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Performance boost for X800 GT cards with R480 GPU

ShadowFlare

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[SIZE="+1"]Background information[/SIZE]

People have previously mentioned that their Powercolor X800 GT's were being improperly identified as having R423 chips, even though they have checked and found that they are indeed R480 chips. People with such cards had asked if there was a way they could get it to show as an R480 chip. They had been given responses that there was no reason to make it show as an R480 chip. I have found that this is actually not true! I did some research on it and these are my findings.

I figured out how to get the Powercolor X800 GT bios locked to 8 pipelines so I could use it to get equivalent performance to that card on my X800 GTO2, so I did some benchmarks. I found that when using the GTO2 bios rather than the Powercolor X800 GT bios at the same clock speed and both at 8 pipelines yielded at least a 100 point increase (potentially a 200 point increase) in 3dmark05 scores at X800 GT clock speeds.

The performance increase seems to have to do with the driver for an R480 chip getting better performance than for an R423 (when you have an R480 chip). Maybe a result of optimizations for the R480? BTW, I also get higher overclocks with the GTO2's own bios than with the Powercolor X800 GT bios.

---------------------------------------------------------------------​
[SIZE="+1"]Successes[/SIZE]

One confirmed success was posted here: http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=6046&page=2#post41377
An approximate 100 point increase in their 3dmark05 score was reported.

In addition to that, PastryLikeDood has reported a 700 point increase with the bios change, which increased it up to the ~4150 score that is typical after the bios flash: http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=6056&page=9#post48158
Other people have tried it as well and also had an increase in performance, but I haven't taken the time to count them.

---------------------------------------------------------------------​
[SIZE="+1"]The modded bios[/SIZE]

There are a few different bioses I've uploaded for this. None of these will identify the card as an X800 GT, since ATI's driver package does not support an X800 GT with an R480, which would be why the Powercolor cards don't have it set as such.

To determine whether your card is compatible with one of these bioses, look at your fuses data in ATITool. If CONFIG_DIE_FUSES looks like 0xFFFF?FFF and CONFIG_SUBSTRATE_FUSES looks like 0xFFFFFF9? where the "?" can be any digit, then your card is a candidate for being able to accept one of these bioses. If the fuses values are like that, then pick the bios that is the closest match for your card. If one for your card is not here, then post your bios so I can modify and add it.

#1 is the second revision of the Powercolor X800 GT bios, but modified to be identified as a Powercolor X800 GTO with an R480.
#2 is an actual HIS X800 GT bios from the iTurbo version, modded to R480
#3, #4, and #5 are a modified Sapphire X800 GTO/GTO2 bios with clocks modified to X800 GT clocks and subvendor id set to the company named in the file name.
#6 is the bios for the GECUBE X800 GT, modded to R480
#7 is the bios for the Powercolor X800 GT Evo, modded to R480
#8 is the first revision Powercolor X800 GT bios, modded to R480
#9 is the bios for the Club3D X800 GT, modded to R480
#10 is the bios for a GECUBE X800 GT 128 MB, modded to R480
#11 is for the Powercolor X800 GT 256 MB with Hynix 2.0 ns memory

All of the bioses are modded to 16 pipelines, so that all available pipelines will be used (all that aren't locked elsewhere).

[SIZE="+1"]Try the modded bios that is for your own card first![/SIZE]
It seems that the Sapphire X800 GTO2 bios may possibly make the card run at least a little hotter than the original bios on the Powercolor X800 GT. The ones starting with Sapphire in the name are the Sapphire X800 GTO2 bios set to X800 GT clock speeds. Try this later if you want to see if it gives you better overclocks/better scores or not.

Note: Most of these bioses are ONLY for the 256 MB versions! If anyone has a 128 MB version not listed here, please post the bios and I will mod it.
 

