Reflashing The Radeon 9800 Pro

First of all, I would like to stress that flashing a Radeon 9800XT BIOS into your Radeon 9800 Pro card will void its warranty! Please note that I will not be held responsible if you damage your card after flashing its BIOS!

Now, reflashing the Radeon 9800 Pro is not a hard thing to do at all. But if you have not done this before, please take a look at our Video BIOS Flashing Guide first.

If you are familiar with video BIOS updates, let's get on with it!

Checking The Card's Overclockability

First, use this tool, RadLinker to overclock the card to 412MHz core and 365MHz memory. Test this overclock in 3DMark 03, Aquamark 3 as well as this program - RTHDRIBL.

Please DO NOT use ATITool for artifact checking due to inaccuracy and inconsistency. You will also need to replace the card's cooler, as mentioned earlier.

What You Will Need

Here are some things you will need to prepare before flashing the BIOS :-

1. A video BIOS image for your graphics card
2. A BIOS flash utility (i.e. FlashROM)
3. A floppy disk

Before you flash the new 9800XT BIOS into your 9800 Pro, make sure your card has R360 underneath the cooler. NO SOFTWARE can detect the core type. Removing the cooler is the only way to confirm.

You will also need a 9800XT BIOS. For a collection of ATI BIOS images, we have prepared a database of downloadable BIOS images. Alternatively, you can check out OCFaq or mvktech.net.

The Hercules 9800XT BIOS has been the most popular BIOS, due to its overclockability. But since my card is limited by the poor cooling, I cannot confirm this. However, I am happy to report that the Hercules BIOS worked extremely well with the Sapphire card.

I used FlashROM v2.27 to reflash my Radeon 9800 Pro, which can be downloaded here.