X800 GTO² to X850 XT BIOS Mod

[Unregistered]

The C3D GTO has a power connector as well... well, it has two actually, the other one looks like the floppy power pins...

Now, lets see if I understand what I've read so far here:

1. Flash my C3D GTO with -newbios and the modded Sapphire (or a C3D XL bios) 16p bios to get the pipes.
2. Flash without -newbios back to my original GTO bios so that I can get my Theater too.
3. Pray to whatever deity I believe in...

So, do I get this correctly? Sure, I'll first make certain I have some free time on my hands and make me a autoflash recovery diskette...

Ehh, sounds like fun.

PS: I haven't played around with my GTO too much yet, but I do get the 12 pipes to stable 550 MHz core and 73c temp. Haven't tried to go highter.
No idea what the core is - ATI Tool detects a 423, but that's most likely due to the bios. Taking off the heatsink does not appeal to me, for now.

please keep us updated if you get that C3D x800gto unlocked to 16p. thx

 

[HousERaT]

Another success story: Sapphire X800GTO2 all 16 pipes flashed open...... highest clocks are 534/594. One thing I like about these cards is they run low timings with clocks just as high as normal timings.....

 

[BlackPearl]

And another success(maybe?). Sapphire X800GTO2 received today easily unlocked w/BIOS flash, but ATITool artifact tester detects one every second or so even at default speeds (12p or 16p doesn't matter). I wonder what the problem is?

 

[HousERaT]

And another success(maybe?). Sapphire X800GTO2 received today easily unlocked w/BIOS flash, but ATITool artifact tester detects one every second or so even at default speeds (12p or 16p doesn't matter). I wonder what the problem is?

Did you try using the Sapphire Trixx software?

 

[Dr.D]

Hey guys I need to know how many watts this card draws. (Before and after mod is possible)

Thanks

 

[BlackPearl]

Did you try using the Sapphire Trixx software?

No, I didn't know about it - thanks for the tip. I installed it and the detection utility reported that it would not initialize. Then I disabled VPU Recover in the ATI control panel and Trixx worked fine. The "performance" mode detected 511/563 - I haven't tried "extreme" mode yet. Anyway, things are looking brighter and I was able to complete 3D03, 3D05 and VST at 520/560 without a problem. (ATITool still detects artifacts though at any speed.)

 

[Unregistered]

Hey Guys, I was looking around at possible retailers to purchase one of these from and came across:

http://www.directron.com/x800gto2.html

Which states there is a GTO2 Fireblade Edition...do you guys think this card will be modable?

Anyone have a link for somewhere to buy a GTO2 in Canada?

Thanks.

 

[Unregistered]

im new to flashing bios, can i flash bios without a floppy drive? if so , how? Thx

 

[ChAce]

Yes, use a ramdrive. I don't know how that works myself, so you'll have to search for it somewhere lol.

 

[Megatron]

U can flash with a bootable CD.

 

[Unregistered]

U can flash with a bootable CD.

I have a bootable cd....and could u pls explain the process?

 

[Trevor]

Start Up your computer... press delete/f2 (whichever is your bios entry key.)
Go into Basic Startup.. (Depending on your motherboard.) It'll give you the boot order.
Change your CD drive to be first... and voila.
Start up, and run it like a floppy.
=)
--Trevor

 

[BlackPearl]

Also, detailed instructions for flashing from all bootable media and windows are linked in the first post of this thread under "Performing the mod".

 

[Dr.D]

Can anyone answer my post? Its kind of important

 

[Megatron]

Also, detailed instructions for flashing from all bootable media and windows are linked in the first post of this thread under "Performing the mod".

LOL knew I'd seen it somewhere before.

 

[Megatron]

Hey guys I need to know how many watts this card draws. (Before and after mod is possible)

Thanks

That information is probably available on google.

 

[BlackPearl]

Can anyone answer my post? Its kind of important

I haven't seen any power specs on this particular card, but since it's the same GPU as the X850XTPE it should have similar power requirements when run at similar speeds. This article shows the X850XTPE consumption (71.6 watts under load) and you might use that figure as an estimate if you can't find a test of the X800GTO2.

 

[Unregistered]

can you just flash the gto2 with a x850xt bios? or do you have to use the modded gto2 bios?

 

[Unregistered]

for all people in Germany

ordered a GTO2 at HWSL in Leipzig (Retail EUR 225).
they came back today saying that they could not deliver but offered me a bulk version instead
(which they haven't listed yet on their homepage..... that would cost EUR 195 incl. Tax).
So try your luck as long as they are avail.

rgds

 

[ShadowFlare]

Hey Guys, I was looking around at possible retailers to purchase one of these from and came across:

http://www.directron.com/x800gto2.html

Which states there is a GTO2 Fireblade Edition...do you guys think this card will be modable?

Anyone have a link for somewhere to buy a GTO2 in Canada?

Thanks.

GTO2 Fireblade Edition? That looks identical to my card. So does that mean the GTO2 is one of the Fireblade Edition cards? (like a GTO2 Fireblade, not GTO Fireblade) The X800 GTO2 even matches the specs of the Fireblade card mentioned on the Sapphire site, as in that it has the 1.6 ns memory to get high memory clock speeds and includes their TRIXX overclocking tool.

 

[W1zzard]

can you just flash the gto2 with a x850xt bios? or do you have to use the modded gto2 bios?

i havent tried but i think it should work .. let us know your results .. a problem i see is that xt has vivo, while gto² doesnt

 

[ShadowFlare]

Well you could use RaBiT to modify the bios to disable vivo. That bios should work, but it would probably be best to use the bios meant for the GTO2. You can use your existing bios and still unlock the pipelines by using atiflash 3.09 and following the instructions I gave in an earlier post.

 

[Unregistered]

GTO2 Fireblade Edition? That looks identical to my card. So does that mean the GTO2 is one of the Fireblade Edition cards? (like a GTO2 Fireblade, not GTO Fireblade) The X800 GTO2 even matches the specs of the Fireblade card mentioned on the Sapphire site, as in that it has the 1.6 ns memory to get high memory clock speeds and includes their TRIXX overclocking tool.

the card shown under the given link seems to be a GTO2.
the fireblades i have seen sofar have a blue PCB..... and no.... these do not use the GTO2.

 

[ShadowFlare]

the card shown under the given link seems to be a GTO2.
the fireblades i have seen sofar have a blue PCB..... and no.... these do not use the GTO2.

Mainly what I was saying is that the X800 GTO2 has specs like a Fireblade card would have.

 

[HousERaT]

the card shown under the given link seems to be a GTO2.
the fireblades i have seen sofar have a blue PCB..... and no.... these do not use the GTO2.

Yeah that's the GTO2 right down to the heatsink..... I've heard the GTO2 referred to as Fireblade so my guess is there will be confusion over this. Nice price for directron but sometimes they charge a bunch for shipping.