Attachments

  • Powercolor.X800GT_R480_16P.256.Samsung20_050726.zip
    34.2 KB · Views: 3,161
  • HIS.X800GT_R480_16P.256.Samsung20_050628.zip
    33.9 KB · Views: 2,204
  • Sapphire.X800GTO2[GT_clocks]_R480_16P.256.Samsung16_050823.zip
    34.1 KB · Views: 1,546
  • Sapphire.X800GTO2[GT_clocks]_R480_16P.256.Samsung16_050823_VendorID_Powercolor.zip
    34.1 KB · Views: 1,316
  • Sapphire.X800GTO2[GT_clocks]_R480_16P.256.Samsung16_050823_VendorID_HIS.zip
    34.1 KB · Views: 2,370
  • GECUBE.X800GT_R480.256.Infineon16_050615.zip
    33.6 KB · Views: 1,986
  • Powercolor.X800GT_Evo_R480_16P.256.Samsung16_050726.zip
    34.2 KB · Views: 2,259
  • Powercolor.X800GT_R480_16P.256.Samsung20_050715.zip
    33.9 KB · Views: 2,411
  • Club3D.X800GT_R480_16P.256.Samsung20_050726.zip
    34.2 KB · Views: 2,080
  • GECUBE.X800GT_R480.128.050808.zip
    33.6 KB · Views: 1,814
  • Powercolor.X800GT_R480_16P.256.Hynix20_050726.zip
    34 KB · Views: 1,292
Last edited:

Neocal

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What does you need?

What does you need? im spanish boy with a powercolor x800GT 256MB.
Athlon 64 3000+ 1GB DDR and nforce4
My card scores 3989 3Dmarks 05 with omegadrivers based on 5.10a at default speeds 480core/490mem.
Card can reach 610 core / 560 mem
I have photos of the core R480. and 2ns samsung mem.
 

Attachments

  • Powercolor X800GT 8pipes.jpg
    Powercolor X800GT 8pipes.jpg
    31.3 KB · Views: 2,255
  • Powercolor X800GT 256MB 8P bios.zip
    34.1 KB · Views: 1,154
  • GPU core and resistors.JPG
    GPU core and resistors.JPG
    186.6 KB · Views: 2,842
Last edited:

ShadowFlare

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There isn't anything I need; I was just pointing out something that could give a performance increase and also possibly help with overclocking on that card. If you want to try out that bios, post your results here.
 

ShadowFlare

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Update:

I tried the Connect3d GTO bios and it worked on my GTO2, but it lowered my 3dmark05 score and my max overclock.
 

ShadowFlare

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My research on this seems to be correct, one person has attempted it so far and got a 3dmark05 score almost exactly matching what I got in my tests!

mingorad said:

From http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=6046&page=2#post41377

Anyone else want to try it out?

BTW, does anyone know if there are any X800 GTOs with R480 chips that are improperly identified as R423? It probably isn't as likely, but such cards could possibly exist. If such a card does exist, it could get the same performance benefits by changing the bios to recognize it as R480.


There seems to be at least a few different versions of the Powercolor X800 GT. While all have R480 chips, some come with 2.0 ns memory, while some come with 1.6 ns memory. Also, some seem to have a temperature sensor, while others don't. Another version also has a newer bios than some do. This bios is set to 8 pipelines, and the older one is set to 16; this doesn't really make a difference on this card, though. The newer bios seems like it gets better memory overclocks (at least on 1.6 ns memory, I don't have a card with 2.0 ns memory to test with).
 
Last edited:

ShadowFlare

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I've uploaded another bios with it identified as an HIS card. This is for the HIS X800 GT non-IceQ version which has been reported to have an R480 chip. Someone who has this card please post the real bios for that card, so that I can do a mod on that one, too. :) Also post whether it has 1.6 ns or 2.0 ns memory, if possible.

I've noticed that there's been several downloads of the Powercolor.X800GT_16P.256.Samsung20_050726 bios I posted. If you've tried using this bios on the Powercolor X800 GT, please post your results. I'd like to know if there are any other people who have had it boost the performance at least a little on their card.
 
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my is an iceq II,labeled as 423 chip.
uff that's frustrating ,it costed more than "not-iceq" version..very bad thing,grr

So i can't use your His bios as could be dangerous i guess.
I don have a pci card for recovery in the case
 

ShadowFlare

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If the non-IceQ version has only 2.0 ns memory chips, yours could make up for not being able to do this because of being able to get a much higher max memory overclock, though. :) BTW, what 3dmark05 score do you get at the stock gt speeds of 472.5/492.75?

