The purpose of this guide is to explain how to mod your AGP x850 Pro to an x850 XT or XT/PE, and unlock the card to 16 pipes. I take no responsibility for any damage this guide or modification may cause.
Intro...
About 2 weeks ago, I picked up a AGP x850 pro. Was a little hesitant, but it was a good price, and I figured I probably won't be going to PCI-X for atleast 3-6 months.
Upon purchasing the card, I decided to do a little looking around to see if it was possible to mod the card to unlock the card and get the full 16 pipes. The unanimous concensus (from my searching on OCforums) said that NO, it could not be done.
Well, for you that do have the AGP x850 Pros, I have good news, it can be done!!! This may also be useful for those of you considering a AGP x850xt or xt/pe...as it adds another cheaper option.
Most of this guide is based off of Mikey122687 & Sphere's guides on overclock.net. I am just trying to help spread the word to help those on this forum perform this mod.
The original writeup's can be found here and here.
I would recommend reading those articles as well, just to become more familar with the process if this is something new for you.
But here is a quick run through of...
How to unlock your pipes!
What you need!
1) AGP x850 pro
2) Bootdisk (download here)
3) Flash Rom (download here)
4) AGP x850 XT or AGP x850 XT/PE bios (find one here, or here)
*note* Bios MUST be for an AGP x850!!
How to unlock the card!
1) Download the bios and flash tool of your choice (see above)
2) Create a bootdisk and copy the flashtool and bios to the floppy.
3) Boot into DOS using the floppy. Backup your existing bios:
The command for atiflash is: flashrom -s 0 backup.bin
4) Now flash your card with the new bios:
The command for atiflash is: flashrom -f -p 0 xt.bin
*note* the name of your new bios may vary. Replace "xt.bin" with the name of the bios you want to use
4) Reboot your computer into windows.
5) You will now need to reinstall your ATI drivers (I prefer to remove them before beginning the flash process). Your pipes will not show as unlocked until you install your drivers. If ATI-Tool shows 16 pipes, it worked, congradulations!
6) Double check to make sure your card can run at the speeds you flashed to (XT or XT/PE) without artifacting, I used ATI-Tool for this and 3dmark's 03 & 05.
7) Now see how much more you can get out of your clocks
Notes!
Please read this before flashing your card. I'd hate for someone to make a mistake and run the risk of killing their card (though it should be possible to reflash it correctly). I take no responsibility for any damage this modifcation may cause
I was able to run without problems on the XT/PE bios with 16 pipes, and later did a vgpu mod to get a little more out of the core
If you can't run at XT/PE speeds, you can use the XT bios, and I really doubt you'd have problems reaching those clocks.
I would suggest seeing if your card will run at XT speeds (520x540) and XT/PE speeds (540x590), before flashing your card...in order to choose which bios to use. You could always flash the XT bios and then overclock your card from their to play it safe
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