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How to change your Radeon 9500 into a 9700
Ian Bell writes "We have just posted a very difficult guide to turning your ATI Radeon 9500 into a 9700. But you have to have the correct 9500. A 9500 with 4 rendering pipelines, modified to enable all 8 pipelines, will effectively double the memory bus, if you have the extra 64 Meg of memory to attach it to. We will explain below which card to acquire for this awesome graphics card transformation. Check out how to do this yourself and get the power of a 9700 at half the price." Update: 01/19 18:33 GMT by T : And for those running Windows, Sanity writes "Aside from the hardware mod, there is a program called Riva Tuner that has, among other things, a software mod for unlocking those gates, plus overclocking to a full 9700 pro! Gives me more $$$ to spend on cool stuff."
I thought that. Bugger up the original card, and you then have to go buy a replacement - so you either pay twice and end up with 1 working card, or pay even more the second time, get the performance you wanted from the mod, but for much more than the face price. Modding like this is a bit over the top. There's being economical, and then there's just being plain tight.
You know I have been tinkering with computer equipment since HeathKit. Yep, OLD SKOOl, bread boarding and soldering, and learned a great deal by doing it.
I love the hacker ethic, kludge something until it works. Sometimes you have to, sometimes you want to, and sometimes just for the hell of it.
I understand trying to save a few bucks, but COME ON PEOPLE.
What I am seeing more and more is these whack hardware hacks which 20% of the time do increase the hardware potential and the 80% fry whatever you are fooling with. So you clean the part of real good, RMA it, and get a new one. Screwing the rest of the world in the process cause you wanted to hack it.
I remember in the day of the Celeron 300A, I was working in a shop that sold them hand over fist. And we got them back hand over fist due to over clockers"Dunna what happened man, just didn't work one day, I didn't over clock it though, musta been defective"
You futz up the graphic card, clean the solder off, and bring it back to Best Buy. They don't look it, they just give you another, and prices go up.
But everyone doesn't take that into account when they bring it back.
I don;t have unlimited funds, but I know you get what you pay for.
People that buy that Athlon 1800, cheap ass board, cheap ass fan, cheap ass power supply, overclock it, then spend 200 bucks on cooling, which could have applied to just buying a better cheap, board, and power supply.
And what scares me is this is the next generation of admins. I see the result now in the field. Some young computer whiz has outfitted an entire office with no name stuff, only a years guarantee, then he quits, six months later stuff starts to go out. And I have to tell them they have to buy new stuff cause they nearly new stuff was crap.
So I ask the community this. If you mod it and fry it. Throw it in the garbage, dont make me pay by bringing it back or RMA ing New Egg. But howsa about this. If it ain't broke. Don't fuck with it.
Puto
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
I don't think so, if you go by that logic then unlocking your cpu so you can overclock it is also stealing. If you can get more out of your own property by changing the way it works, how is this even morally wrong?
When you purchase an engine, it is yours to modify. For instance, you may bore over the cylinders and as a result get more power from the engine. You may also purchase a video card and increase overclock it to make it run faster.
When you purchase a video card, however, and "unlock" a feature that is only meant to be purchased, isn't that stealing?
No.. as long as you didn't pretend it was a 9700. You have the right to re-sell it however you want.
However.. that doesn't mean that ATI won't find some bullshit reason to sue you and throw confusion on the whole issue to make you look like a bad guy. (presuming you are in America, where this kind of things is all so common)
Remember when US Robotics had a fit becase they were selling their Dual Standard modems at twice the price of their Sporster (single standard), yet using the same board/chipset? Someone published an init string that would enable dual mode on the sporster.... and ATI had a fit, trying to say it was copyrigh violation, illegal, etcetera.
No, it's not stealing. For it to be stealing, you would have to take something without the owner's consent. As it is, you're simply depriving them of money you _otherwise_ might have given them, had you not known how to turn a 9500 into a 9700. That's not theft at all.
