Sapphire 9800 pro
 

I'm looking to maybe purchase this on Newegg for $200. I heard there is some mod (or maybe just overclocking) to make it an XT? Anyone familiar with this? Am I correct in saying that the Sapphire is the brand to get for the r.9800?

I think you are talking about flashing the card with an XT bios, but be careful, have a PCI video card ready. just search google for it or best check out rage3d.com forums.

by flashing it with the XT bios, i'm guessing it is pretty dangerous huh?

Not as dangerous as people claim. The Sapphire 9800 Pro actually has an 9800 XT GPU installed. The only differences are the speed and some specific options that aren't there (temperature sensor and such). If you can overclock your card to XT speeds, then you should be able to get the XT bios to work. Just get the right bios, BACKUP THE OLD ONE, and flash it.

Note the BACKUP. If things go wrong, you can flash the card to install the original bios. That's probably the most essential step you should take.

Results are pretty positive; the Sapphire cards are known for being able to run at XT speeds, with an XT bios. A colleague of mine has the thing running fine.

very cool....if the flash doesnt work properly, how can you reflash if you get nothing on the screen? haha

That's where the PCI card comes in... :)

I suggest you read up on the procedure *before* doing it. See what people with experience have done, what went wrong, what went right, etc. I don't have that experience, I only have a colleague telling me what he did.

this look like a legit guide to you? :)
http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx...var1=92&var2=0

Looks good. I've seen others, but those are in Dutch. ;)

bah! Dutch doesn't help me :p

from what I've heard I thought the 9800 pros that flashed to xt bios were the 256 mb versions of the 9800 pro...not the $200 128 mb, 256 bit version...but as for ur other questions..my 9800 pro 128mb , 256 bit is a sapphire and its the card to get if ur going for a 9800 pro for around $200

tupacalypse1622, you've heard from the wrong people. As I said, a colleague of mine has that exact same card, running fine with a 9800 XT bios. Y'see, there are certain (rare) 9800 XT's with 128 MB memory.

If you could read Dutch, I've got a whole forum thread (lots of pages) of people running those 128 MB cards with an XT bios. :)

I don't have any experience with this, but I heard you might need a better heatsink because you overclocked it.