Of course, if the non-IceQ version has 1.6 ns memory chips and it does indeed have an R480 core, then when you install the same cooler and do the bios mod it could possibly be faster.
 
Last edited:

Robin [CZ]

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Bad BIOS

So, the facts....

I had modified BIOS in my card and i got 5127 points in 3DMark 05. frequencies: 606/1212. When I flashed my card with YOUR BIOS, I wasn't able to overclock my core. The card made some unuasual noises so...

I returned old modded BIOS. (gives +14% FPS in games as Far Cry, Doom3 and so on...)

You can download it here
http://www.czechgamer.com/hardware/X800GT%20-%20zvy%9Ate%20si%20v%FDkon%21.html

especialy here:
http://www.techpowerup.com/bios/Powercolor.X800GT.256.Samsung20_050726.bin
 
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ShadowFlare said:
If the non-IceQ version has only 2.0 ns memory chips, yours could make up for not being able to do this because of being able to get a much higher max memory overclock, though. :) BTW, what 3dmark05 score do you get at the stock gt speeds of 472.5/492.75?

Of course, if the non-IceQ version has 1.6 ns memory chips and it does indeed have an R480 core, then when you install the same cooler and do the bios mod it could possibly be faster.

robin ,what card do you have? a not-iceq version?
--
3dmark:i 've saved the results ,but i did'nt find the way to read it
(*.3dr files ,3dmark proprietary extension) ,but i don get how to read those results ,3dmark wont open ,quite stupid thing.

EDIT:i discovered "3dr" is a zip file actually ,with a xml file inside ,just you have to rename 3dr to zip.i did read the xml ,opened tells me that


PHP:
Min GPU Engine Frequency 472 472 MHz 25 
Max GPU Engine Frequency 472 472 MHz 26 Min GPU 
Memory Frequency 492 492 MHz 27 Max GPU
 Memory Frequency 492 492 MHz 19 
Min Run Length Deviation 0 0 20 
Max Run Length Deviation 1 -2147483648 22 
Checksums Valid 1 Yes 28 Display Changed 0 No 29 NullPS 0 No 30 Invalid Score 0 No 0 

3DMark Score 3968.000000000 0 0 

Game Tests 1 GT1 - Return To Proxycon 17.580024719 0 0 Game Tests 2 GT2 

- Firefly Forest 12.141119003 0 0 Game Tests 3 GT3 - 
Canyon Flight 18.736440659 0 0 
Game Tests 0 CPU Score 4018.000000000 0 1 CPU Tests 1 CPU Test 1 1.965157270 0 1 
CPU Tests 2 CPU Test 2 3.651458502 0 1 CPU Tests 1 Fill Rate - 

Single-Texturing 2718.731445313 0 2 Feature Tests 2 Fill Rate - 
Multi-Texturing 3764.194335938 0 2 Feature Tests 3 Pixel Shader 78.120323181 0 2 

Feature Tests 4 Vertex Shader - Simple 48.988746643 0 2 Feature Tests 5 
Vertex Shader - 
Complex 40.739868164 0 2 Feature Tests 1 8 Triangles 5.885709286 0 3 
Batch Size Tests 2 32 Triangles 21.755540848 0 3 Batch Size Tests 3 128 Triangles 72.265457153 0 3 Batch Size Tests 4 512 Triangles 134.949707031 0 3 Batch Size Tests 5 2048 Triangles 137.956756592 0 3 Batch Size Tests 6 32768 Triangles 135.259704590 0 3 Batch Size Tests
 
Last edited:

ShadowFlare

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Robin CzechGamer.com said:
So, the facts....

I had modified BIOS in my card and i got 5127 points in 3DMark 05. frequencies: 606/1212. When I flashed my card with YOUR BIOS, I wasn't able to overclock my core. The card made some unuasual noises so...

I returned old modded BIOS. (gives +14% FPS in games as Far Cry, Doom3 and so on...)

...
Post your original bios for your HIS X800 GT, please. I would like to do a mod on that bios then maybe you could try that.

