New 9500pro mod's to yeild 9700?

[Matt3d1]

I was doing some reading on a couple of other forums and I have heard some talk about being able to mod a 9500pro into a 9700. I know all about the older non pro versions with the 9700 PCB but is it still possible? If so how?

Thanks everyone,
Matt

[Todd a]

Old news. It is the 128MB NON-PRO version of the Radeon 9500. It also sounds like only about 30% of these will actually work without some sort of artifacts after you do the mod (weither you do it the sodder way or software way). This is a bit risky. The Radeon 9700 (non-pro) and Radeon 9500 Pro can have the BIOS flashed to unlock them so they can overclock. This will bring the Radeon 9500 pro close to the Radeon 9700 and the Radeon 9700 close to (or even up to) the Radeon 9700 Pro. The hack on the Radeon 9500 (non-pro) with 64MB memory will result in a Radeon 9500 Pro.

[Matt3d1]

So I take it that they are using different boards now and there's no way to get the 9500pros to run 256-bit correct?
Thanks

[JollyRoger]

apparently so, unless by lucky chance you have one of the very very few, very very early 9500Pros which are on the same board as the 9700 (pre-production models I think), the 9500Pro is on a different board and cannot be modded into a 9700.

[Todd a]

The original 9500 used the old board but had half the core's pipelines disabled. You can enable them by changing a tiny resistor's location next to the core under the heatsink or with a software mod (much easier/safer, but likely will need to be redone everytime you upgrade the drivers). The Radeon 9500Pro has a new board, but runs much faster than the un-moddified 9500. You can only unlock it so it can be overclocked. The 64MB version of the Radeon 9500 can be hacked to turn it into the Radeon 9500Pro (by unlocking the other pipelines, but still using the 128bit bus). There is even a soft FireGL software mod like used on the GEforce lines to turn them into Quantros.

[Matt3d1]

Hey Todd,
You such a wealth of knowledge . I'm just confused about what you meant by "There is even a soft FireGL software mod like used on the GEforce lines to turn them into Quantros"

Thanks,
Matt

[JollyRoger]

ATI FireGL is their professional graphics card, much like NVidias Quadro.

There is a mod available to turn a standard Radeon9500/9700 into a FireGL apparently, much like Softquadro, which turns a GeForce into a Quadro.

Theres not much point in this for most of us, since the Pro cards are no faster than the standard ones, just have certain Pro features enabled.

[Matt3d1]

Hmm, just curious what features are there that are enabled? And this is only for the 9500 not the pro correct?

[mooP]

yup, only the non pro

[Bennyboy]

Quantro sounds like a fine liqueur, but I prefer Baileys as a nightcap.

[Dr. Data]

I thought it was the name of the leader of the resistance in "Total Recall"