Well so here is the reason I started the thread about max gpu temp. HERE , I went ahead and performed the volt mod upgrade on my 9800pro video card. So here is a picture of the card getting ready to go.

Card specs are,
Saphire 9800pro 128meg.
R-360 core on 9800xt board (dang wish it had 256meg of memory )
stock speed 378core/338mem.
heatsink is a zalman zm80d-hp cooler

Best overclock I could get from it was core 410/ mem 378. Temps running full load at 50C. Not bad but everyone wants more right?

Volt mod instructions found at Adrian's Rojak
So after carefull review of the risks (see disclaimer at bottom of my post) and knowing that I have a new system 80% finished I decided to go for broke and pump it up.
First step was to offload the zalman cooler and solder all the new wires into the card. Good thing I have a small tip on the soldering iron and a steady hand. 24ga wire was used from and old fan power lead. The directions I found for this mod called for 10K or 20K ohm pots to be used. I ended up using multi-turn ceramic 100k pots due to the fact they where free and they will drop all the way down to 10 ohms. You can see them just to the right of the card.

And a closer shot of the connection points on the board.

So at this point you don't want to hook up the pots yet. Reinstall the heatsinks and drop it in your system. You need to find out what your baseline/stock voltages are before tweeking anything. So, this next picture is the card reinstalled with the tangled mess hanging out the top. Ain't it pretty.


This is where things get fun. You get to test your soldering skills and the trust you placed in somebody elses directions on how to do all of this. Fired up the computer and all was well. So onward to testing stock voltages. I used my blue point dmm and got readings of 1.79v core and 2.71v mem.

Everything is shut off again at this point to add the pots to the wires previously installed on the board. While working on it I came up with a better idea for wire conections and added a 4pin molex to my voltage test wires. Shortened and relocated the wiring to get it out of the way of cooling air also. It makes the process a lot safer and much easier to get the multimeter switched between the leads. So here is the last picture with the pots installed and rtv'd to the edge of the board and the new 4 pin molex hanging out of the side.

The pot closest to the rear is for core voltage, the one closest to the aux power plug is for the mem. At this point I can run the computer and tweek the voltages up nice and slow while the system is on. The guide recomended not going over 1.9/2.9 for the first tryouts so I kept them below those numbers.

Then comes the tryouts. I let ati-tool run it's tests and was able to increase my stable clocks to 430/383. An increase of 20mhz core and only 5mhz on the mem. Not as impressive as I was hoping for. I ran through 4 runs of 3dmark05 and did get a max increase of 85 points from my previous best. Again not as impressive as I would have hoped. Good thing is that my max temp was only up to 53C (3degrees from before) so I should have room to play yet. It is a start though and I'll continue to push it harder and farther and faster if it will let me.


DISCLAIMER remember folks, volt mod your card at your own risk. If I burn up my card I won't blame you, so don't blame me if you cook yours.

Anyone else seeing broken images?

Quote: Originally Posted by Dex Anyone else seeing broken images?

Yeap, I think he got the wrong code inserted.

It's working 50/50 for me. I'm trying to figure it out. Let me know if that is better.

Quote: Originally Posted by vf1000ride It's working 50/50 for me. I'm trying to figure it out. Let me know if that is better.

Yeap, Its working now.

Ok so as an update. Card was running great at those higher voltages. So I went ahead today and gave them another little tweeking.

The gpu voltage is now up at 1.95 volts and holding steady. Gave me another stable gpu clock increase of 6mhz, total up from stock of 378 to 436mhz. Gpu temps are up again by 2C for a total of 55C at full load.

Memory overclocking is not going as well. I bumped it up a bit and tryed things, anything over the initial 2.9volts I pushed it too seem to be detrimental to the total overclock. I got a huge number of pixel artifacts even at speeds lower than tested at before. So I backed it down to the 2.9 volts and that seems for now where it is gonna stay. Back stable at 383mhz.

Being I neglected to make mention of actual 3dmark05 numbers in the first post here we go. I have long since lost my baseline stock numbers but my highest score pre volt mod was 3210. I just posted my highest score yet in 3dmark05 with the voltage turned up and the latest overclock at 3338. So I managed to up my score by another 128 points with a bunch of free components from work and a little time at the soldering station. Not bad for a days work.