BTW, I can't read anything off that site you posted, but it looks like you were trying a bios from an X850 card on your HIS X800 GT? Did that increase performance at all? Also, in what way did it change your max overclock?
 
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ShadowFlare

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mrvomit said:
Uhm shadow ,i still did'nt get:
If i put a modded bios ,and core is 423 ,then card can get badflashed?

Even with a custom mod? that danger can be checked by looking at the the original bios ?

...
I don't know the answer to that; I'm currently trying to find out the answer in this thread: http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=6081 If you have a spare PCI card just in case it doesn't work right, then maybe you could help me find it. Well, maybe not, since you don't know for certain which core you have, right? Well, if someone who knows that their card has an R423 helps me with figuring it out, and the results are positive, then maybe you could try it out.
 
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never used ,i have another old but not pci, like nothing.
Grr i will stay tuned there to see ,thanks .I'm quite interested
 

ShadowFlare

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There is, of course, the possibility that going from R423 to R480 in the bios on a card with R423 will work but will get worse performance.
 
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Benchmark Scores Its fast. Enough.
I'm up for it.

I have the R430 core. Infineon memory. Can't hurt, too much.
 

Zzzort

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Which Bios version?

Hi!
I've got a PowerColor X800GT with Samsung 1.6ns Chips.

I'm afraid I don't really know which of the provided Bios' I should use?

Am I supposed to use..
a) Powercolor.X800GT_16P.256.Samsung16_050823.zip
..because it says Samsung16 meaning the 1.6ns and bios ver. 050823 or
b) Powercolor.X800GT_16P.256.Samsung20_050726.zip
..because it's bios ver. 050726?

Is the bios version actually only indicating the different memory used?

Hope you can clear up things here.

Best regards,
Zzzort
 

ShadowFlare

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Zzzort said:
Hi!
I've got a PowerColor X800GT with Samsung 1.6ns Chips.

I'm afraid I don't really know which of the provided Bios' I should use?

Am I supposed to use..
a) Powercolor.X800GT_16P.256.Samsung16_050823.zip
..because it says Samsung16 meaning the 1.6ns and bios ver. 050823 or
b) Powercolor.X800GT_16P.256.Samsung20_050726.zip
..because it's bios ver. 050726?

Is the bios version actually only indicating the different memory used?

Hope you can clear up things here.

Best regards,
Zzzort
Ah, so you have one of the rare ones that has 1.6 ns chips like I used to have. I was starting to think that I had the only one. ;)

As for which bios to use, just use whichever one you want. If you are overclocking, try both, it may affect the maximum overclock. Besides a possible difference in overclocking, they seem virtually identical. They both use the same memory timings and the same fan speeds. I gave descriptions for the files in the post that contains the files, but here's a recap:

Powercolor.X800GT_16P.256.Samsung20_050726 is the actual Powercolor X800 GT bios, but modified to R480 and 16 pipelines. This won't necessarily unlock pipelines, it will just make it so that if you later do a hardware mod, you won't have to flash the bios since you would already have it set up properly for that.

Powercolor.X800GT_16P.256.Samsung16_050823 is a modified Sapphire X800 GTO2 bios with the clocks set to X800 GT clocks and the vendor ID set to Powercolor/Tul. I also posted this one because it may get better overclocks compared to the default bios for the Powercolor X800 GT, since it did on my GTO2 compared with the Powercolor X800 GT bios.

BTW, all of those I have identifying the card as an X800 GTO, since there is no such thing in the drivers as an X800 GT with an R480 chip.
 
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Zzzort

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Thanks!

I'll start by flashing the Powercolor.X800GT_16P.256.Samsung16_050823 bios version.

Best regards,
Zzzort
 

ShadowFlare

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Cooling All Zalman heatsinks (CNPS7000B-AlCu, ZM-NB47J, VF700-Cu)
Memory 1 GB (2x512 MB) DDR400 Corsair XMS C2 series, max 233 MHz @ 2-3-2-9 1T
Video Card(s) Sapphire Radeon X800GTO2 256 MB PCIe max 540/600, modded to 16 pipes
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Zzzort said:
Thanks!

I'll start by flashing the Powercolor.X800GT_16P.256.Samsung16_050823 bios version.

