Radeon 9700 Pro and SiS648 boards?

[Rick67]

I've heard there's a problem getting the 9700 to run AGP 8X. Can anyone confirm this?

 

[VSEKH]

I can confirm that it does not work in agp4x or 8x mode on the Abit SR7-8X motherboard(SIS648 chipset). We'll have to wait and see once the other manufacturers release their SIS648 boards and see if it works.

 

[Rand]

I suspect the AGP8X issues on SiS648 boards may be due to the chipset rather then the graphics card as I've heard a lot of reports that the Xabre is rather inconsistent at AGP 8X on the SiS648 also.

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

There are AGP 8X problems on both AGP 8X chipsets out there right now. The 9700 works on neither of them.

 

[WetWilly]

The basic problem with AGP 8X and SiS boards is that the latest SiS AGP driver (v1.11) is required to enable AGP 8X operation. It's been publicly available for ~2 weeks, and I'd presume beta versions were available before that so I don't know why test sites haven't been using it.

As for the Abit/Xabre issue, the latest BA BIOS for the Abit SR7-8X fixes the Xabre's AGP 8X POST issues.

The 9700 works on neither of them

Not true. The 9700 has been tested with the Shuttle AS45GTR/SiS 648 board. It does work in both AGP 4X and 8X modes. Performance, on the other hand, may be another story.

 

[VSEKH]

I have already installed the SIS AGP 1.11 drivers on my Abit SR7-8X mobo. I am able to bootup in AGP4x and AGP8x settings from the bios. But, I keep getting blue screens whenever I do anything. The SIS drivers did not help me any. Supposedly, these drivers are needed to enable AGP8x on the Shuttle board, which is not available yet.

 

[Tates]

I saw this post at Asusboards.com:

Radeon 9700 Has 8X Issue AND ATI FIX

Spent over an hour with ATI Customer Service Canada and more important, the Engineering Dept. The subject: Our testing shows the Radeon 9700 will NOT work at all on the Asus P4S8X (SiS648), Gigabyte 7VAXP (KT400/8235), and VIA P4PB (P4X400/8235) which are the only 8x AGP boards on the market. Customer Service was not completely aware of this, but Engineering is.

According to ATI, they are now receiving and testing these 8X AGP boards. They are ALSO finding the 9700 does not work at all or works intermittently at best. Engineering indicated most of the boards already shipped have this problem.

Solution: A new BIOS and some board revisions are now available that fix this problem. Call ATI Customer Service for help with the issue. At present, they will ship a replacement board that WILL work in SiS and VIA 8X, but they are also considering a BIOS flash solution for problem boards.

Customer Service and Engineering deserve a 10-1/2 for their wonderful handling of this issue. They are very concerned that it be corrected quickly. They also shared that most of their 8X validation testing was done with Intel's unreleased 8X chipset and that they are just now receiving shipping versions of the SiS and VIA 8X chipsets.