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MSI Radeon 9800 Pro: Anyone have any opinions?

S

ShyGuy91284

Member
I'm probably going to be getting a Radeon 9800 Pro based card soon. Performance-wise, they all seem pretty similar, with Powercolor having a slight edge. On newegg, I noticed MSI's card has a hell of a bundle, so I'm tempted to get that one (can't resist free games). It's listed as being at 378 instead of 380 for clock speed. Anyone try this card out yet and have some opinions?
 
All Radeon 9800 pro cards are actually 378 core, they just list as 380, so no loss there. How much extra are they charging you, if your interested in those games go for it.
 
The MSI bundle ain't that great, unless you consider Morrowind alone a "hell of a bundle." 🙂 Most of those titles are demos.

The MSI heatsink looks very nice, though.
 
Just checked Newegg. You should be aware that the MSI your looking at is a 128 bit version. Which is a severely crippled 9800 PRo. Stay far far away from it.
 
I don't recall seeing that "128-bit" there before, and it certainly doesn't match up with the price. It also doesn't look like a 128-bit card, and its clocks match up with 256-bit versions (128-bit versions tend to use TSOP RAM and thus have <300MHz DDR, whereas MSI claims this has 338MHZ DDR). Something doesn't add up. I think NewEgg may be mistaken in this case, but I wouldn't buy before clarifying it with them.

Here's a link to the MSI RX9800Pro in question. There's a link to MSI's product page on the bottom of the leftmost column.
 
Originally posted by: Pete
I don't recall seeing that "128-bit" there before, and it certainly doesn't match up with the price. It also doesn't look like a 128-bit card, and its clocks match up with 256-bit versions (128-bit versions tend to use TSOP RAM and thus have <300MHz DDR, whereas MSI claims this has 338MHZ DDR). Something doesn't add up. I think NewEgg may be mistaken in this case, but I wouldn't buy before clarifying it with them.

Here's a link to the MSI RX9800Pro in question. There's a link to MSI's product page on the bottom of the leftmost column.
Click to expand...
MSI ATI RX9800PRO Video Card, 128MB DDR, 128-bit, DVI/S-Video, 8X AGP, Model "RX9800PRO-TD128" -RETAIL
Click to expand...

Not 128-bit?

However:
Memory Configuration 128MB DDR/256-bit
Click to expand...

Go figure.
 
yeah i was looking at this as well...and MSI's website says it's 256-bit...i was still gonna call before ordering one, but i'll bet it's 256 and newegg has a mistake. though the retail cards are usually more expensive...and this one's right down there in price with a bunch of the OEM's...i dunno

the HSF is pretty nice looking...covering the ram as well as the GPU. and knowing MSI it's probably easily overclockable...newegg's one customer reviewer says he's got his up to 400/720...not bad at all.

one other thing i noticed that was weird...the max refresh rate is lower than the other sapphire/powercolor/stock ATI. it's 2048x1536@65Hz instead of 85Hz on the other cards. obviously nobody's going to be playing games at this res, and the MSI card does 85Hz @ 1600x1200, so that's fine...but why the small difference?

and it also says it's OpenGL 1.5 instead of 2.0....umm....why would they do that? i couldn't find whether or not that was another newegg mistake via MSI's website...so i dunno.
 
Ah yes, I recall seeing the OpenGL thing there too.... Hmmm.... I might just go with a powercolor or sapphire (The ~370 reviews can't be wrong). Unless newegg clears this stuff up, this card does sound strange.
 
I'd still go for the Sapphire 9800P @ Allstarshop that includes HL2 for $225. That's the best deal out there ATM, IMO.
 
Wow, thanks for the tip. I was planning on getting HL2 also (Big drive for me to get a new vid card), but the ATI cards that had the coupon were either too slow or too expensive. That's almost def. what I'm going to get prolly now.
 
Though their site seems pretty clear, I'd double-check with Allstarshop to confirm that you will indeed get a HL2 voucher with that card before buying.
 
Yeah, I prolly will. They are clear, but I thought the voucher was only available for XT (maybe SE also) cards, and only ATI versions of the cards.
 
Even was thinking to buy that, BTW newegg now list t as 256 bit, I think it was a typo. And I had also inquired about Opengl2.0, apparently t has been released yet so there cannot be any specfications for t yet, hence t list as Opengl 1.5 in the supported API
 
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