9700pro vs 5900NU?

[amheck]

Hi, I'm shopping for ~$100 video card, give or take a few bucks. I came across a 5900NU that would come in right at $100. I looked at the VGA charts over at Toms and Chart III shows the 5900NU leading the 9700pro in most tests, but then the VGA CHarts IV shows the 9700Pro ahead in most of the benchmarks I looked at.

From you're experience, which one of these is the better card?

Aaron

 

[imported_Computer MAn]

I'd say the 9700pro because the FX series was a bomb and can't run some of the higher end DX9 features with good performance, Look at HL2 the FX series which should run DX9 has to run DX8

 

[modedepe]

I'd take the 9700 pro. In most things they are fairly close, except dx9, where the 5900 is forced to become a dx8 card, while the 9700 pro performs in dx9 just fine.

 

[yhelothar]

Depends. I'd personally take the 5900, once you bios-mod it to the 5950, which it can very easily, it will absolutely blow the 9700pro out of the water in everything except heavy DX9 games, which is limited to pretty much HL2. In farcry, it'll run a tad slower, but that is it. Once you factor in driver quality and features, there's no competition. I'm speaking from personal experience after using the 9700pro, 5900, 5950 biosmod, and the 9800pro.
Firing Squad also reports 5900 has a large lead over the 9800pro in terms of 2D performance, thus choosing it for their ultimate high-end machine in 2003

 

[amheck]

Thanks for the responses. I guess it seems pretty close. THis is just kinda a hold-me-over card until I can get a 6600GT with a NF4 setup. So at least now maybe I have another card to scour the FS forums for.

Is the bios-mod pretty straightforward and non-risky? I'm going to read the link you sent now. Maybe that mentions the mod, too, but I thought I'd ask anyway.

 

[yhelothar]

I've done it twice. It's very straight forward, boot up in dos and type in the command to open the bios flasher and the bios.
Tells you right in the read me. If you do plan to get it, PM me and I can send you the files.

Oh yeah don't forget this performance hack for HL2
http://www.yafro.com/clubs/?ac...te=viewClub&tok=h3

 

[BFG10K]

once you bios-mod it to the 5950, which it can very easily,

It's easy to flash but it doesn't mean it'll actually work properly at the speed. Besides, the 9700 Pro will still tool it in shader heavy games.

 

[Cawchy87]

9700 pro. my friend had a flashed 5950 and he traded it for a 9700pro and got better results in every game... including Doom 3.

 

[Sc4freak]

I'd take the 9700pro.

 

[yhelothar]

Originally posted by: Cawchy87
9700 pro. my friend had a flashed 5950 and he traded it for a 9700pro and got better results in every game... including Doom 3.

uh something must be wrong with his setup then.

quote:

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once you bios-mod it to the 5950, which it can very easily,
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It's easy to flash but it doesn't mean it'll actually work properly at the speed. Besides, the 9700 Pro will still tool it in shader heavy games.

Yep, but if you get the non XT one, most likely it can clock at 5950. And so far there aren't much heavy shader games out besides hl2 and farcry. They run at about the same speeds if you ran 5950 at FP16 mode.

 

[Zardnok]

9700 pro.

 

[ingenuiti]

9700 Pro

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: virtualgames0
Once you factor in driver quality

What exactly is wrong in the ATI drivers that is so right in the Nvidia ones these days? They ain't exactly worlds apart anymore...

and features there's no competition

What features?

Firing Squad also reports 5900 has a large lead over the 9800pro in terms of 2D performance, thus choosing it for their ultimate high-end machine in 2003[/quote]

Last I checked, it's 2004 (almost 2005) and both companies have improved their drivers and performance markedly.

The difference won't be earth shattering either way. The 5900 will be faster in some non shader-heavy titles, while the 9700 Pro will be faster in the usual shader heavy games: HL2, Far Cry, etc. Drivers certainly aren't the swing vote anymore; both companies have excellent drivers. ATI's have improved tremendously in the last year.

Neither are terribly future proof either, but if I were getting one I'd probably get the 9700 Pro just because if you're buying a >$100 card, you want good performance in HL2, Far Cry, etc. Non-shader heavy games perform great on either card (being a bit faster on the 5900, but not unplayably slow by any means of the term).

