The Radeon 9800 SE To Radeon 9800 Pro Mod Guide Posted!

Discussion in 'Reviews & Articles' started by Adrian Wong, May 26, 2004.

  1. lukismness

    lukismness Newbie

    Hey guys, yeah I know this thread is probably long dead - but I was wondering if any of you guys have heard of a brand called 'Xtreama'. It seems new, and most links are australian.

    I can get a 9800se 128mb for $99AU - here
    on special (i would go for the legend card, but that's for an extra $140 - and for that much i would just buy a 6600gt).

    http://westan.com.au/dl/prodinfo/pi_sf_XtreamaSF_Mar05310.pdf

    It has a black PCB and 'L' shaped memory (memory is 256bit from that guide) and seems to be using the 9700pro reference board (i assume due to the floppy power adapter) - though I could be wrong.

    The reason I'm after a 9800se is because I burnt out my radeon 9200 (due to power surge) and am using an NF7-m (onboard mx) which doesn't cut it at the least when I want to play decent games.

    I would get a 6600GT, but at the moment I can't exactly afford it ($300 atleast for a decent one) and the 9800se seems to be the better option when compared to a 5200, 9250 and 9550 - which all seem to be the same price range ($80 - $100).

    I'm currently running:

    Sempron 2400+ @ 1.7ghz
    Kingmax 512mb DDR400 Tiny BGA
    Abit NF7-M

    Even without the softmod, me thinks I would atleast have a decent graphics card for the price, though I'm hoping I can softmod it to 9800se - or I will just get a 9800pro for $199.

    $100 would obviously be a better price, as I can then get a VGA silencer.
     
  2. Papercut

    Papercut Newbie

  3. lukismness

    lukismness Newbie

    They aren't too bad, I've never had any problems from them. I was looking at the 9550 which I can get locally for $99 - But I'll see how it goes.

    I just wanna see if I can soft mod it haha.

    I just decided to get a new card because I just got Deus Ex 2 and I need pixel shaders 1.1. Never had that problem with HL2 :(
     
  4. Papercut

    Papercut Newbie

    Yeah no harm trying, I guess. Good luck :thumb:
     
  5. werty316

    werty316 Newbie

    yes there is no harm but just in case things go south always have a PCI card ready or you are screwed till you get one.
     
  6. lukismness

    lukismness Newbie

    onboard gfx?
     
  7. werty316

    werty316 Newbie

    yeah or onboard would work too I think.. Well it should since you choose in the BIOs if you are using onboard or PCI or AGP. I think thats how onboard works.
     
  8. lukismness

    lukismness Newbie

    it automatically disables if it detects an agp card :p
     
  9. Bestia(ry)

    Bestia(ry) Mac'ster

    :eh:
    Setting it to "onboard" automatically disables any AGP-card.
    AGP-card won't be detected if you wanna flash it so no use in case of recovery.
    Therefore you should have an old PCI-card ready.
     
  10. lukismness

    lukismness Newbie

    i have agp radeon in my sister's computer... i can clear cmos, no?

    *edit*

    I've emailed the retailer, and am waiting for specs - i've been told that these are actually 64bit versions (which would steer me well clear of them).

    I'm thinking of actually waiting a few weeks and getting a Leadtek 6800le - which I hear have a very good chance of unlocking the 8 extra pipelines and 2 extra vertex shaders.
     
    Last edited: Jul 13, 2005
  11. Bestia(ry)

    Bestia(ry) Mac'ster

    Right now I don't get what you mean by AGP vs. CMOS. ^^
    Explanation please.
     
  12. lukismness

    lukismness Newbie

    i have an onboard graphics accelerator. if i were to use a new card, i would need to put it in and it would auto detect. if, in an unlikely event such as my card frying and i took it out - AND if my motherboard didn't detect that i wasn't using it, i would clear my cmos so that the motherboard would revert back to it's default setting of having the onboard graphics accelerator enabled.
     
  13. Bestia(ry)

    Bestia(ry) Mac'ster

    Oh, ok. ^^

    1) If your BIOS is set to strict-onboard, an AGP-card won't be detected automatically.
    Most common switches:
    - Onboard (strict)
    - Onboard/PCI
    - PCI/AGP
    - AGP/PCI
    and so on ..
    If so, you'd have to change to AGP/PCI for example.

    2) Would be the only chance to get back to it's defaults in such a situation, yep (again, if it's set to AGP/PCI, the BIOS won't detect that there's no AGP and won't switch back by itself).

    3) I was talking 'bout a re-flash situation.
    And in that case, onboard-gfx is no help at all (I did clarify the reason already). ^^
     
  14. lukismness

    lukismness Newbie

    ah, k. i was going to do it through omega drivers, but seeing as gamedude haven't gotten back to me, i'm going to wait a few weeks and get either a 6800le or a 6600gt... whichever I find more of a better investment.
     
  15. werty316

    werty316 Newbie


    6800LE??? is that the vanilla 6800? I would go for the 6600GT. I don't think the 6800 is wroth the extra if in fact the LE is the vanilla version.
     
  16. Papercut

    Papercut Newbie

    6800LE is one step below the vanilla version. It's got 8 working pixel pipelines (lower clock speeds?), and 256-bit interface with DDR1. Its main selling point for people like us is that there's a good chance of successfully unlocking at least 4 of the 8 locked pipelines, and probably some of the vertex pipelines too.
     
  17. werty316

    werty316 Newbie

    Ah I see I knew it was a bad card to get based on cards like ATI SE or nVidia's XT cards. They sucked. SE though is a hit and miss when it comes to soft modding.
     
  18. lukismness

    lukismness Newbie

    true, though if it doesn't work out i can either send it back and just say that it doesn't like my computer and if they can replace it, or i could just overclock it to the max.

    though i have had a few people with 6800le that have atleast unlocked another 4 pipelines and the last 2 vertex pipelines, so that right there is a 6800 (which i can then clock to atleast 385/850) while saving atleast $150. At the moment any card would be an improvement on my onboard mx, and seeing as I just got my tax return, i'm happy to get anything for that cheap.

    besides, the card i was thinking of getting, the leadtek 6800le has had a lot of success in terms of unlocking atleast 12 pipelines, and that's all i need.
     

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