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Prologue
The first thing I had to do was unlock my 9500 Pro. I used Warp11's bios along with ATI Flash Utility from their archive. Sounds easy doesn't it? Well, I managed to erase the bios, but for some odd reason it refused to write the new bios even when I specified the "-f" tag (force flashing despite security or incompatibility issues). I ended up having to barrow a PCI video card from Ben and finally managed to flash the new bios in. The problem? The version of ATI Flash Utility that 3DChipset.com provides is outdated. I ended up downloading the latest version (1.6) from softmod.ocfaq.com. If you going to flash your video card bios, do some research first.
Overclocking
After that nice little adventure, I started overclocking from the 9500 Pro's default clock speed of 275 Core / 270 Memory. I managed to get up to 315 / 300 before artifacts started showing up in 3DMark. Here are the results below. I ran both 3DMark01SE v330 and 3DMark03 v340.
Results
Roughly a 7.5% improvement in 3DMark01 and a 10.4% increase in 3DMark03.
You can clearly see higher fps in all games.
Fill rates are also improved due to the overclock.
Conclusion
At first glance it looks good, and looks even better with it installed thanks to the two built in LEDs. Installation was a breeze due to the push pins. It even comes with a 3pin to 4pin converter if you need it. The overclocking results aren't too bad either. The only complaint I have is Vantec only providing four "ramsinks" when most cards today need eight. The "ramsinks" themselves aren't high quality, they have a cheap feeling to them. I suppose it doesn't matter since my power connector is blocking one of my ram modules anyways. Other than that, this is another a good product from Vantec.
Pro's
Good overclock
Two Blue LED's
Easy installation
Good packaging
Con's
Only four ramsinks