Best regards,
Zzzort
If you have 3dmark 2005 (or 2003) post scores from before and after, please. :) BTW, the performance boost isn't really much, only about a 2.7 - 5.4% increase in 3dmark 2005 scores (the percent increases with overclocking and/or unlocking pipelines). I just wanted to let people know about it, since it is basically a free performance boost; there are no side effects to it (especially when using the same bios, but only modified to R480).
 
M

maccrow

Guest
Hello Shadow

I have a Powercolor X800GT 256mb 256bits.

I think my memo are samsung 1.6ns because is write in chip:

Samsung 522
K4J55323QF GC16


Is that right ?

My score in 3dMark2005 is 3992 with the rig below

What bios I have to flash ?

Can you help me a little more detailed how I proced to flash or show the post about this ?? :)
 

SPHERE

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ShadowFlare said:
People have previously mentioned that their Powercolor X800 GT's were being improperly identified as having R423 chips, even though they have checked and found that they are indeed R480 chips. People with such cards had asked if there was a way they could get it to show as an R480 chip. They had been given responses that there was no reason to make it show as an R480 chip. I have found that this is actually not true! I did some research on it and these are my findings.

I figured out how to get the Powercolor X800 GT bios locked to 8 pipelines so I could use it to get equivalent performance to that card on my X800 GTO2, so I did some benchmarks. I found that when using the GTO2 bios rather than the Powercolor X800 GT bios at the same clock speed and both at 8 pipelines yielded at least a 100 point increase (potentially a 200 point increase) in 3dmark05 scores at X800 GT clock speeds.

The performance increase seems to have to do with the driver for an R480 chip getting better performance than for an R423 (when you have an R480 chip). Maybe a result of optimizations for the R480? BTW, I also get higher overclocks with the GTO2's own bios than with the Powercolor X800 GT bios.

-Update-

1 confirmed success so far: http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=6046&page=2#post41377
An approximate 100 point increase in their 3dmark05 score was reported.

There are four bioses I've uploaded for this. None of these will identify the card as an X800 GT, since ATI's driver package does not support an X800 GT with an R480, which would be why the Powercolor cards don't have it set as such.

#1 is a modified Sapphire X800 GTO/GTO2 bios with clocks modified to X800 GT clocks and subvendor id set to PowerColor/Tul.
#2 is the same, but with the subvendor id left as Sapphire.
#3 is the second revision Powercolor X800 GT bios, but modified to be identified as a Powercolor X800 GTO with an R480.
#4 is the same as #2, but with the subvendor id set to HIS.

All 4 bioses are modded to 16 pipelines, so that all available pipelines will be used (all that aren't locked elsewhere).

Note: These bioses are ONLY for the 256 MB version! If anyone has the 128 MB version, please post the bios and I will mod it.
I'm sceptical with your findings.. :) (i have the right to be lol don't get harsh ;))

i think this 100pt diff is due to the fact that 3dmark sometimes doesn't come up with same result every time

or... /and...
this new bios has tighter mem timings

but then again you could be exactly right and it is the bios firmware enabling the core to perform like a r480 instead of a r423 which there are diffs betwene those two cores but i'm not shure if the bios has any control over that though we will see..

i suggest you do a test. :)

test: run 3dm05 3 times on each of these configs
1. r480 bios x800 driver
2. r423 bios x800 driver
3. r480 bios x850 driver
4. r423 bios x850 driver

i'm not going to guess what you will find but it should be intersting. :)

btw how are you determining if these bioses are r480 or r423? cause everst and alot of other programs don't read from the bios they read from the driver :)

more questions: how did you mod these bioses to 16 pipes? (i already know how to do it btw i'm just wandering if you did it right)

btw i think you should have left the device /vendor id's alone as they don't affect the cards performance and changeing them often causes problems
 
Last edited:

ShadowFlare

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SPHERE said:
I'm sceptical with your findings.. :) (i have the right to be lol don't get harsh ;))

i think this 100pt diff is due to the fact that 3dmark sometimes doesn't come up with same result every time
I've run 3dmark 2005 on it many times with different bioses and different IDs, all the results point to the same conclusion. On a bios that identifies the chip as an R423, simply changing the hardware ID so it will be identified as an R480 will change what score it gets in 3dmark 2005. It goes the other way around, too, changing it to an R423 on a bios that was R480 will have the same impact on performance.

