Recently I upgraded my PC to get a faster rig to run 3D programs like Lightwave/ Poser/ AutoCad, that kind of thing.
I got another 2GB Ram. a new Motherboard (Just to allow me to go up to 4GB Ram), and an ATi HD2900 Pro graphics card.
An unforseen cost was having to shell out for a new PSU just to get the graphics card to run.

Anyway, got it all hooked up, was able to overclock my CPU to 3.2Ghz, running 4GB and all was well.
Massive Massive improvement.

However.....
Totally by accident I came across THIS thread:
http://www.nickfire.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&Itemid=29

where I found out I could flash the BIOS of my Gfx card to the next model up.
(It seems all the HD2900Pro's ARE are HD2900XT's just with different BIOS) :nerd:
So anyway,

I bought THIS:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-160-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=

flashed the BIOS and then had THIS:
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-149-SP&groupid=701&catid=56&subcat=

A saving of 70 quid and now I've a much faster graphics card. Sweet!

But then, some random surfing later I came across THIS thread:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=236876
and this too...
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=237273

And I thought WOW is this possible?

My original reason for upgrading my PC was to get better performance using 3D Applications like Lightwave and CAD, now I've the option of modding my Gfx card AGAIN to make it even better, into a proper Workstation card?:^

So my £165 quid card would become one of THESE:
Do not post competitor links - DaveMac

Yes - THATS £920.98 inc vat!!!
*only difference is I dont have 1GB memory, and bigger is better really but 512MB is plenty.*

All this stumbled upon by accident.

So I uhm....downloaded the modded drivers from the Chinese website (after checking through screeds and screed of forum posts to make sure I wasn't gonna ferk up my card and..

It worked.
Picture sharpness, responsiveness, just pure speed - everything is improved massively. I can now overclock the Gfx card to insane clock speeds.

In Lightwave I can work with FAR bigger more complicated models and the PC doesn't even flinch.
I'm a bit of a PC gamer too and the games run so much faster and smoother now.

This is good stuff - best of all, its easy to undo what I've done to get the card back to its standard state.

Gotta love the Internet, eh!

Congrats, but we need benchmarks, benchmarks damnit!

Nice work.

Andelusion said:

Congrats, but we need benchmarks, benchmarks damnit!

Click to expand...

Seconded


and remove the competitor.

I gotta try these out. Not only do I do quite a bit of 3DS work but if they improve performance in OpenGL games then it would be a godsend

I'll test in battleground europe (openGL) and Crysis (DX9).

Okay, In crysis I'm down around 5-6% performance. In game I went from hovering around 16-17fps to around 15. That's all on very high settings on 1280x1024. Still playable with the nice motion blurring but a little low for comfort.

Trying wwiio opengl.

That seemed to run about the same. It's a very erratic game when it comes to FPS so its hard to tell. I'll keep the drivers for a while and see. The game seems to look a bit different. Things seem smoother but textures might seem a little blurrier in the distance. I'll have to look at screenshots side by side to tell for sure.

Overall the drivers didn't seem to benefit game FPS. If anything they lowered them a bit in DX9 and stayed the same in OpenGL.

EDIT: And no overdrive

Nice

/awaits 64 bit drivers.

I'm gonna go back to official drivers. 3DS was working fine as it was and I don't do high poly model work much. I think my performance loss is mainly due to the stock clocks of the card at the moment. I might give ATi Tools a try before I revert back to official drivers though.

Apologies for the competitor link...my bad.

Rivatuner currently clocked this baby to 855 GPU / 1000 Mem/

Man this card is sweet!

What did the card become!!!

You must benchmark this.
Nice work.

The Card became a FireGL V8600, 1MB version goes for over 900 quid!!!!

I'm new to benchmarking and stuff, what would you guys recommend?
Lemme know and I'll do some benches.

The card absolutely FLYS in OpenGl 3D Apps - amazing performance.

3DMark

Here

http://www.futuremark.com/download/3dmark06/

Benched at 11557 @800/950

"Better than 94% of all systems"

Any good?
E6400 @ 3200Ghz
4GB Ram

Thats not a bad score for your system but i think a normal xt or pro at those speeds would give around the same results.

Yeah, not a problem though, the much sharper picture and increased openGl performance are more important for me.

I can still play HL2 Episode 2 @1650 x 1050 with max settings...good enough for me!!

But I'd say those into 3D Apps its a no brainer to softmod to a FireGL card.

gazjam said:

But I'd say those into 3D Apps its a no brainer to softmod to a FireGL card.

Click to expand...

Can 3dsmax actually support any graphics rendering?
Its all I use at the moment, but any performance boost would be brilliant.