Radeon 9800 Pro

[Rivers]

I was gonna buy a Radeon 9800 Pro this friday from best buy but I noticed Newegg has a sale on the Saphire version of the OEM 9800 Pro for 194. Is it alright and is there any difference at all compaired to the built buy ATI version and, if so, is it worth the extra 30-50 bucks i'd spend in the process. Thanks for the input everyone.

[JIMINATOR]

the sapphires are an oem version, not made by ati. i think they are mostly the same.
really though, a 9800 isn't going to have enough punch to get you through the next
gen games. if you gotta buy one, then you gotta, but i think the x800 is the way
to go (it costs 2x but performs a full 2x)....

oh wait, you said pro, with all the tv tuner & vid capture stuff... well, that may be
a better use. although you will want to ensure that the sapphire has decent software
as the ati will....

[Rivers]

Yeah i would love to get the x800 but it is really pricy I mean im pushing it with 200-300 dollars on a vid card as it is. The software im not TOO concerned about as long as I have decent stable drivers for it. I know the 9800 Pro wont last that much longer in next gen games but I still only have like a 2100 CPU so its not like have a monster rig or anything (im waiting a bit on that one) I just want something better than my 9500 Pro. I was also thinking of a new hard drive since this one is old and kinda slow I believe. I mainly wanted to know about the 9800 Pro. I was about to buy the 256MB version but I read it sucked so nombe nah to that.

[DiTomasso]

make sure the cpu is a r360 instead of the r350.
In that case you can upgrade to a 9800xt according this forum>>>
upgrade to 9800xt (http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?threadid=17229146) :wave:

[Pure_Evil]

Saphire's suck moose ass!! I bought a 9600 from Newegg, my rig wouldn't boot up. Aparently it was some conflict with the AGP slot. I ended up sending it back to Newegg and eating the $15 restock fee and buying a G-force 5600 that has been trouble free. Also, Newegg wouldn't post my review that detailed the problem. BIGG's actually called Biostar (maker of my PC case/mobo/PS) and went over the issue with them for me (thanks again Danny) and Biostar said that may mobo is 9600 compliant, but since the card was powered by ATI and not made by ATI, it was inferrior and there was a conflict. Spend the extra $$ is you must have ATI..Saphire is too risky.

[JIMINATOR]

oh, you may want to look on the internet for hacked drivers that turn a 9500 into
a 9700. But for upgrading from a 9500 to 9800, I would have to say no way man,
i don't think the performance boost in that case is worth the cost...

[Rivers]

I found the 9500 Pro hack I'm just not to sure how to work it since it has like 3 seprate steps to it. I'm pretty sure its not that hard but I'm still kinda scared I mean I've never tried this and I might mess up my card or something.

[JIMINATOR]

http://softmod.ocfaq.com/download.php

with the driver hacks, just update the drivers to ati to restore the previous settings.
there are some bios hacks that may be more of a problem.
anyway, at worst, you buy the new card.
at best, you get 80% of the performance of a 9800 pro for free...
then spend your money on a athlon-64 2800 + board. they had some killer
deals at newegg a few weeks ago, but you still should be able to get a combo
for < 300...
anyway as an alternative, if you have a 5400 rpm drive then it should be a
priority to upgrade.

[PJ'l_Master]

Saphire's suck moose ass!! I bought a 9600 from Newegg, my rig wouldn't boot up. Aparently it was some conflict with the AGP slot. I ended up sending it back to Newegg and eating the $15 restock fee and buying a G-force 5600 that has been trouble free. Also, Newegg wouldn't post my review that detailed the problem. BIGG's actually called Biostar (maker of my PC case/mobo/PS) and went over the issue with them for me (thanks again Danny) and Biostar said that may mobo is 9600 compliant, but since the card was powered by ATI and not made by ATI, it was inferrior and there was a conflict. Spend the extra $$ is you must have ATI..Saphire is too risky.


...uhhh...ATI in general sucks this moose ass you speak of...

i havent had a good experience w/ my 7500 in my backup machine yet

[Fragetti]

Newegg has the AIW 9800 Pro 128 Retail $280 <> Thats the way to go.
I run that card in my rig and love it. I payed over $350 for that card

Retail you will get cables and software. OEM you only get the drivers. Make sure it says BUILT BY not Powerd BY ATI. I only run ATI in all my systems and have had no problems at all. Only with Powered by ATI cards (aftermaket)shy away from them.
Frag

Go here <> www.pricewatch.com

[Rivers]

http://softmod.ocfaq.com/download.php

with the driver hacks, just update the drivers to ati to restore the previous settings.
there are some bios hacks that may be more of a problem.
anyway, at worst, you buy the new card.
at best, you get 80% of the performance of a 9800 pro for free...
then spend your money on a athlon-64 2800 + board. they had some killer
deals at newegg a few weeks ago, but you still should be able to get a combo
for < 300...
anyway as an alternative, if you have a 5400 rpm drive then it should be a
priority to upgrade.

Yeah I was refering to the bios hacks I think thats what I had downloaded. I'll go ahead and give it a try cause a new hard drive and maybe some memory sounds tempting if I can squeeze more out of the 9500 Pro. I wanna be able to run next gen games just a bit better than the way I do now. I dont need all the settings cranked way up just somewhere in the middle where it looks alright but I get decent playable frame rates. Maybe I just need to format my machine who knows.

[ME BIGGD01]

i would say stick witht he 9500 pro card for now. it actually will be good for more than a year from now and then some. do not believe the hype that everyone will need a new video card to play the lastest games. they have said that for years. i try not buy any hardware during the summer until after august is over. alot of nw stuff gets released after school starts. prices will come down dramatically and you will be prepared to buy a future proof product (which means top end for the next coming year). i also agree when it comes to an ati product, be very carefull and always buy built by ati. i do believe saphire is getting sued or something for false advertisement of a product spec. don't quote me but i think it was them.

hear is how i feel about the video cards today....
today agp @ 8x is doing well and can handle any game out there. if you own a 9500 or up ati or a geforce3 (excluding gf3mx) you are going to be ok for another year with out the need to upgrade. if you spend the penny on these new cards that have all the support for the latest technology, you may be disapointed on ow many applications really are out that take advantage of it. if you say 2 or 3, that is not enough to go and spend 400-500 bucks on a card unless you are loaded. ut2004 plays good on a geforce3 ti200 and it plays well on an ati 9500. as far as doom3 goes, don't believe the hype (public enemy). next year, we will see most motherboards having the new pci express slots. although, this will not offer much now like the agp 4x and 8x dont offer much but there are other eatures to this that many will take advantage of. i had a discussion with nvidia last week and he was talking about the power of 2 pci express cards working together. this is where pci express will kick ass and intel will have these boards out soon or maybe now. he also showed me the new quadro pci express cards which editors and animators will love the power of 2 of them slaped side by side.

so what's the moral of all my jibberish-----over clock you ati card and be patient for the real hardware to be released and be worthwhile for you to invest in.

:thumbs:

[Rivers]

Well said Bigg, and you and Jim know best. You've convinced me to stick with my card and just maybe overclock it. I mean it does the job in UT2004 already with all the settings cranked to their highest just fine so why not. I might buy a faster hard drive and maybe more RAM (maybe) but I didn't really wanna invest that much more money in anything 32 bit. I was thinking I could buy a vid card now and use it later but the 9500 Pro is still holding up. Thanks everyone.