ATI Radeon 9700 PRO ?

by **Silverfox** » Thu Mar 06, 2003 11:14 am

Can any of members out there that are fortunate enough to have this card, tell me how noisy it is. ( The Fan running) I know the reviews on the new GeForce FX ultra5800 has stated that you can hear the fan running on it from the other room. Also will the std. power supply in most of these computers support these cards. What overall PC requirements do you have to have to support these cards so they will run at their full potential? :help:

by **rust** » Thu Mar 06, 2003 11:27 am

Silverfox.Dont have that card.But it supports 8Xagp.
So the first thing would be a motherboard that
supports 8Xagp .Most current boards are 4Xagp.

by **Silverfox** » Thu Mar 06, 2003 11:39 am

Thanks Rust for the reply, that was one of the variables I was wondering about. You stated one of the upgrades the average consumer may not know they will have to make before purchasing one of these high dollar cards. (Hidden expenditures you have to make to get these cards to run at their full potential)

by **ECGNDan** » Thu Mar 06, 2003 11:45 am

My new computer will have an 8x agp, but, I don't have the money for the Radeon..

by **Silverfox** » Thu Mar 06, 2003 11:51 am

Yeah! that`s the same problem alot of us folks have. You want to upgrade and then find out about all the extra expenditures and you just say F--- it! Kind of like buying a new car, until you call your insurance agent and find out the new premium increase that comes along with the new car! You just say F--- it!

by **rust** » Thu Mar 06, 2003 11:54 am

Thats why im not buying a new card.Not till I get a new
motherboard.Otherwise the card wont run to its full
potential.I dont know jack about computers.But I know
a little about hardware.I recommend people get the
magazine Maximum PC.They are objective and benchmark
new stuff and give you the true skinny.My understanding
is the radeon is not as loud as the G-force.Plus,the overall
performance of the Radeon is better.But the damn radeon
drivers have always been an issue.I dont know if that is in
the past and maybe they are on top of that now.I'll look
around and see if I can find out any more for you when I
get some free time.

by **Silverfox** » Thu Mar 06, 2003 11:59 am

Thanks so far for your help! I have heard the new catalyst series drivers that ATI have put out for the consumer has corrected some of the past problems. Don`t know for sure though!

by **rust** » Thu Mar 06, 2003 12:03 pm

I have a GF4 4600 128 mb.Not a bad card.Ran a new
benchmark on it yesterday.Was getting 1-2 fps.I damn
near cried.My card is a year old and the new stuff is way
better.I am not even going to say what I payed for it.
but I bought it when it came out.So I will hold off on the
new card till I can get the new motherboard and ram as well.
Also for those running P4's try to get a motherboard that
supports rdram.the performance is better than ddr when
paired with the p4's.

by **rust** » Thu Mar 06, 2003 12:04 pm

My understanding is they have done better on the drivers
Just dont know how much.They were seriously F-upped
before and didnt release new ones nearly as often as
nvidia.

by **Edogg** » Thu Mar 06, 2003 12:24 pm

the 9700 pro isnt loud. also the geforce fx isnt loud. companies are making the card with quieter cooling even quieter than the 9700 pro. the 9700 pro is the better buy as of right now.

edit: also there is a very minimal performance boost between 4x and 8x agp.

also, rdram is expensive and bad for overclocking. ddr is the way to go, especially now that they are making p4 boards that supports dual channel ddr. this doubles your memory bandwith.

by **Silverfox** » Thu Mar 06, 2003 1:34 pm

Edogg, thanks for the reply! I am fixing to install another 512 of ddr ram and my motherboard does support 8X AGP. Your right, they do say the 9700 pro blends better with the ddr vs. sdram using the pentium 4. My final specs will be: 2.4 Ghz, Pentium 4, 1024 ddr ram, SB Audigy, ATI Radeon 9700 pro, 80 Gb HD. Mother board is 8X AGP supported and 533 Mhz. I just did not want to make these investments not knowing what other hidden expenditure`s I may have to upgrade to before purchasing one of these allready high dollar video cards. :confused:

by **Freedom** » Thu Mar 06, 2003 1:53 pm

Edogg is correct.

The fan issue with the GeForce FX is totally overblown. They are basing this on a pre-production test card, not the card you would be buying. Also, if any of you are like me and have more case fans than you average Dell then I'd put money on it that you will not notice a difference. I run a Volcano 7+ CPU fan which is loud as hell at 6000 rpm.

Like Edogg said, if you are getting a new motherboard go with DDR ram. RD Ram is good but VERY expensive. You will want to get a chipset that supports 8XAGP but as of right now there is very little performance improvement - however, that may change (who knows). Now I have been told that the Intel 648 chipset that supports 8xAGP is not that great - but that is just what I heard.

As for performance, the first pre-production tests showed the Radeon about 10% faster than the GeForce FX. A little while later the next pre-production tests showed them even. The most recent pre-production tests I read showed the FX about 10% faster. I would bet that this is the result of driver optimization for the FX cards (and you know how frequently nVidia puts out new beta drivers). My guess is that within a month after the FX is on the street it will be the clear winner in performance - though not by a big margin. The prices are the same - you can get them both for $299 to $329.

I'll be going with the GeForce simply because I love their support and because I'm running their nForce2 chipset (AMD only). Either card you decide to go with you will be happy with the performance.

by **Silverfox** » Thu Mar 06, 2003 2:08 pm

Thanks again for all the input! I too agree with the support and more driver updates, going with Nvidia. Where can you get the GeForce FX 5800 ultra as of this writing?

by **(>Tool<)** » Thu Mar 06, 2003 2:17 pm

Also, if you really think it will make you feel better, if you've built your own computer, you can overclock the pci and agp bus, an overclocked 4x agp bus would probabily be close to an 8x if edogg is saying there is a minimal gain. Thats what I'm gonna do, 8x card 4x mobo and oc the bus for the agp slot. just as a hint It runs by default at 66mhz and I've had it to about 85 without problems. Now I just need 200 beans.

one other note, the reason why I went with DDR ram is it moves data in 64bit channels, where as rambus moves data in 16bit channels only at 4 times the speed of pc2100 ddr if the rd is pc800. so start there, they are the same speed only one uses alot more memory bandwidth basically, so by overclocking a 64 bit data transfer you get alot more then moving and already lightning 16 bit channel faster.

by **Freedom** » Thu Mar 06, 2003 3:05 pm

Thanks Tool. More intereting info.

As far as the FX Ultra goes. I do not know where you can pick that one up - or how much it will cost. I do know that the rumor that the Ultra would only be available to pre-order customers is false. NVidia has made a statement clearing that up. I also saw that Alienware machines are now shipping with FX Ultra cards.

As far as the first non-ultra cards, PNY appears to be the first ones shipping. I'm sure Visiontek, Leadtech, and MSI will not be too far behind.

ATI Radeon 9700 PRO ?

ATI Radeon 9700 PRO ?

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