Maybe ATi could argue that they're entitled to the money - that these people are enjoying the benefits of owning a 9700 card without having paid for one. But they haven't _stolen_ it, they've simply obtained the benefits by unconventional means. AFAIK there's no law against upgrading and overclocking; maybe there was something in the EULA for the drivers, but apart from that there's no problem.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
The DMCA is a Copyright Act. It makes circumvention of protected copyrighted works. What copy protection scheme does this mod allow us to circumvent?
Since this mod apparently requires you to flash the 9500 with the 9700 firmware, you would at very least be violating copyright on the 9700 firmware. Unless, of course, you somehow paid for a copy of the 9700 firmware. The only way I know to do that would be to buy a 9700, and not actually use it.
Not quite. Most of these 9500 to 9700 articles fail to mention that there is a very good chance that one of the four extra pipelines will be defective. To increase the yield rate, many 9700 boards (the board used on the Sapphire 9500) with defective pipelines are made to use four of the working pipelines in 128 bit memory/4 pipeline mode with microcode. Other defects that don't affect the the card in 9500 mode are also possible. So when you pay $160 for your 9500 you might just get what you paid for. (Yay for RMAs)
Also, it can be a good way to make use of parts which are out-of-spec for the higher performance version.
sPh
Lets look at this in 2 ways why it is NOT stealing from Ati, or the consumer. For years, people with Nvidia cards have been using coolbits or some other software hack to enable overclocking on their Geforce and Tnt Cards. With the GF4 series, it's easily possible to make a Ti4200 run as fast as a Ti4600, depending on who makes the card. Now people that argue that these people are buying this card instead of the $399 Ti4600, dont you realize that the people that perform these kinds of "hacks" probably don't have the money to buy a $399 video card, so as such they buy a cheaper on and overclock it. Thus nvidia sells a cheaper card, instead of no card at all.
Also, the same applies to this ati hack. While many people can afford the 9500, far less are willing to spring for the 9700. As such, ATI is STILL selling cards. Bottom line, if it is moving product out the door, it's a good business deal. Add this to the fact that ATI may entice former nvidia-only people to try their products, and this software hack (the hardware hack is no longer necessary with Wizzards and Rivatuner software hacks out) becomes a means for ATI to get a load of free press/publicity/interest, and sell some cards.
3-Server OC-3 Linux Counter-Strike Cluster
www.rnp.ca
I seriously doubt that ATI would try to keep the market inflated by purposefully dumbing down a high end card, this sort of thing doesn't happen in real life. It's not like Intel has ever used a pIII chip with the cache disabled/ripped out for celerons before.
Wow, that's wrong. That's may be award-winningly wrong.
First, wasn't the PIII Celeron basically just a PIII with half of its cache disabled, exactly like what you've just described?
Second, the original Celerons were PIIs with the cache ripped out -- or rather, without cache put on their PCB at all. I'm 100% certain about this one. Remember the Slot-1 266 and 300Mhz (not "a") Celerons? They were just PII cores on a PCB, sans cache (and missing that black plastic casing too, if I remember correctly.)
Third, for all I know the P4 Celeron may be just like the PIII Celeron. That's a whole lot of Celerons which were just regular cores with the cache disabled/ripped out.
I'm sure even with High Quality components, the cost of the parts is a small fraction of $400.
However, what about the employees? What about the engineers, designers, leaders, managers? What about the people coordinating the soldering? What about the training dollars?
What about the machines and assembly lines that make these graphic cards? Are they free, too? The heat, the electricity? The chairs and computers?
Marketing, advertising, insurance for employees, and lawyers aren't free, either.
But even with the above restraints, another company could make a Radeon 9700 clone much cheaper, and I don't mean a Chinese sweat shop. I mean, say, a company in Canada making an identical clone manufacturing the 9700 for a cheaper cost with the same quality, selling it for half the price, and still make tons of money off it?
How could that (theoretically) be possible?
