9700 Nightmare

[pelly]

What initially started as an act of good faith...reviewing a 9700 sample from Sapphire....has gradually turned into an absolute nightmare.

In addition to the stability issues with my KT400-based motherboard, there was one serious problem regarding the card I was sent.

Tell me what's wrong with these pictures...I assure you, the images were taken immediately after I removed the heatsink.

http://pubpages.unh.edu/~seanp/PC/9700/core.png

http://pubpages.unh.edu/~seanp/PC/9700/heatsink.png

:rolleyes:

[pelly]

A larger image of the core can be seen here:

http://pubpages.unh.edu/~seanp/PC/9700/9700%20019.jpg

That is scary....bone-dry......

:eek:

[[Corporal Dan]]

The core looks soaked or warped? :confused:

[thcdru2k]

...seems like a smooth core...but where is the freakin glue or frag tape? they only glue on the outer edges. ?

[Matthyahuw]

someone spit on it and sent it to you???

[pelly]

I couldn't figure out what the hell was on the core...The base of the heatsink was clean and smooth without any of te residue shown on the core...

I'll take a few more pics...try to figure out what the heck they put on it...

Needles to say, it looks as though there might be a QA issue over at Sapphire...

:(

[pelly]

A bunch of pics can be found here:

http://pubpages.unh.edu/~seanp/PC/9700/

Upon inspection, it looks as though there is a hint of some kind of thermal compound...although it really does look water-based as you can see two distinct "drops" in the middle of the core...

:eek:

http://pubpages.unh.edu/~seanp/PC/9700/wet_coreB.jpg

[ATI LoVeR 9700]

WTF? I don't trust Sapphire, I would never buy their card. 3rd Party manufacturers are not what you should go with with ATi. Stick to made by ATi.

Your going to need to RMA that card for a 1.3 version of the GPU to get rid of the problems with the KT400 chipset, or any 8x AGP chipset out there. ATi has been very good with this and very quick, most people get the new card within a week, some take longer though.

[pelly]

Actually, I won't RMA the card...Rather, I am going to send the review sample back to Sapphire...

I am completely surprised that they would send an early-revision board to a website which is based-upon NVIDIA cards! If I were them, I would have made sure the card was up to spec prior to shipping it...

:rolleyes:

[ATI LoVeR 9700]

Originally posted by pelly
Actually, I won't RMA the card...Rather, I am going to send the review sample back to Sapphire...

I am completely surprised that they would send an early-revision board to a website which is based-upon NVIDIA cards! If I were them, I would have made sure the card was up to spec prior to shipping it...

:rolleyes:

LOL!

Note to self: Sapphire is REALLY STUPID!

This problem with the revisions has been going on for a while, let me explain(if you don't know this yet).

What happened was the MADE BY ATi cards and Sapphire cards had a 1.0 or 1.1 revision of the GPU and they had severe problems with 8x AGP motherboards. The cards from ATi can be RMA'd easily, I don't know about Sapphire though. What ATi does is just ships out a 1.3 version card to the person. The Gigabyte 9700 board is a 1.3 revision, so that one doesn't really have 8x AGP problems. So far it seems as if Sapphire doesn't have the 1.3 revision GPUs, only ATi and Gigabyte do, I don't know about FIC though.

When you talk to Sapphire, tell them that you are using a KT400 chipset and need the 1.3 revision. They might not know that the hell you are taking about, but they should. The 1.1 or 1.0 revision you have will not work with 8x AGP motherboards correctly. If they don't have a 1.3 revision card, then you'll need to use a non 8x AGP board, or just not review that POS. I never really liked Sapphire anyways.

They might not even have 1.3 cards and continue selling 1.0 and 1.1 cards, so theire card is up to spec... :eek:

So, 1.0 and 1.1 revision cards = Non-Working cards in 8x AGP motherboards

1.3 revision cards = Working cards in 8x AGP motherboards

You should conclude the review with:

Just buy the "MADE BY ATI" card, it's probably better than this one...

[pelly]

Well......fifteen minutes later....a nice lap-job on the heatsink ( so it actually touches the core ) and a coat of Arctic Silver later....the card is running!!!

I am far from pleased with Sapphire.....

At least I got the damn thing working though...

