2199 3dmark05 score on a GTO2? XD

[ShadowFlare]

Without underclocking, I've [intentionally] made my GTO2 get a 3dmark05 score of only 2199. :laugh: I'll post a picture of it later or tomorrow.

Now you might ask how I did this. I used a hex editor to change the number of locked quads in the bios from 0 to 3, so it had only 4 pipelines. :laugh: That made it a 4 pipeline R480. ;)

[Neocal]

Can you explain how to modify the bios? i have a powercolor x800GT based on the r480 core and with ati tools my config_rom_fuses sequence is 0x862.

Its suposed that i can activate another 8 pipelines more changing the 0x862 for 0x860 ?
Based in your theory it seems posible.
I post a reply in the x800 fuses post...
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showpost.php?p=41097&postcount=211

[ShadowFlare]

I didn't know there were any with that set to 0x862. I had only seen ones with 0x860 so far. Maybe you have a different version of the bios than I had when I used to have that card.

Well, modifying the bios that way isn't really that practical, since you can achieve the same effect in other ways when you want to actually increase the number of pipelines.

[ShadowFlare]

Ah, interesting bios you've got there. You have a newer version of the Powercolor X800 GT bios. Does ATITool show your card as an R480? I looked in the bios file and it mentions something with R480, unlike the older one.


Here's the information about the bios mod I did: http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=6094#41694

BTW, here's the screen capture I said I would post of that 3dmark05 score. ;)

[ShadowFlare]

I checked out the bios and found that it still does identify the chip as an R423 chip. I also found that with the way the current drivers are setup, it is impossible for it to be identified as an R480 chip and have the card called an X800 GT.

Take a look at http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=6056 By making it so it is properly identified as an R480 chip, you can get a performance boost just from that. Although it is only a small increase in performance, it is still an increase. :) Plus, that performance increase from being identified as an R480 gets larger with overclocking.

[ShadowFlare]

I forgot to post the fuses data, here's some screenshots:

http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/9576/x800gto4p1yj.th.jpg (http://img122.imageshack.us/my.php?image=x800gto4p1yj.jpg)http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/1444/x800gto4pfuses4xy.th.jpg (http://img122.imageshack.us/my.php?image=x800gto4pfuses4xy.jpg)

Some more screenshots of other bioses/numbers of pipelines:

Same bios (X800 GTO2), 8 pipelines
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/6657/x800gto8p6dz.th.jpg (http://img122.imageshack.us/my.php?image=x800gto8p6dz.jpg)http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/4816/x800gto8pfuses2kr.th.jpg (http://img122.imageshack.us/my.php?image=x800gto8pfuses2kr.jpg)

Powercolor X800 GT bios, 8 pipelines
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/8283/x800gt8p1tr.th.jpg (http://img122.imageshack.us/my.php?image=x800gt8p1tr.jpg)http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/1603/x800gt8pfuses3to.th.jpg (http://img122.imageshack.us/my.php?image=x800gt8pfuses3to.jpg)

Powercolor X800 GT bios, 16 pipelines
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/7694/x800gt16p6rb.th.jpg (http://img122.imageshack.us/my.php?image=x800gt16p6rb.jpg)http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/4323/x800gt16pfuses9br.th.jpg (http://img122.imageshack.us/my.php?image=x800gt16pfuses9br.jpg)

Just to clarify, this was with that bios on a Sapphire X800 GTO2, NOT on a Powercolor X800 GT.

Heh, it would be awesome if there was really a card that by default was like in the first pair of screenshots. ;) Then it would be pretty cheap, but would be unlockable from 4 to 16 pipelines. :D Such a card could get a 2.5 to 3 times increase in performance. :)

[SPHERE]

I forgot to post the fuses data, here's some screenshots:

http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/9576/x800gto4p1yj.th.jpg (http://img122.imageshack.us/my.php?image=x800gto4p1yj.jpg)http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/1444/x800gto4pfuses4xy.th.jpg (http://img122.imageshack.us/my.php?image=x800gto4pfuses4xy.jpg)

Some more screenshots of other bioses/numbers of pipelines:

Same bios (X800 GTO2), 8 pipelines
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/6657/x800gto8p6dz.th.jpg (http://img122.imageshack.us/my.php?image=x800gto8p6dz.jpg)http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/4816/x800gto8pfuses2kr.th.jpg (http://img122.imageshack.us/my.php?image=x800gto8pfuses2kr.jpg)

Powercolor X800 GT bios, 8 pipelines
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/8283/x800gt8p1tr.th.jpg (http://img122.imageshack.us/my.php?image=x800gt8p1tr.jpg)http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/1603/x800gt8pfuses3to.th.jpg (http://img122.imageshack.us/my.php?image=x800gt8pfuses3to.jpg)

Powercolor X800 GT bios, 16 pipelines
http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/7694/x800gt16p6rb.th.jpg (http://img122.imageshack.us/my.php?image=x800gt16p6rb.jpg)http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/4323/x800gt16pfuses9br.th.jpg (http://img122.imageshack.us/my.php?image=x800gt16pfuses9br.jpg)

Just to clarify, this was with that bios on a Sapphire X800 GTO2, NOT on a Powercolor X800 GT.

