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Identifying Your Card (Continued)

Radeon 9800

The Radeon 9800 (Non-Pro) is essentially a Radeon 9800 Pro (R350) with lower clock speeds and may come with slower memory chips. Other than that, the card itself is very similar to the real FireGL X2, except for its display output capabilities. So, you should have no problem modding any vanilla Radeon 9800 card into a FireGL X2.

The Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB with old PCB layout
The vanilla 9800's PCB should look exactly the same.

As for the onboard memory buffer, you don’t have to worry about its size, whether it's 128MB or 64MB. The hard mod should work as long as you have the appropriate FireGL X2 BIOS. So far, I’ve only seen Radeon 9800with a maximum buffer size of 128MB. Since the original FireGL X2 only comes with 256MB of memory, you will need to either modify the original BIOS, or find a modified/hacked FireGL X2 BIOS that supports your card's memory size.

As mentioned in the previous page, RaBiT is a good BIOS editor for ATI BIOS images. You can easily change the memory bus width, memory size, memory timings, clock speeds and so on.

 

Radeon 9800 Pro

As for the Radeon 9800 Pro, there are now three versions. When Radeon 9800 Pro was still the king of the hill, there were only two kinds of Radeon 9800 Pro - each with a different PCB layout. The early Radeon 9800 Pro (R350) came with either 128MB of DDR memory or 256MB of DDR II memory. As a result, they used different PCB designs.

Soon after the R360 was released, ATI stopped producing the R350 GPU. Therefore, later Radeon 9800 Pro cards came with the R360, instead of the R350. These cards also have a slightly modified PCB, which is the same one used on the Radeon 9800XT.

The Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB with R350/R360 core and old Radeon 9800 PCB

The Radeon 9800 Pro 128/256MB with R360 core and Radeon 9800XT PCB

The Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB with R350 core and old Radeon 9800 PCB

Since the FireGL X2’s PCB is almost totally based on the Radeon 9800 Pro, there should be no problem modding them into FireGL X2 cards, as long as you have the appropriate BIOS for your card.

As for the onboard memory buffer, you don’t have to worry about its size, whether it's 128MB or 256MB. The hard mod should work as long as you have the appropriate FireGL X2 BIOS. Since the original FireGL X2 only comes with 256MB of memory, you will need to either modify the original BIOS, or find a modified/hacked FireGL X2 BIOS that supports your card's memory size; if your Radeon 9800 Pro only comes with 128MB of memory.

As mentioned in the previous page, RaBiT is a good BIOS editor for ATI BIOS images. You can easily change the memory bus width, memory size, memory timings, clock speeds and so on.

Note: There are some budget-level Radeon 9800 Pro cards that only come with a 128-bits memory bus. Like the Radeon 9800 SE with a 128-bits memory bus, modding these cards may not be possible; and even if successful will not result in a FireGL X2 level performance.

 

Radeon 9800XT

The Radeon 9800XT is actually same card as the new Radeon 9800 Pro. In fact, it is possible to mod a Radeon 9800 Pro into a Radeon 9800 XT! But that's another guide altogether. If you are interested in that mod, you can check it out here.

Coming back to topic, it is therefore possible to mod the Radeon 9800XT into the FireGL X2. All you need is a suitable hacked BIOS.

The Radeon 9800XT/Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB with R360 core and 9800XT PCB

 

AIW Radeon 9800 Series

The All-In-Wonder Radeon 9800 series of cards are the same as their "normal" counterparts. The chance of modding them into a full FireGL X2 is the same as that of their "normal" counterparts. For example, modding the AIW 9800 SE is the same as modding a normal Radeon 9800 SE.

One thing you should be aware of - if you mod an AIW card into the FireGL X2, you may lose your card's AIW capabilities. So, this may not be a mod you want to attempt.

 

Okay, now that you have identified your card, let's proceed with the mod!