...

You're very welcome. The image quality should be improved as well with
most games as a bonus. :)

I was able to overclock my 9700 PRO to 378/324 with STOCK cooling!

You should have a lot more 'room' on that card to go higher. That
ATItool is playing it safe and not maxing out the o/c. I'd raise your
memory a lot more if I where you. Most of the 'guides' I've read about
overclocking cards is that you want to max out the core before you
start to mess with the memory side. Once you find the highest o/c core
then start to see how high the memory will go.. maybe back off the
core by one notch. Either way, enjoy.. the 9700 should get you though
the newest games just fine. ;)


Pluvious


 
Interestingly, I used the ATI tool to find my max core and mem speeds,
and it worked fine with the core speed. But once the max core was set,
I tried the tool again with the memory speed, and though it started
off fine, it only made it to about 295 or so (default is 263 remember)
and then started experiencing lots of errors, at which point the tool
began to decrease the speed slowly. At about 280 or so, the little 3D
window showing the furry cube showed lots of interference in the way
of yellow vertical and horizontal lines. This continued until I
stopped the tool from running, which was after the speed dropped to a
level below the default of 263. That's why I was afraid to go much
higher than 275 or so. It was weird.

I'm going to try to raise it a little at a time to see how it goes,
though.

Thanks again for the advice.
 
D. Sutton said:
Interestingly, I used the ATI tool to find my max core and mem speeds,
and it worked fine with the core speed. But once the max core was set,
I tried the tool again with the memory speed, and though it started
off fine, it only made it to about 295 or so (default is 263 remember)
and then started experiencing lots of errors, at which point the tool
began to decrease the speed slowly. At about 280 or so, the little 3D
window showing the furry cube showed lots of interference in the way
of yellow vertical and horizontal lines. This continued until I
stopped the tool from running, which was after the speed dropped to a
level below the default of 263. That's why I was afraid to go much
higher than 275 or so. It was weird.

I'm going to try to raise it a little at a time to see how it goes,
though.

Thanks again for the advice.
Click to expand...

Well, the problem could be with the BIOS on the video card.
On this Sapphire 9700, I had to flash it with a version of the BIOS
that was found on cards shipped in Europe at the time. As the version I
had was locked and wasn't overclocking very good at all..

Looks like you might have the same problem I had back then.
Sorry no links or a name of the file I used, it was too long ago to
remember. Best bet is to search for a site with a collection of BIOS for
your cards manufacturer.

Minotaur (8*
 
Minotaur said:
Well, the problem could be with the BIOS on the video card.
On this Sapphire 9700, I had to flash it with a version of the BIOS
that was found on cards shipped in Europe at the time. As the version I
had was locked and wasn't overclocking very good at all..

Looks like you might have the same problem I had back then.
Sorry no links or a name of the file I used, it was too long ago to
remember. Best bet is to search for a site with a collection of BIOS for
your cards manufacturer.

Minotaur (8*
Click to expand...


Hi all, I posted this after this discussion had started and seem to be
missing a couple of the threads.

My questions are:

What's the safest or highest anyone here has clocked a 9700pro with stock
fan or Passive cooling?

Mine has a Zalman ZM80A-HP so far running at 370mhz core and 320mhz mem with
no
problems.

Also what speed could you get with a Vapourchilled or waterchilled 9700 pro?
Are there any good links to what can be done or what has been done?

Looking to see what I can get from the old dog b4 I think of upgrading to a
X800 xt.

If it makes a difference mine is a Hercules 3d prophet.

Thanks for any help.

Spence
 
Well, the problem could be with the BIOS on the video card.
On this Sapphire 9700, I had to flash it with a version of the BIOS
that was found on cards shipped in Europe at the time. As the version I
had was locked and wasn't overclocking very good at all..

Looks like you might have the same problem I had back then.
Sorry no links or a name of the file I used, it was too long ago to
remember. Best bet is to search for a site with a collection of BIOS for
your cards manufacturer.

Minotaur (8*
Click to expand...


Would this be something like you got?..

http://www.ocfaq.com/softmod/bios.php

Pluvious
 
Interestingly, I used the ATI tool to find my max core and mem speeds,
and it worked fine with the core speed. But once the max core was set,
I tried the tool again with the memory speed, and though it started
off fine, it only made it to about 295 or so (default is 263 remember)
and then started experiencing lots of errors, at which point the tool
began to decrease the speed slowly. At about 280 or so, the little 3D
window showing the furry cube showed lots of interference in the way
of yellow vertical and horizontal lines. This continued until I
stopped the tool from running, which was after the speed dropped to a
level below the default of 263. That's why I was afraid to go much
higher than 275 or so. It was weird.

I'm going to try to raise it a little at a time to see how it goes,
though.

Thanks again for the advice.
Click to expand...

Hmm.. Do you have a PRO version or just the 9700 version? I found
this info with google:
http://www.3dchipset.com/bios/ati/warp11/index.php

Warp11's ATi Radeon BIOS Files:

Warp11 compared the ATi Radeon 9700 Pro BIOS, the 9700 non-Pro BIOS,
and the 9500 Pro BIOS and was able to find the one hexidecimal value
that is keeping the ATi Radeon 9500 Pro and ATi Radeon 9700 non-Pro
from overclocking.

ATi is setting the same hex value on the 9500 Pro and 9700 non-Pro
cards to keep them from overclocking. I tested this theory on both a
9700 non-Pro and 9500 Pro and it works. All of the overclocking
utilities functioned correctly with these BIOS's. Neither 3DChipset
nor Warp11 is responsbile for what happends when using these files.


Pluvious
 
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