Questions about Radeon (9700 series)

[netape]

Hi, I'm thinking about buying a radeon, but I need some info first. :D

1) Could someone tell me the pros and the cons of the Radeon (like driver quality)?

2) Which one is a better deal in your opinion: 9500 Pro (211 €/$) or 9700 (309 €/$)?

My system: 1.6a@2.0a Abit BD7 and 256mb (kingston) memory.

And please don't link me to Rage3D :p :D

Thanks :thumbsup:

[Raptorman]

1. Pros: Good card, overclocks good, extremely fast, good image quality, stable drivers, smaller than GF4, and GF FX,
Cons: May not work with some MicroShaft games such as CFS3 well, flip of a coin whether it will work or not with newer MicroShaft games, Tech Support cost $3 a minute to call after 30 days

The card is good and works with about 98% of the games out there. You shoudn't have any problems.

2. I would honestly go with the 9700 PRO (basically because that's how I am) simply because it's around $300 USD

[netape]

Originally posted by Raptorman
2. I would honestly go with the 9700 PRO (basically because that's how I am) simply because it's around $300 USD

Wish I could have PRO for that price... I have to pay around 450 €/$ for it, so it's a :nono: for me.

[Raptorman]

either a 9500 PRO or 9700 non-PRO then

[marqmajere]

Originally posted by Raptorman
1. Pros: Good card, overclocks good, extremely fast, good image quality, stable drivers, smaller than GF4, and GF FX,
Cons: May not work with some MicroShaft games such as CFS3 well, flip of a coin whether it will work or not with newer MicroShaft games, Tech Support cost $3 a minute to call after 30 days

The card is good and works with about 98% of the games out there. You shoudn't have any problems.

2. I would honestly go with the 9700 PRO (basically because that's how I am) simply because it's around $300 USD

I agree. The driver support looks to be getting much better. Did you try Newegg? They have 9700's for around $235 and 9500's for less than $200.Newegg (http://www.newegg.com)

[netape]

Originally posted by marqmajere
I agree. The driver support looks to be getting much better. Did you try Newegg? They have 9700's for around $235 and 9500's for less than $200.Newegg (http://www.newegg.com)

I don't live in the USA, I live in Europe... :(


either a 9500 PRO or 9700 non-PRO then

That's what I'm asking from you guys :D Would 9700 non-pro be cpu limited in my comp? And is 9700 worth the 100 $/€ difference?

[nin_fragile14]

1. Pros: Fastest card on the market right now, with a relatively low price as well. That is obviously the best thing about it. It's also pretty small, and it's red, so it looks good. :cool2:

As for drivers, I'll admit, it hasn't been as stable and easy to use as my Geforce 3 was. However, I've never had a serious issue with the card; the worst situation I've been in is having Mafia not work while every other game did. The only other problems were the stuttering in OpenGL with the first 3.0 drivers, and some stuttering in Rallisport Challenge when it was first released. Other than that, all the games I have run great. And since you're buying the card now, the drivers are much more stable than they were when I bought the card back in October.

2. Buy the 9700. It's double the memory bandwidth of the 9500 Pro, enough said.

[TheFrnchTickler]

Originally posted by marqmajere
I agree. The driver support looks to be getting much better.

God, how long are people going to keep saying this? Either the drivers aren't making any headway, or they're already good. They've been 'getting much better' for years now.

Personally, I don't have any big problems with my 9700 aside from the fact that FSAA doesn't work in 16bit at all, and they're apparently dropping EVER making supersampling work on it.

Of couse, I hardly play games anymore, as I spend most of my time in photoshop.

[netape]

Originally posted by nin_fragile14
2. Buy the 9700. It's double the memory bandwidth of the 9500 Pro, enough said.

But are there any benefits from it if I don't use resolutions above 1024x768?

[jbirney]

That MB will be usefull for AA/AF that you can crank up to higher settings.

[madthumbs]

I just ordered the 9500 np for two reasons;

*HDtv resolutions supported in drivers (nVidia has been sucking for this on the GF4) I'm stuck with an old driver to get a meager 920x500p.

*Hacked drivers deliver performance of the 9700 pro with this card. (bought as a saphire from newegg $159 shipped.

[netape]

Originally posted by madthumbs
*Hacked drivers deliver performance of the 9700 pro with this card. (bought as a saphire from newegg $159 shipped.

Only if it works. 30-40 % of the 9500np cards show artifacts. And I don't want to take any chances, because if the mod is unsuccessful that card isn't very good.

[Renzo]

If you buy R9700 (nonpro, which I highly recommend) you will need to flash the card's bios in order to overclock it.

