Pixel-Churners: A round-up of Radeon 9700 PRO cards

Crucial Radeon 9700 PRO

The American manufacturer Crucial is known mostly for its enormous selection of memory products, including DRAM and Compact Flash modules. It recently added ATi-based graphics cards to its assortment.

The only thing that distinguishes this board from the ATi reference card is the sticker on the fan.

Crucial ships the card in a humdrum white box; an understandable move, since the cards can only be ordered online anyway, and bright packaging would merely rack up unnecessary costs. Except for the company's logo on the fan, the card is a twin of the ATi original design. Don't bother looking for a comprehensive manual - Crucial just includes a small leaflet explaining how to install the card. The board ships with a power adapter, a composite cable (1.90 m) with adapter, an S-VHS cable (1.80 m), and a DVI-VGA adapter.

The back of the card.

Like ATi, Crucial supplies a modest software package - a driver CD that also contains the MultiMedia Center with the DVD player and Hydravision. While this is a solid bundle overall, it, like the original ATi card, doesn't offer too many extras.

The fan offers adequate cooling power.

• Plus points:
• 
  Multimedia Center incl. DVD player
  Hydravision
  Good support website with card-related instructions and FAQs
• Minus points:
• 
  Puny software bundle