 

[dguy6789]

The 9700 pro for these reasons. DX9 based games are the future, and in dx9 9700Pro>any geforce fx. ATI has superior drivers to nvidia btw. Nvidia has slowed driver production down to 3-4 times a year, when ati does it once a month. So if a game has a problem with an nvidia card, your gonna have to wait a while to get it fixed.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

that little hack is pretty nifty one pound fifty, doesnt work on 6800's does it? tho i think they were built to from the start to run FP32 and thus run FP16 at the same speed?

 

[amheck]

Well, I ended up finding a 9700pro on the FS board last nite, so I'm good to go. Now just searching for an arctic silencer rev3 and I can be done with this whole thing. I had no idea how tiring it is trying to keep up with how fast the FS forums move! You go away for a few hours and there are pages and pages to read!

 

[BFG10K]

Yep, but if you get the non XT one, most likely it can clock at 5950.

Most likely != will.

And so far there aren't much heavy shader games out besides hl2 and farcry.

I that supposed to be a joke?

They run at about the same speeds if you ran 5950 at FP16 mode.

How exactly does running lower IQ make the 5950 the better card?

 

[Marsumane]

5900 is better it the majority of games, yet lately the most recently released games, as well as tomarrow's games the 9700p will be either faster, have higher iq, or a combination of both. If you are planning on upgrading within 1/2 a yr to a 6600gt, get the 5900. Otherwise, if you are planning on keeping the card for a year or longer, get the 9700p. In any case, after about a yr and a half I'd guess that both cards will be below your satisfaction in the combinations of iq and framerate.

 

[yhelothar]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

Yep, but if you get the non XT one, most likely it can clock at 5950.

Most likely != will.

And so far there aren't much heavy shader games out besides hl2 and farcry.

I that supposed to be a joke?

They run at about the same speeds if you ran 5950 at FP16 mode.

How exactly does running lower IQ make the 5950 the better card?

If you only consider the performance of both cards, I'd go for the 9700Pro also. Although performance is so close that I would rather just get the nvidia card for the superior drivers. ATI drivers have improved in quality, but they certainly don't hold a candle to nvidia drivers in my experience. But then again the latest driver revision I used before I traded off the 9800pro was the CAT3.9, so I haven't had experience with the 4.x drivers. I think anyone who's played a wide variety of games on both cards would agree that nvidia drivers are generally more compatible.

Both my 5900 cards overclocked past 500MHz easily, so I'm adamant that it can easily hit 475MHz with the extra voltage boost the 5950 drivers provides. The memory might not hit 950MHz, but that isn't important as memory speed doesn't affect the 5900 much.
So I'm certain that 9/10 cards can easily reach near 5950U speeds.

 

[Cerb]

9700 Pro for gaming. A 5900 wouldn't be bad, and they OC nicely, but out of the box, the 9700 Pro would be a better choice.
NVidias do have better 2d performance. You won't notice it unless you have a lot of stuff transparent, but it is a reality.

However...9700 Pro would be easier on heat, competitive performance (DX8), better performance in new stuff (DX9).

 

[BFG10K]

Although performance is so close that I would rather just get the nvidia card for the superior drivers.

I do agree that nVidia's drivers edge ATI's but I'm not certain the large performance rift in shader games is worth it.

 

[Noid]

9700pro....

With some tweaks ,,, you can also OC your card like mine ...

Take a look at my sig (futuremark info)

 

[Astu222]

why not get the 9700 pro and mod it to a 5950?

 

[amheck]

Noid,

Yeah, I hope to be able to overclock just a little. I'm looking for the Arctic Silencer3 and that, with the 9700pro, should be a nice combo. If you have any overclocking tips (I guess you use something called ATITool?) I'd appreciate any ideas or suggestions.

Aaron

 

[Noid]

Get RaBiT 1.6
(download on left side of page)

Be carefull when removing the stock HSF unit.
Don't forget to remove the shim.

I'd also get some DDR chipset sinks

I get blocks of these.
Then cut them to size.

I dont Use ATiTool.
(It almost fried my card)