ATI owners

[jiffy]

Are you happy w the card and any problems?

I have a KR7A mobo w a XP1800 and a GF4 4400. I’m just about ready to order a ATI 9700 Pro card and I was wondering if there is anything I should know before I get it? Like w NV cards you have to make sure you adjust the refresh rate, install the latest drivers and as long as you don’t crash you’re pretty much all set. I’m looking forward to something different, but I also would like things to go smooth from the start.


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When you feel that reality does not suit you, live a fantasy life.

 

[Lonemagi]

Make sure your mobo is compatable. Other than that, Ive been happy with mine.

<font color=red>*</font color=red><font color=white>*</font color=white><font color=blue>*</font color=blue>
... And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free, and I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.

 

[jiffy]

Thanks for your reply, there was a compatibility issue with not booting up with a certain P/S, and I have the latest BIOS update, so it’s looking good.

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When you feel that reality does not suit you, live a fantasy life.

 

[Lonemagi]

My old mobo did not work with the 9700 at all, so I warn every one to check that. Good to see you got everything working well. How are you liking the performance?

<font color=red>*</font color=red><font color=white>*</font color=white><font color=blue>*</font color=blue>
... And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free, and I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me.

 

[jiffy]

I haven't ordered it yet, I’ll have to let you know when I get it.

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When you feel that reality does not suit you, live a fantasy life.

 

[Smokey]

I've had great experiences with retail ATI cards, but the best advice when using one is read the driver installs carefully.

I have an AIW that requires like 5 components, and you have to follow the install directions on the website to the T (install this file but when prompted don't reboot, then install this file but reboot, etc.). Just in case, I always save my current setup with XP's rollback utility. When the driver upgrade fails, I just rollback and either try again or wait for the next upgrade.

Besides that, they're awesome cards.

<font color=purple><i>If I had a notch on my belt for every PC I'd destroyed, I'd have a really crappy looking belt</i></font color=purple>

 

[jiffy]

Thanks I’ll be sure to do that. Yeah I can’t wait, I’ll have to try out some of my demanding games. It will be interesting to see how well 4X does, which I wouldn’t even think to use now.

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When you feel that reality does not suit you, live a fantasy life.

 

[redface]

since you have a ti4400 why the hurry to go 9700pro?
there are really not many DX9 games yet.
why not wait for 9800pro?

A fine day!

 

[GeneticWeapon]

Why do people keep saying "waite" for the 9800?....The Fry's up the freeway from me is on their second freakin' shipment of the things..and if they've got em'...then surely the online retailers do too...

My Score..<A HREF="http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6258104" target="_new">http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=6258104</A>

 

[steve_eng]

I agree, why do people keep saying "wait for the 9800pro" it is in stock in the uk so sure as hell must be in stock in the us!!

 

[TKH]

Or should I say wait until 9800 Pro comes down in price? No matter what it's so [-peep-] expensive. About $2000 for a graphic card (in my country).

You never know how stupid you are until you have done something stupid enough for you to realize it.
<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=22996" target="_new">My System Rig</A>

 

[cleeve]

I have had a radeon 8500 for the past year and a bit.

It has been a fantastic card. When I first got it there were some driver glitches, but Ati has not dissapointed me with new drivers that have come out fairly often.

Since they cleaned up their act with the drivers, the card has been absolutely fantastic. It can still play the newest games available with speedy framerates at 1024 by 768... Not bad for a video card I got a year ago.

I think it's finally time to upgrade to something that can handle antialiassing, but owning this card has been a very pleasant experience.

The ONLY hardware issue I had with this card was power supply related. I used to get occasional lockups, which drove me nuts. But I upgraded my generic 300 watt PSU to a 480 watt job and it has been nothing but ROCK SOLID ever since. Wasn't the card's fault at all.

To summarize: This card has been as pleasant to own as the Geforce2 I had before it, which was also a great piece of hardware.

Be well,

- Cleeve

 

[jiffy]

Well I would like to upgrade my whole PC, I have a XP1800 and in most the test I see my CPU is just about ready to fall off the chart. A couple more new cards and I will feel the same way about my ti4400. I remember a time when I would just turn all the graphics up and play the game, now I’m spending a lot of time adjusting the graphics to get good game play and the most graphics I can get. MOHA, UT3, GTA3, and all Rally games stress the hack out of my system and I’m getting tired of it. I suppose new games will do the same thing to the latest cards. I would have gone with the 9700 Pro over the 9800 Pro, simply because of the price and performance ratio. I was already to get the card, but when I heard EA was working with NV that postpones my decision, because I don’t want to be limited by the card I have, and that remains to be seen. If ATI has any problems playing some games or don’t get the eye candy as NV that will influence my decision. Mean while that buys NV a little time.