Otherwise drivers seem to work fine BUT lack of good optimizations, even GF4ti4600 is faster at resolutions 1024*768*32 or below. Use of AA and ANISO (or higher resolutions) changes the picture.

[madthumbs]

Originally posted by netape
Only if it works. 30-40 % of the 9500np cards show artifacts. And I don't want to take any chances, because if the mod is unsuccessful that card isn't very good.

I wasn't aware of the 30-40% thing, but could the artifacts be eliminated by reducing the clock/ memmory speeds?

[netape]

Renzo, how much did you pay for that 9700? I live in the same country as you and I think that price difference between 9700 and 9500 pro is a bit too high in here (at least the prices I have seen).

[netape]

Originally posted by madthumbs
I wasn't aware of the 30-40% thing, but could the artifacts be eliminated by reducing the clock/ memmory speeds?

Nope. Maybe the locked pipes are defective or it's related to the drivers, who knows. I hope your R9500np (modded) works without artifacts :)

[Renzo]

Nope, the artifacts are due to defective pcb/chips that are disabled in R9500 (otherwise the card could have been R9700 or better).

The card (Hercules prophet 9700) cost about 320€ , but total sum of money I paid for it was 105€ (I wouldn't have bought it if it cost more than that :D ).

[DoomzDayz]

Originally posted by netape
Only if it works. 30-40 % of the 9500np cards show artifacts. And I don't want to take any chances, because if the mod is unsuccessful that card isn't very good.

But since the card still has 256-bit memory, wouldnt o/cing the core 100mhz (which has been done stabily on various cards) make it worth the price? But it wouldn't match the performance of a 9500 pro, which doubles the fill rate, right?

[netape]

Originally posted by DoomzDayz
But since the card still has 256-bit memory, wouldnt o/cing the core 100mhz (which has been done stabily on various cards) make it worth the price? But it wouldn't match the performance of a 9500 pro, which doubles the fill rate, right?

I don't think it would be any faster than the pro, because it has the extra pipes, but I can be wrong of course.

And if you oc 9500 np you could oc 9500 pro as well.

[Rogozhin]

Go the 9700 non pro route.

I have been runnig my saphire 9700 non pro for about a week now and I have no problems at all. Before this i had a 8500 LE @ 295,289.

Here are the games i play

rallisport challenge
iL-2
ghost recon (DS , IT)
ground control
american megee's alice
mafia
max payne
nascar 2003

I am running the whql cat 3.0s and dx9.0.

I flashed the bios on the saphire (stock 276, 270) and now running 303/303 with no artifacts.

system
amd xp 2000+
512mb ddr 2700
80gb wd 7200
fortissimo 2
ect, ect.

I love this card and am a dyed in the wool ati fan! (had the 8500 at the incipience and tried a g4ti4200 and g4ti4400 and kept the 8500)

if you can find one get a 9700 non pro!

rogo

[Renzo]

My Hercules runs at 325/320 w/o artifacts. However I removed the "shimm" after I did my overclocking tests so it could run at even higher coreclock, but I'm too lazy to continue testing as I'm pretty satisfied with the current situation. :retard:

[madthumbs]

-Thanks for the excellent information netape!.. I read through 6 pages of crap today which you pretty much summed up here.

[netape]

Originally posted by madthumbs
-Thanks for the excellent information netape!.. I read through 6 pages of crap today which you pretty much summed up here.

Np :thumbsup: So are you going to do the mod?

[madthumbs]

I'm planning on the software mod. I currently have a ti4400 that can easily do the ti4600 spec, but it sucks for hdtv. I'm hoping I can at least get comparable results and better hdtv resolutions with this. I think I can sell the ti4400 for the same price. So even if it doesn't work, I don't think I'll take a loss.

edit: Just got the card seconds after posting this. From; www.newegg.com for $158 shipped as the Saphire oem. It appears to be the moddable version (two rams on top, and two on side), and a nice thing about ATI *gasp*.. it came with a dvi to rgb converter that I had to pay $20 for with my ti4400. It even has s-video to composite and the appropriate cablings!

[madthumbs]

Whew... thought mobo's were supposed to get easier to install... not the msi kt4vl! Anyway; Installed a new mobo and the card today. Took me a while to patch the driver for it, but got it patched and ran some tests. Fill rate test doubled of course. UT2003 played great with no artifacts! 3dmark 2001se played nearly half the videos without artifacts. Half of them had artifacts on ~25% of the screen as a green dot checkerboard pattern. Quake 3 had less than 25% of this. White Out didn't exhibit it, nor did Pusher. I'm thinking that for some games this may be awesome...Just too bad not all games. I'm also thinking maybe someone will figure out a way to patch or turn off the defective pipeline (if single) through software.