advice about cards

[zippity]

im planning on building a system pretty soon and I was pretty set on buying a sapphire 9700 pro retail off of newegg.com for ~350 bucks, but then I started reading up on the 9800 pro and thought, what the heck, and looked it up on newegg.com and they have the oem sapphire 9800 pro for about 50 bucks more, along with the connect3d and powercolor retail versions.

so i thought ill go ahead and shell out $50 dollars more for the sapphire 9800 pro..

is this wise if it's oem? should i just get the 9700 pro retail? is there any difference between the sapphire 9800 pro retail and oem besides the bundled software and stuff?

what would you do?

i also wont be able to upgrade for a while after this so im looking for a card thatll last through this year and be able to handle the games next year too

thanks

 

[Budmantom]

Looks like the 9700pro has special cooling "Outfitted with an industry first, fan-free heat pipe cooling solution, the ULTIMATE remains silent as it maintains a lower operating temperature then conventional active cooling solutions."

I would go with the 9800 for $50 more.

However if your looking to get 2 years worth, you might want to buy a 9700np for around $200 then in 6-9 months resell it and buy a R400 card.

 

[zippity]

ok sounds good

if i were to take the 9800 pro route.. what would be best.. the oem Sapphire, the powercolor, or the connect 3d?

these are the only 9800 pro i see on newegg.com

 

[Budmantom]

Buy the one with the best warranty. I would go with Powercolor I think that retail products have a better warranty then oem. (I could be wrong)

 

[BmXStuD]

cheaper place from pricewatch.com duh@