:rolleyes:

[ATI LoVeR 9700]

Originally posted by pelly
Well......fifteen minutes later....a nice lap-job on the heatsink ( so it actually touches the core ) and a coat of Arctic Silver later....the card is running!!!

I am far from pleased with Sapphire.....

At least I got the damn thing working though...

:rolleyes:

Good luck running some games and 3d stuff, hell even running Windows. That is unless Sapphire gave you a 1.3 rev card, then you'll be ok.

[Darth Rancid]

Yes.. its always good to make sure the heatsink touches the core... my V5 got really unstable when one of the heatsinks stopped doing that... :)

[Kruno]

I wonder what happens if you have no cooling device whatsoever? ;)

[pelly]

Essentially, that is what I was dealing with as the heatsink was not making contact with the core...

The result?

Games don't even think of running....

:rolleyes:

[Gator]

this is ridiculous! You mean to tell me there are 4 versions of the 9700 GPU? V1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 ?!?!

Does GeForce4 TI series suffer from this revision process?

Nice one ATI :rolleyes: Ugh!

Anyway, it's better off you're using the artic silver. I'd recommend that to ANYONE from the start. But my only question for you is were you trying to overclock, or simply run at stock speed? If it didn't work at stock speed than thats insane. If it overheat during overclocking, than I can excuse that because it runs the card beyond it's proper spec so Artic Silver might very well be necessary.

[Bigus Dickus]

Originally posted by Gator
this is ridiculous! You mean to tell me there are 4 versions of the 9700 GPU? V1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 ?!?!

Does GeForce4 TI series suffer from this revision process?

Nice one ATI :rolleyes: Ugh!

In all likelihood, yes, the GF4 is the same. There was a rather significant change between the original GF3 and subsequent hardware. Besides, I find it equally disgusting that AMD and Intel have to produce so many revisions of their cores as well to "get it right." :rolleyes:

Ugh indeed. :rolleyes:

[pelly]

Never had tried to overclock this graphics card...it was crashing with default speeds without any cooling...

[pelly]

I've written an email to the contact to notify him of this scenario.....I've heard nothing back from him....
:rolleyes:

[Jandar]

just goes to show 3rd party vendors suck sometimes.

I have the sapphire 9700, but its the built by Ati OEM.

When I bought my 8500, I got the Gigabyte one with the nice heatsink, too bad they didnt apply but maybe 15% coverage on the core and ram chips with thermal paste. I remedied that with AS2.

Still works great.

[Joe Shmoe]

Originally posted by Gator
this is ridiculous! You mean to tell me there are 4 versions of the 9700 GPU? V1.0, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 ?!?!
I believe ATi starts counting with A11. That would make A13 the third revision.
Does GeForce4 TI series suffer from this revision process?
If my memory serves, the shipping GeForce 4's are the second revision but most of nvidia's shipping chips have been the third revision (GeForce, GeForce 2, GeForce 3, Xbox GPU).
Nice one ATI :rolleyes: Ugh!
Would you rather they shipped alpha silicon? Please use your head before posting. :rolleyes:

How many chips has nvidia shipped on the first rev.? Answer: Just one and that was the GeForce 2MX. Not too surprising since it was closely related to an earlier product. See here (http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1889&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=tape%20production&start=40) for a discussion.

[Kruno]

Would you rather they shipped alpha silicon? Please use your head before posting.

I would rather neither scenario :rolleyes:

[PreservedSwine]

Originally posted by Joe Shmoe

I believe ATi starts counting with A11. That would make A13 the third revision.



Only one stepping has been released, A13.
I beleive the different revisions differenate the different BIOS's

[nin_fragile14]

I have a Sapphire. I bought it pretty soon after they were released. So... that probably means I have a 1.0 or 1.1 card. I have an AGP 4x motherboard and everything works fine.

Does this mean I am ****ed when I migrate to an AGP 8x motherboard? Well that would be just great :rolleyes:.

Should I just stick it out and keep it or panic like everyone on Rage3d is doing? This is really worrying me. It's distrubted as Sapphire, but as far as I know, everything about the card is built by ATI. Even if I were to RMA it, I don't even know if I'd contact Sapphire or ATI.

It's a great card, works fine, but all this rumor talk on rage3d (and here) is making me wonder about future upgrades.

[thcdru2k]

better safe than sorry, if you spend that kinda money, i'd try to get an rma from both. ones gotta bite.