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When you feel that reality does not suit you, live a fantasy life.

 

[jiffy]

Thanks for your input. It does sound ATI is doing very well lately, while NV plays catch up. They haven’t really caught up, but it looks like they may have there name on a few more games. Will this change the success ATI has been having? I’m going to see, also see how well the Nv35 does, before deciding.

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When you feel that reality does not suit you, live a fantasy life.

 

[cleeve]

A couple notes:

EA never said they were making games exclusively for Nvidia. That would be suicide. What they did say was they were only licencing their games to be bundled for Nvidia cards. Their games will probably have the Nvidia logo at the start, like Unreal 2003.
Everything else was silly speculation.

As far as waiting for the NV35, this is the worst time to do that, and I'll tell you why. The Geforce FX 5800 ULTRA is only now becoming commercially available. That means regardless of how close they claim to be to production of NV35, another card won't hit the shelves for 4 to 6 months or so.

And by that time, another card will be on the 4 to 6 month horizon.

So in short, you might be waiting forever. The best thing to do is to buy the best card for the money whenever you feel it's time to upgrade.

- Cleeve

 

[jiffy]

Yeah, I would hope NV could be more competitive, then having games exclusively for NV. I know they did it with Earth Viewer, they said ATI cards would have to try it first to see if it work. But Earth Viewer is like comparing apple and oranges compared to game developers.

When I first posted I was already to get a new card, but other things have come up that might influence me getting a card at the moment, so my previous statement isn’t necessarily accurate. The bottom line is money, which I might be spending else where, if it wasn’t I probably would just get the ATI 9700 Pro, cause like you said it is a never ending process. At least today I’m not going to buy a card, but it doesn’t take much for me to change my mind. It use to be when ever I got my butt beat playing UT I would get online ordering some new hard ware, now it’s the demanding games that can push me to buy a new hardware, it maybe cheaper then me putting my fist threw the monitor.

Thanks again.

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When you feel that reality does not suit you, live a fantasy life.

 

[Ganache]

damnn ,ive got a xp1800 and i got only a geforce2 GTS and can play all those game without probles with good frame rate. If your're not happppy with a ti4400 your are weird !! but then again its your money and myself im getting a radeon 9700 but its for Star wars galaxies !...

 

[phial]

im not playing SWG now. not because you posted about it, but because i been following that game for a year hoping for a great genre game. but now, everyone and their grandmother is going to play


and ALOT of people are building computers JUST for the game. pfft.. no thanks. i hate people enuff as it is.

your lucky i am going to stick to the topic of "Video Cards/Gaming".. i read some things today that made me absolutely sick with disgust.

Americans. you are all pigeons, fighting for that MacDonalds french fry before it even hits the ground

blah.. siggys suck

 

[jiffy]

I have a GF2 GTS, also, plus an Ultra card. Would I be right if I guess you have a 15” monitor and that you play your games in 800X600 with low details. Sure the card will play them, but I’m talking with full detail, which my ti4400 struggles to do

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When you feel that reality does not suit you, live a fantasy life.

 

[Ganache]

ive got a sony G410 19po, i'm not a stupid american and you would be surprise how a gf2 gts is still good to play games. It's time is up thats why i'll change it for a 9700 non-pro that i will overclock to pro level, but i have yet to find a game that i say, damn i cant play, my GF2 is too slow.

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

it is, it's 400 bucks though i think the 9700 pro is 300.

Life is irrelivent and irrational.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=9933" target="_new"> My Rig </A>

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

hmm my bad, i just check newegg and it's not in stock on newegg *shrugs*

Life is irrelivent and irrational.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=9933" target="_new"> My Rig </A>

 

[jiffy]

You’re not a stupid American, huh. Well, what do you call it when I say I have a GF2 GTS card and I also have a GF2 Ultra card, but yet you say I would be surprise how good they play? I didn’t say they can’t play today’s games, I just said they suck doing so.

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When you feel that reality does not suit you, live a fantasy life.

 

[xxsk8er101xx]

I have had two radeons so far. THey run fine. Never had a problem with them. I have had minor problems with my new ATI AIW 9700 pro but it works though. It'll be fine. Usually the cd that it comes with does everything for you. Only when you upgrade from ATI's website is where you need to follow directions otherwise you'll get a blue screen of death and you have to go in safe mode and run system restore. so ya ... i've had problems with nvidia drivers too so.

Life is irrelivent and irrational.

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/mysystemrig.html?id=9933" target="_new"> My Rig </A>

 

[jiffy]

Thanks for the tip. I’m glad it works, but what about the minor problems, did you get them work out?

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When you feel that reality does not suit you, live a fantasy life.