Well, Mikey likes the voltage. I still haven't made any progress on getting the memory voltage or overclocks up to a higher level. The gpu on the other hand is progressing nicely. I ran it up to 2.05v tonight and did some benchmarking. The card is stable at up to 444 on the gpu. Unfortunatly this is about as far as I could take things due to heat issues with my main cpu.(dang air cooling) I was running my aquamark benches tonight so that I could watch something different on the screen also. 3dmark05 is cool but there is only so many times you can watch that thing loop in one week. Hopefully as some cooler night air moves in I can run it good and hard again and get some meaningfull 3dmark05 scores to post.

So all told at this point we are 66mhz over stock on the gpu, and 46mhz on the mem. Gotta love this addiction.

Nice dude. I would be too scared to try anything like that with my 7800gt, maybe when I upgrade though.

Well, it's kinda the only reason I am doing it. I am building up a new socket 939 system. I have everything so far but the new vid card (7900gt). If I acidentally smoke this one it will be a definate loss but it isn't gonna put me off the net. I have an older agp card to put in just in case, along with 2 other machines that just sit around folding all day. This is kinda the last bid at taking a few records with me as I move up to some newer hardware. I'm finding though that the cpu I have in my rig (athlon xp2600 mobile) is really the main factor in keeping me from moving into higher scores, well that and air cooling. Won't let it deter me though. If I gotta turn the heat up to max to get those last few mhz out of it I am gonna do it.

How are the temps. i have the same setup., same zalman cooler on an AIW 9800pro, and its almost too hot too touch sometiems. I think your supposed to have the fan on with 9800s...

Temps on the vid card are running around 55C under a full constant load. Either gaming or if I let ati-tool run the artifact test for a few minutes. I have a cheap premod case with 2 80mm side fans. Lucky enough one of them lines up even with the middle of the video card. I did some getto cooling duct work and now that fan is about 1/2inch from the zalman cooler. Works really well for keeping it cool. Last night being that the temps in my computer room were in the mid 80'sF it kinda limited how far I wanted to push things.

Nice Job, I still want to see you running aquamark.
http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=673

maybe im a little slow but how do you check your videocard temps

sorry for the nub question
my card is also a 9800 pro and im just curious

Quote: Originally Posted by project vegas maybe im a little slow but how do you check your videocard temps sorry for the nub question my card is also a 9800 pro and im just curious

You can use ATI Tool
http://www.techpowerup.com/atitool/

Only the 9800XT's can view temps if i'm not mistaken.

I bet you would get a better OC out of this card if you installed a fan on the cooler. Lwrs10 used to have one of those and it rocked.

Zaltan, I posted results over in the Aquamark thread of what I'm getting off my system. 50,861 total, it's running 7155 for the gfx and 8877 for the cpu. I think I am more limited by my cpu than by the graphics card.

Project Vegas, I have a Coolermaster Aerogate II fan speed and temp monitor with one of the probes placed right next to the gpu core. I cross checked them with a hand held infra-red temp probe at the start to be shure the aerogate was close to acurate.

Amish kid. I have Ati-tool and it doesn't display temps correctly for my card. It tells me it is always running 44C.

Ator, I have the R-360 core and did the volt mods based on the 9800xt chipset, thats the style board layout mine is. Still don't have a proper on card temp probe, or mine just doesn't work. As for a cooling fan on the zalman, I'll have to take a picture of it. I have an 80mm side case fan duct modded to blow cool outside air right onto the middle of the card just like one of the add on zalman fans. It just draws it's air from outside the case which should be much cooler.

The main problem with the heat in my system right now is that I didn't start this project when the outside weather was cooler. I don't have airconditioners in my windows yet so the temp inside my computer room is climbing towards 90F during the day and early evenings when I have time to mess with it. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to get them put in and get back to pushing the system. Starting with 90F air to try and cool an overclocked system with is kinda hopeless. No amount of airflow will really compensate for that.

Wow, I didn't realize that. My townhouse stays at a cool 70F thanks to central air...I got very lucky on this. Yeah get that AC in and try again...regardless those are some really good results for the temps you are running.