Most people go into the D3D properties and set it to high performance before running 3dmark. Try that and see if your score goes up.

ok another noob question

how do I find my video card temp
is there a program I need or to hook it up to something

The link below gives a flavour of what the extra pipes offer. I only got a 1k increase in 3DM03 as well.

EasterEEL

http://www2.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjQy

ATiTool will, just go to Settings>MISC>Show temp in sysbar

im only noticing a 1k improvment too. but this is because i have a Celeron :P

if u set it to high performance.. that is cheating isn't it?
just run at stock settings in 3dmark03.. then u can compare with ur previous benchmarks

No its not cheating.

so sad I only have the B-B-ATI x800 Pro Non-VIVO. Seems like everybody is having fun except for me :mad:

ugh, i only see 12 pipes still, i have 1.6ns memory, and the vivo, i flashed the gigabyte bios to no avail :(

EDIT: HA i lied, i installed the drivers and rebooted and then all of a sudden, 16 pipes. woot

Awesome, welcome to the club. I just pulled my x800 a few mins ago and did the pencil v-mod again and gave it some more juice. It wasn't fully stable at XT-PE speeds before (froze after 1 hr of far cry) but now it rocks, even gets above PE speeds. :)

now i have problems again :( whenever i try to run any 3d apps with the gigabyte bios my monitor decides to go into sleep mode. i tried to flash to the ATI X800XT bios but flashrom wont read the bios file right

alright it gives this error

"File open error"

it says that with everything i try to flash. this is so screwed up.

Glad you found the guide usefull ;)

EDIT:blah

A lot of people have found your guide and files invaluable Paddy, thank you :)

it's official, either my card doesnt ilke it's 4 other pipelines or this gigabyte bios that i cant flash away. i can use ANY 3d programs or else my comp resets, and yes i have lowered my clocks. flashrom does not work :(

ok finally got it back to the original bios, with 16 pipes. this better work

EDIT: well i cam back and stable, but my OCs are now crap, i used to be 505/545 before 16 pipes. now only 499/510. oh well. maybe omega drivers will get me more, they have yet to let me down

No I don't think omega drivers or any other driver will give you the boost you are looking for. Your only alternative is to vmod the card and maybe slap on aftermarket cooling to get higher speeds. I was limited to about the same speed as you too until I did the pencil trick to reach xt pe speeds. Its really easy so I'd recommend giving it a shot.

Just after a little bit of information on the pencil mod, i have my multimeter here and my card is at 1.41v and the resistance is about 415ohms, and i can only get the core/mem at about 490/500. Just wonder if anyone has information on what volts its safe to run at and what resistance is a good level.

Any info or links would be appreciated


Thanks

Just 1 more question what temps should the card be running at when under full load? whats a safe level and whats a level that is too high?

Thanks people

it is wierd but when i OCed my 9500 pro the omega drivers gave me 20MHz more on the core for some odd reason. not like it may happen with the x800 pro but you never know

I dropped mine down to 396 ohm from 419 ohm and I get >520 mhz on the core and 560 mhz on the memory now. I read that for every 15 ohms you get a .04 v increase so you can do the math to figure out the rest--my case is so constrained that I really couldn't take voltage measurements so I just winged it, guessing its running around 1.47v now which isn't too bad.


My card runs at a max of 60 C under load during the day (cooler at night) and between 34-38 C idle. Then again I no longer have stock cooling, it was about 15 C higher before I removed it. I'd highly recommend removing the stock cooler if it has those thermal pads sitting on top of the memory, talk about a garbage design!

sapphire pro vivo -> xt pe
 

I ordered a sapphire pro vivo earlier this week from that mypcgoodies.com place, before they raised the price on them :D anyway, it got here fine today, brand new in all the retail packaging, it has the 1.6ns samsung chips on the front and back, and I was able to mod it to 16 pipes plus the samsung 1.6 bios which sets the clockspeeds to 526.50 (core) and 573.75 (ram).

I've ran through 3dmark03 a few times without problems getting about 12000 on my 2.3ghz athlon (1.43 oc'd), the card runs at about 40 idle and 60 under load.

I noticed while playing farcry sometimes I get a slight "flicker" or possibly tear in the screen image, and it causes my headphones to pop, so I think I might lower the core a bit (maybe 520 / 560).

I have Sapphire X800 Pro VIVO and I stumbled across this thread. Followed the directions and it worked for me without a hitch. I was clocked at XT speeds before so I didn't see a huge increase in anything but it worked, was free and is awesome.

idle my card is about 42 degrees. When playing games its about 55-60. When i run 3dmark with AA etc it goes to 74degrees, would it be safe to do the pencil mod?

What heat is not good for the card?

Thanks

just wondering how do u do the pencil mod thing?

got mine already.. running at 540 575 now no problem.. 3dmark aquamark and games all stable

I have a question that I can't find the answer to in this thread ...

Why is it necessary to flash with ATI XT bios after flashing with the GigaByte bios ???

Cheers

It isn't, really, imo. But some people said it improved their overclock. I didn't notice a slightest bit of difference.

Yeah, much thanx, great job.

I have a friend who have flashet his X800Pro VIVO with the GigaByte BIOS and that worked fine. But he can NOT flash with the XT BIOS. After the XT BIOS the card will not start. He can flash back to Pro and the card works again.

Any ideas why he can't flash to the XT BIOS ???????

the clock speeds may be too much for it.

I plan on buying a X800 Pro VIVO today but Im wondering:
a) Whats the best site to buy a Gigabyte from?
b) I only have fans and such in my system, any special cooling I should get when I OC it to XT speeds after the hack?
c) Should I flash it off of the Gigabyte XT to ATI XT or leave it at Gigabyte XT for maximum OCing?

Thanks.