Anyway, with higher clocks and more pipelines, the difference is more like 300. 3dmark 2005 scores don't vary THAT much when testing it more than once with the same settings. Besides, I've never seen my scores vary even by 100 on the same settings.

or... /and...
this new bios has tighter mem timings
Since I've had the same result when using the same bios and only changing the ID, I know for certain that it has nothing to do with memory timings.

but then again you could be exactly right and it is the bios firmware enabling the core to perform like a r480 instead of a r423 which there are diffs betwene those two cores but i'm not shure if the bios has any control over that though we will see..

i suggest you do a test. :)

test: run 3dm05 3 times on each of these configs
1. r480 bios x800 driver
2. r423 bios x800 driver
3. r480 bios x850 driver
4. r423 bios x850 driver

i'm not going to guess what you will find but it should be intersting. :)
It probably does have to do with the driver and only that, but changing the ID is the only way I know of to have it use the part of the driver for an R480 or for an R423. Maybe some driver mods could be done to get the same performance without flashing the bios.

btw how are you determining if these bioses are r480 or r423? cause everst and alot of other programs don't read from the bios they read from the driver :)
I am just basing it off of what ATITool says when that bios is in use.

more questions: how did you mod these bioses to 16 pipes? (i already know how to do it btw i'm just wandering if you did it right)
I used a hex editor to modify the byte as offset 0x7A so that the second hex digit was zero. Before doing this for the first time, I first checked to make sure it looked like a CONFIG_ROM_FUSES value (from ATITool). That value seems to be in the same place for all the bioses I've seen so far. After doing that modification, I opened the bios in RaBiT and saved it; this was to fix crc and/or checksum values that need to be changed when modifying the bios. I've thoroughly checked this and found that it does produce the same bios as if you had modded the bios through flashing the bios in such a way that you would to change the pipelines, but preserve the rest of the bios.

btw i think you should have left the device /vendor id's alone as they don't affect the cards performance and changeing them often causes problems
The device ID is what I changed to make it be detected with an R480 chip. I also changed the subsystem ID and subvendor ID to match up with values in the .inf file for the driver. As long as you use values that match up with ones in the .inf file for the driver, it will be detected with a proper name. So far, I haven't had any problems with changing this on my card. The worst that ever happened was that Windows just could not install a driver for it.
 

ShadowFlare

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Memory 1 GB (2x512 MB) DDR400 Corsair XMS C2 series, max 233 MHz @ 2-3-2-9 1T
Video Card(s) Sapphire Radeon X800GTO2 256 MB PCIe max 540/600, modded to 16 pipes
Storage Seagate 80GB SATA, Maxtor 160GB PATA, Maxtor 200GB PATA
Display(s) Dell 17" Trinitron CRT
Case Lian Li PC-60B Plus
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Power Supply Enermax Noisetaker EG495AX-VE, 485 watts, active PFC
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maccrow said:
Hello Shadow

I have a Powercolor X800GT 256mb 256bits.

I think my memo are samsung 1.6ns because is write in chip:

Samsung 522
K4J55323QF GC16


Is that right ?

My score in 3dMark2005 is 3992 with the rig below

What bios I have to flash ?

Can you help me a little more detailed how I proced to flash or show the post about this ?? :)
That's right, your's does have 1.6 ns memory chips. Make a backup of your bios first. If you want to still be using an actual Powercolor X800 GT bios, flash the one that says Powercolor in the name, Samsung20, and has an older date. All the others are just modded X800 GTO2 bioses. If you are going to try overclocking, try it with either of the them. The amount you can overclock may be different between the two.

Here is a guide for video bios flashing: http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=11

BTW, is this the one with the green on the heatsink or the red one? The red one (extreme edition, I think) is guaranteed to have 1.6 ns memory chips, but then the green one has them sometimes, too. There are three people I know of so far that have said their's has the 1.6 ns chips (mine was one of them). I guess the green one having them is less rare than I thought. ;)
 
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