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**mt50** · 07-03-2004, 19:27

hi, do you mean these cards?-

Pardon our interruption...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2791878519&category=27387&sspagename=STRK%3AMEBWA%3AIT&rd=1

if you do i have just brought on myself

i'm getting one of these coolers to go with it-

Just a moment...

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=58506

i was reading on these cards what people were buying from ebay, one person got 16000 in 3d mark 01.

**Montaver** · 07-03-2004, 20:28

Yeh thats the one

Came next day delivery as well, pretty chuffed with it. Havnt benched 01 but my bro on the same spec gets about 14000 on his Herc 9500 softmodded.

**charlaph** · 07-03-2004, 20:33

mt50 - they're the very ones we're talking about.

I've got mine at 300/300Mhz, getting 4250 ish on 3DMark03, which is fine for everything I throw at it. I don't have any modern games (yet) so I'm able to run everything I do have at maximum everything at 10245x768. For the price, that's excellent.

I use standard Catalyst 4.2's, and softmodded using RivaTuner, which I also use for overclocking. The 9500 doesn't have a temperature sensor, so I don't know how hot it's running. I am thinking of getting a Volcano 9 for my CPU, and I could possibly run the temp sensor of that onto my GPU, but I don't know whether I'm that bothered - I'm hardly pushing it to the max.

Looking again at my card, I looked at the model number code in the top left corner of the front of the card, and it's a third revision model, which when coupled with the Samsung memory, makes it one of the very best models of any 9500 for overclocking - which was nice.

I'm very happy with it. There was a risk buying a 9500 to try and overclock it, but we really lucked out with these cards. I made sure to ask the memory placement before bidding though.

**EDIT - on 2001SE I'm getting about 11000, but the rest of my PC is holding it back (266FSB, 1800+XP and 4x AGP don't help benchmarking)**

**Montaver** · 07-03-2004, 20:42

i'd say for 65 quid they are a steal, 9600xt's cannot even compete with these when AA and AF are enabled, and they have so much overclocking potential, they are basically 9700 pro's (and at 325 core mine basically is, I just dont want to oc my mem too much until I get a zalman).
I remember just 6 months ago these cards were fetching 120-130 on ebay.
Thanks again charlaph, one of the best bargains, and a card ive been after for a while!

Gonna upgrade my mobo+cpu+ram soon, just waiting for PCI express boards to hit the market so I can swoop up a 754 socket board for pennies (along with an a64).

**Montaver** · 07-03-2004, 20:44

Hah charlaph thats identical to mine, accept im running mine at 145 fsb which pushes it to XP 2000+ and marginally improves memory bandwith. When I bought this mobo ( Abit KR7-A133) it was pretty don, but im feeling its had its day!

**mt50** · 07-03-2004, 21:26

i should do ok with mine then, i guess you paid over the phone? do they take solo cards? if not it's a cheque for me.

i've got an xp2000+ with 256mb ram, and i've also just brought a abit nf7-s ver 2, so i should get quite high scores, just need to upgrade to 2x 512mb ram then i will be finnished upgradeing my pc. well exept for the dvd rw i want

what did you get with the card? anything or just the card and box?

**charlaph** · 07-03-2004, 23:13

My setup is just over a year old now and it's starting to get left behind, but I'm like you and not going to upgrade until PCI express gets common (and hence cheapish) - it does what I need it to at the moment. I upgraded last year for video-editing, which the Radoen helps with.

When I first built my first PC years ago (Celeron 400 - feel the power!) I overclocked it, but it was buggy as hell and so I knocked it back to stock speeds. Ever since then whenever I get some new hardware I always benchmark, then upgrade, re-benchmark, then overclock and re-re-benchmark. Up until now I've never really had anything that was worthwhile overclocking, in benchmark results or 'real world' effects.

I upped my 1800+XP to 2000 speeds when I first got it and the motherboard, but whilst it was stable, I was scared by the temps it got to. I run it at stock speeds now, it's fast enough and runs at a cool 32C without the fan sounding like a jet taking off. The Radeon is worth overclocking though, I get about 8% extra even with the relatively mild overclock I've got it on at the moment and it's as steady as a rock.

mt50 - I paid for mine over the phone, I used switch, but I'd reckon they'd take solo - they're a pretty professional setup and I've bought a couple of things from them before.

Incidentally, I just bought a DVD RW on friday from Scan. The NEC 2500 for ?68+?7 shipping. I was going to get the Pioneer A107 as I'd heard great things about it but apparently the NEC is less prone to burn errors and since recordable DVD's are still pretty expensive (I'm talking brand names) I want to avoid writing coasters as much as possible.

**Charlie Footstool** · 08-03-2004, 10:34

I'm really interested in getting one of these 9500's, but I know that you need one with a 256-bit DDR bus to soft mod to a 9700.

The blurb for the card says it only has the 128-bit bus, but some of you chaps claim to have successfully softmodded the card.

