Radeon 9800 se -> 9800

[F0re]

Some people on other forums have reported success in turning radeon 9800 se into 9800 one. The results were achieved using the omega drivers or rivatuner.

Radeon 9800 se comes in 2 configurations as you are propably aware. One with 128-bit memory bus and simpler pcb design, the other with full 256 bus and the original design. I've only seen latter on sale in Finland for approximately 250 euro.

But there is a catch. Not all of the boards work properly with full 8 pipelines. Severe visual artifacts were reported when enabling 8 pipelines with a non-functional chip. 50 % success was a rate thrown in the air, but one can't be certain.

Well, what do you make from all of this?

 

[Tokelil]

Well it seems like the same situation as with the R9500. Though it is a shame that it is called Radeon 9800se since only 4 pipelines is activated.

Most of the people I have read about had very little succes with turning on those extra 4 pipes. Almost all of them got some kind of errors when runnning Direcx 9 benchmarks. (It is a week ago or something that I read about the mod, so more succes storys might be out there now)

 

[Pete]

You have to assume that with the RV350 in full swing, practically all R350s being sold as 9800SEs have defects that prevent them from functioning as full 9800s. Why would ATi waste money shunting perfectly good R350s into cheaper packages when they have the RV350 for that?

 

[horvendile]

If I'm not mistaken the R350 is on 0.15 and the RV350 on 0.13, which makes the use of semi-defect R350 as RV350 tricky*. Furthermore, the RV350 is not just half an R350 even design-wise.

*Or does it? Should it be so hard to make sure that the external connectors stay the same regardless of manufacturing process?

 

[F0re]

I'm not certain what you're trying to establish here.. i mean the disabled R350 chips are not sold as RV350 ones as in radeon 9600 pro. Radeon 9800 se is a totally different product, much like 9500nonpro with ddr is to 9700.

 

[PSarge]

*Or does it? Should it be so hard to make sure that the external connectors stay the same regardless of manufacturing process?

Not difficult at all so long as they actually fit in the same package

 

[Pete]

I'm saying ATi has no need for 9500-type products now that they have the more affordable RV350. Whereas there might have been demand previously for cheaper 9500's, as opposed to top-end 9700P's, now people can just buy a 9600 if they can't afford $300+ for a 9800. So there's no incentive for ATi to rush R350s into 9800SE-type products, so I assume the only R350s going into 9800SEs are defective, so I conclude that most 9800SEs won't mod into 9800s.

I may be mistaken, but it makes sense to me.

 

[F0re]

Yes, it would make sense, but people posting to a finnish forum i regularly visit have more often then not succeeded. Allthough it may be that the ones who did not aren't too eager bragging about it. Still there was this one guy who had only 4 pipes working and said he was completely satisfied with the card as it was.

 

[breez]

F0re: If you are thinking of buying a 9800SE, try Jimm's PC-store. They have 9800SE cards guaranteed to work as 9800Pro for 289€

 

[F0re]

Yeah, i called them and it seems that the success rate is somewhere in the 30% range, but it varies a lot between shipments.

 

[David G.]

Here's a simple quiestion :

If JC called the GF4 MX the greatest lie in the IT marketing history , why is ATi trying so hard to catch up ? First there was the 9000 a tad slower than the 8500 , then there was the 9600 a tad slower than the 9500 Pro and now this .... Could they at least use other numbering scheme or overclock the chips a bit to leave up to their name ?

OK , GF4MX had nothing to do with the original GF4Ti core while these 9800SE solution are using exactly the same core and they really ARE DX9 capable while GF4MX was mearely DX8 compatible .[/u]

 

[5150 Joker]

OK , GF4MX had nothing to do with the original GF4Ti core while these 9800SE solution are using exactly the same core and they really ARE DX9 capable while GF4MX was mearely DX8 compatible .[/u]

I think you answered your own question.

 

[KimB]

OK , GF4MX had nothing to do with the original GF4Ti core while these 9800SE solution are using exactly the same core and they really ARE DX9 capable while GF4MX was mearely DX8 compatible .[/u]

Um, ATI once claimed that their naming scheme was aligned with DX versions. So, all 7xxx's should have been "DX7" cards. All 8xxx's DX8, and all 9xxx's DX9's. See something wrong with this picture? I hope so. ATI is at least as guilty as nVidia was with the GF4 MX.

 

[John Reynolds]

ATI is at least as guilty as nVidia was with the GF4 MX.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/LO_20020204_8254.html

"Complete DirectX support, including DirectX 8.1." Oh, really?

 

[KimB]

http://www.nvidia.com/object/LO_20020204_8254.html

"Complete DirectX support, including DirectX 8.1." Oh, really?

Does a single line deep in the product overview .pdf really make any difference? If you compare the GeForce4 product overview to that one, the difference in shader support is very apparent.

What I was saying is that it's the name that most people will pay attention to. ATI using "9000" to apply to a stripped-down Radeon 8500 was clearly misleading advertising.

 

[BRiT]

Um, ATI once claimed that their naming scheme was aligned with DX versions. So, all 7xxx's should have been "DX7" cards. All 8xxx's DX8, and all 9xxx's DX9's. See something wrong with this picture? I hope so. ATI is at least as guilty as nVidia was with the GF4 MX.

ATI never said it was aligned with DX versions. They said it was aligned with the generation of video processor.

I wish people would stop misremembering what was said and displayed on the presentation slides.

 

[Myrmecophagavir]

ATI never said it was aligned with DX versions. They said it was aligned with the generation of video processor.

I wish people would stop misremembering what was said and displayed on the presentation slides.

Are these sides still available? A number of sites at the time did say the 8500 was so-called because of support for the new DX8 features. IIRC ATI came up with that "product generation" excuse when they released the 9000. It's obviously rubbish because they released the 7500 at the same time as the 8500 - if the product generation naming rule was really in effect it would have been called the 8000.

Let's not forget even if it was DX-generation they did break it with the 7000 which has no hardware T&L... clearly their marketers always been doing what marketers do.

 

[John Reynolds]

Does a single line deep in the product overview .pdf really make any difference? If you compare the GeForce4 product overview to that one, the difference in shader support is very apparent.

Deep, as in on the second page under the product specifications bullet list? That's not exactly what I would describe as "deep".

What I was saying is that it's the name that most people will pay attention to. ATI using "9000" to apply to a stripped-down Radeon 8500 was clearly misleading advertising.

I never said what ATI did wasn't misleading. I merely pointed out your statement that they were "at least as guilty", which I don't agree with. At least they didn't brand it as a Radeon 9700 MX last fall and document it as possessing full DirectX 9 hardware support, which really would've put them in the same league as Nvidia.

 

[Dave Baumann]

I think the presentation you want to look for is the Radeon 8500 128MB presentations when ATI were rather agressively marketting against the oncoming GeForce 4 series, I believe thats where the comment came from IIRC. A couple of sites actually published the the presentation but I can't remember where and Google didn't yield anything immediately.

 

[incurable]

Um, ATI once claimed that their naming scheme was aligned with DX versions. So, all 7xxx's should have been "DX7" cards. All 8xxx's DX8, and all 9xxx's DX9's. See something wrong with this picture? I hope so. ATI is at least as guilty as nVidia was with the GF4 MX.

ATI never said it was aligned with DX versions. They said it was aligned with the generation of video processor.

I wish people would stop misremembering what was said and displayed on the presentation slides.

That doesn't make any more sense. RV250 is in no way a generation ahead of R200, neither is RV280, neither is R200 (obviously), still all these chips are sold on 9x00 series cards.

cu

incurable