BECAUSE YOU'RE FORGETTING THAT ATI had to spend $$$$ in Research and Development, prototyping, training, and paying top dollar for engineers and designers. Many mistakes and failed efforts, many successful runs exploited for improvement.
A clone company would not have to pay these costs if they ripped off the design. GET IT? That's why new video cards cost so much, because the manufacturer (in this case ATI) had to RESEARCH THE THING it's making. That, and the fact that since the LATEST and the GREATEST video card was made for early adopters/hardcore gamers, they pay the biggest fee. Versions of the Card are priced cheaper for less demanding markets. Even though most of the technology is the same for the 9500, it is the early adopters that are the reason that ATI made 9700 the HIGHEST instead of just stopping at 9500, and that extra "R&D" cost makes sense.
And why is everybody upset about a company making a profit? Are you people crazy?
The company has to pay for their investment, then a lot of the money left over is put back into future R & D.
ATI designed, developed, and manufactures the best (consumer?) graphics card in the world. That takes lots of Research and Development $$.
Also, I am pretty sure what you described about misrepresenting equipment you broke is illegal.
File sharing has almost no R & D costs, (at least not in the millions and billions of USD).
Cover your eyes and click this link!
>This looks like stealing. Does it look like stealing to anyone else?
You have provided no evidence of anyone stealing; you have no reason to show guilt: some people are buying Radeon 9500 models and behold they are owned by them and discovered they are realy a 9700 model in disguise! Speaking in another capacity, this is truly grounds for lawsuit unto ATI for deceptive marketing.
Of'course, I think ATI is making good products, yet the age-old concern of theft still arises and you have honestly and bravly asked that age-old question: Is it stealing when we bought a product and discovered it to be another more costly product and by our respect of returning products for refund that occur in the opposite occurence, do we return our products to ATI? Here's your answer: a financial transaction took place, you are under contracted law that may or may not allow you to return a product that had been sold upon the truths as being lawfully or unlawfully guise.
So, my joke for you is...Take it back to ATI, tell them they sold you a ATI Radeon 9700 and they'll give you company credit of the value of that Radeon 9700 to apply for the selection of another product and possibly you will get a refund.
OK I'M JOKING! Think of it as another way: ATI has given you a benefit (or blessing, if you will) and they have given you an incompletly implemented Radeon 9700, marketed as a 9500 and sold half price, and it is up to your own time or skill or merit to finish their incomplete manufacture to a complete Radeon 9700.
Hey, if someone gave you a Manshion that was half-finished/half-destroyed, would you thank them or tell them it would be a steal for you to purchase it from them at such a low cost? It's the market, buddy. ATI is aware of this and perhaps due to the 9500 and 9700 being under ATI's poor marketers, they'll change or have already changed the future Radeon 9500 to be a more deceptive and unmodifiable Radeon 9700 product that proves to require more time or skill or merit for the owner to complete its manufacture.
I remember the ol' Total Recal movie that makes me laugh... Douglas Quait wakes up in a Taxi, the driver is a robot. The transcript is like this:
Quait: How did I get here?
Taxi: I'm sorry, will you please re-phrase your question.
Quait: How did I get in this Taxi?
Taxi: The door opened, you got in...Hell of a day, isn't it?
But I'm sure you already Gnu that.
You say that the modification of a video card will drive ATI out of business. Since ATI is a capitalistic company, that statement applies quite well.
You call what I say "Straw man arguments", then say:
Comparing a product (ATI video card) with a service (DirecTV)...
Gee, I guess if I modify my VCR to record at a slower speed I will single-handedly bring the blank-tape industry to a crashing halt... Maybe I should leave all my electrical appliances on all the time or else the power companies will be comming to a crasing halt... Maybe I should buy the least fuel-effecient vehicle, or else the gas industry will come to a crashing halt... These are all perfectly valid analogies of you arguement, and do a good job of illustrating the fallacies in your arguement.
I think you should take a look at your own messages before you start name-calling. (An all too common tactic on Slashdot)
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