Does it have the 256-bit bus after all.

Can anyone clarify exactly what this card is and what can be done with it?

Thanks

**Montaver** · 08-03-2004, 11:41

This is indeed the card with the 256bit memory bus, I believe all cards with the L shaped memory configuration are easily softmodded via drivers or rivatuner to enable all 8 pipes and 256bit memory. The 9500's with L shaped memory were basically 9700's which had their last 4 pipes artifically culled. ATI had to stop producing them (hence the introduction of the 9600 series) as they were just too good for their price i.e. too expensive for them to make.

Mine is softmodded, and programs such as 3d Mark recognise is as a 9700 (or a 9500 but with all 8 pipes enabled). These cards are a steal for the price, 9600xt's which are double the price cannot compete, and with a bit of modding, they are pretty much on par with 9800's (you can get 9700 > 9800 optimisations, again as a software mod). They also overclock nicely, as from what I can work out from the revision, chips which were into double figure weeks in terms of production, making them nicely overclockable (ive put a 72mm fan next to mine now, its cruising at 350 core no problem, think I will hit 5k on 3dmark 2k3 soon).

**charlaph** · 09-03-2004, 07:30

Montaver explained it pretty well. This shows what he was talking about;

http://reviews.designtechnica.com/guide13.html

The cards that we got last week were the exact correct sort for softmodding, and in addition came with very stable RAM, allowing for quite high levels of overclocking (as Montaver has found)

If the ones that kilbridegolf (re-tech) are still advertising are the same as the ones we got, then definitely go for it, it's a steal - you'll have a card capable of scoring 5000 in 3Dmark03 for ?65 and the cost of downloading something like Rage3d or RivaTuner.

**replicant** · 09-03-2004, 20:21

Good news about managing to pick up one of the old 9500 pros.

While a soft modded 9500 pro turns it into a 9700 vanilla there is still an actual hardware difference which will effect your overclocking and performance - memory latency. The 9700 series while based on the same PCB has lower latency memory than the 9500. Thats where ur clocking will create problems as the memory will fall back generally before a 9700 pro clock will.

As for hitting 370, well overclocking isn't as simple as pulling a number out of a hat

It depends on not only the actual physical gpu on ur card, the card voltage (u might need to v-mod a 9500 to hit past a 9700p clock), the agp port voltage which obviously means your PSU. And thats before you add heatsink, and buying good quality thermal cement.

Also...the soft mod for 9700 to 9800 is unstable, omega is dropping it im sure, plus remember that the 9800 series handle drivers in a more optimised manner than the 9500/9700 series. The same can be said of the 9600xt so it isn't as black and white as it appears. Still youve def got a bargin with the old 9500 card - enjoy it

As for overclocking stories - Ive got my Radeon clocked. My 9800 pro is currently clocked at 425/350 which surpasses the 9800 XT slightly. The memory artifacts restricts it going any higher. My actual PC is clocked too. All components from the CPU (overclocked by 600mhz), fbs, agp, pci are clocked. Overclocking is fantastic, but its not to be jumped into lightly.

Im going for a64 system too, the only problem is that due to the lack of pci/agp locks they arent very clockable. Highest ive seen the fsb go is 230 in a review for the 3200 or 3400 a64. Wait for the Newcastle chips appearing in the Summer.

oh...the zalman cooler is pretty nice. although thermaltake have the giant III coming soon.

**mt50** · 09-03-2004, 21:12

i've just got a abit nf7-s ver2 today, with my xp2000+(1.67ghz stock) i've got to 2.1ghz so far, just waiting to order a better cooler and paste before i do anything else though, also i will need better RAM as mine is holding me back atm.

i'm waiting for my 9500 to arrive, i'm getting a artic vga cooler to go with it aswell, i hope it will softmod to 9700 speeds, not really bothered if it won't go much highter as long as it will get to 9700pro speeds without checkerboarding.

**replicant** · 09-03-2004, 23:09

Originally posted by mt50

i've just got a abit nf7-s ver2 today, with my xp2000+(1.67ghz stock) i've got to 2.1ghz so far, just waiting to order a better cooler and paste before i do anything else though, also i will need better RAM as mine is holding me back atm.

i'm waiting for my 9500 to arrive, i'm getting a artic vga cooler to go with it aswell, i hope it will softmod to 9700 speeds, not really bothered if it won't go much highter as long as it will get to 9700pro speeds without checkerboarding.

Thats pretty good for a tbred xp chip. I don't think it will go much higher though mate. Steppings of the 2000xp, 2200xp, and 2400xp were a bit pap for ocing. The 1700 tbred, 1800tbred and 2500 barton are the ocing kings.

You should be happy with ur 2.1 clock of a 2000xp

**Ciaran** · 10-03-2004, 10:48

Yep, I got my 1700+ to 2.1Ghz out of the box. I was very pleased with these results.

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