Heh, it would be awesome if there was really a card that by default was like in the first pair of screenshots. ;) Then it would be pretty cheap, but would be unlockable from 4 to 16 pipelines. :D Such a card could get a 2.5 to 3 times increase in performance. :)
well im convinced ;) thanks dude

btw was there any special way you came accross this or where you looking for it? :)

[ShadowFlare]

well im convinced ;) thanks dude

btw was there any special way you came accross this or where you looking for it? :)
Looking at screenshots of fuses data between cards with 16 pipelines and without, I started noticing a correlation between CONFIG_ROM_FUSES and the number of pipelines enabled in the bios. Sometime while looking at a bios in RaBiT, when looking at the tab that gives various information about the bios (second to last tab, I think?), one time I noticed that a couple of values when combined together became the exact value for CONFIG_ROM_FUSES shown in ATITool. Because of this, I decided to do a comparison between my bios and the 16 pipeline version using a hex editor. I noticed that one of the parts that was different was a value that looked like the CONFIG_ROM_FUSES value and I checked RaBiT and found that it was at the exact location RaBiT reported for the data I saw in there.

Because of this, I decided to make 4 modded bioses from my original bios by using a hex editor to change that value. I tried last digits of 0, 2, 3, and 4 (I skipped 1 since that was the original value). After doing this, I tried flashing them with atitool -newbios and then flashing the original bios without -newbios, since I didn't want to risk messing up my card because of the modified files not working. After each bios I did this with, I saved the resulting bios then flashed the next one without restarting. Before restarting the computer, I flashed back to the bios I was using.

After Windows started up again, I checked the files and found that the values I changed were in fact at least one of the values that gets preserved when flashing to other bioses. The one I set to a 4 got set back to zero; since that is apparently that was an invalid value. ;) Since the settings did get preserved in the bios, I decided to try the one I thought would be 8 pipelines and I did get 8 pipelines.

I also at some time found that opening the modded bios in RaBiT then saving it will produce a bios identical to if I flashed the modded bios with atiflash -newbios then flashed the original without -newbios. (what I'm referring to is that RaBiT fixed the crc and/or checksum values to be what they should be)



BTW, in the above screenshots, the 8 pipeline X800 GT bios is the modded one, not the 16 pipeline one. The earlier version of the bios for the Powercolor X800 GT doesn't have any of the locked pipelines locked through the bios. That's most of the reason why I even tried to figure out how to do this mod, so I could get 8 pipelines and test my card at X800 GT performance levels, since I no longer have my X800 GT.

[SPHERE]

Looking at screenshots of fuses data between cards with 16 pipelines and without, I started noticing a correlation between CONFIG_ROM_FUSES and the number of pipelines enabled in the bios. Sometime while looking at a bios in RaBiT, when looking at the tab that gives various information about the bios (second to last tab, I think?), one time I noticed that a couple of values when combined together became the exact value for CONFIG_ROM_FUSES shown in ATITool. Because of this, I decided to do a comparison between my bios and the 16 pipeline version using a hex editor. I noticed that one of the parts that was different was a value that looked like the CONFIG_ROM_FUSES value and I checked RaBiT and found that it was at the exact location RaBiT reported for the data I saw in there.

Because of this, I decided to make 4 modded bioses from my original bios by using a hex editor to change that value. I tried last digits of 0, 2, 3, and 4 (I skipped 1 since that was the original value). After doing this, I tried flashing them with atitool -newbios and then flashing the original bios without -newbios, since I didn't want to risk messing up my card because of the modified files not working. After each bios I did this with, I saved the resulting bios then flashed the next one without restarting. Before restarting the computer, I flashed back to the bios I was using.

After Windows started up again, I checked the files and found that the values I changed were in fact at least one of the values that gets preserved when flashing to other bioses. The one I set to a 4 got set back to zero; since that is apparently that was an invalid value. ;) Since the settings did get preserved in the bios, I decided to try the one I thought would be 8 pipelines and I did get 8 pipelines.

I also at some time found that opening the modded bios in RaBiT then saving it will produce a bios identical to if I flashed the modded bios with atiflash -newbios then flashed the original without -newbios. (what I'm referring to is that RaBiT fixed the crc and/or checksum values to be what they should be)



BTW, in the above screenshots, the 8 pipeline X800 GT bios is the modded one, not the 16 pipeline one. The earlier version of the bios for the Powercolor X800 GT doesn't have any of the locked pipelines locked through the bios.
kool ty ill hjave to try this sometime :)

[ShadowFlare]

kool ty ill hjave to try this sometime :)
Try what? :laugh: