Radeon 9700 vs Radeon 9700 Pro

[gaskie]

Folks,

I need to buy a new graphics card in the near future and have decided to go for ATI's 9700 card. Can anyone enlighten me to the major differences between the Pro and non Pro models, and what these differences mean to real world performance?

Cheers,

Gask.

 

[Excelsior]

Only the clockspeed is different. Everything else is the same. If you were to successfully overlcock the 9700, you could nearly reach exact Pro speeds. At least on the core clock, maybe not memory. Eitherway, they will perform about the same.

 

[Killrose]

Take a look at Anand's articles and others. The 9700np has slower ram which clocks the mem lower than the pro. And the 9700np is overclocked locked in bios, which is easily hacked by downloading a different bios, and it's cheaper. The slower ram is the only real difference.

 

[Richdog]

My advice buddy is to go for the 9700 over the 9700 PRO as the performance is nearly identical in all but 1600*1200, and with all the upcoming advances in technology youre not likely going to be keeping it that long before the "next big thing" comes along. Just don't get a Geforce FX, overpriced and overrated! I reckon ATI is the new AMD, concentrating on performance and value. Just a little advice hope it helps!

 

[CJP]

Ati is going to have new cards out over the next few months - r350, rv350 - for both performance and mainstream price points so there's that to consider too.

Chris

 

[AnAndAustin]

Yup. Grab a 9700 and o/c it. You should easily get VERY near to 9700PRO perf, the 9700PRO don't tend to o/c that great which also narrows the gap and just means they really aren't worth paying the extra for UNLESS you're scared of o/c'ing. If you wait between 4 and 8 weeks the both GF-FX and new Radeons will be out and that will make the 9700 cheaper OR they'll be something better to buy at the same price.

 

[gaskie]

Cheers for all the info lads, much appreciated.

I think that I am going to go for a 9700 non pro, can get one for £190 all in. Overclocking seems to be the key!! Do I need a better cooling solution than the standard one if I am going to overclock this card? And is it purely a software overclock or are hardware tweaks needed? What manufacturer makes good 9700 cards?

Just one other thing though, are there any ports that the pro has that the non pro doesnt?

Sorry for all the questions people!!

TIA,

James.

 

[CJP]

If you're going to go the flashing the bios route with a non-pro you can get the flash utility and the hacked bios here...

bios

Chris

 

[AnAndAustin]

Manu should make very little diff for the 9700 cards, all ports and features should be the same so all that is likely to be different is the box and sw if there is any, still best to confirm it has TVout and the ports you want, I haven't heard of any manu oimitting the dual RAMDACs or using DVI-D so dual display should be standard too.

No additonal cooling is needed, you should get very close to 9700PRO perf and all you need is to flash or edit the BIOS of the gfx card. I have heard some cards can be o/c'ed without the need to flash the BIOS but I'm not sure which ones or what tweaking program you'd need. Basicly the only diff between the 9700 and 9700PRO is the clock speeds and the 9700 much like the 9500/9500PRO have a fair amount of lee-way in them. Of course the 9700PRO is going to have faster rated RAM which will o/c a little higher but even so the 9700 is quite a bargain! Here's some UK prices:

www.dabs.com (£4.50 P&P 1-2 days)
DabsV Rad9700 128MB (TVout?) £193 (overdue)
Sapphire Rad9700 128MB TVout £202

www.komplett.co.uk (£6ish P&P 2-3 days)
Sapphire Rad9700 128MB TVout £183 (expected 21st Feb)

www.crucial.com/uk (free P&P)
Crucial Rad9700PRO 128MB TVout £234

www.savastore.com (Watford - £5ish IIRC)
Unknown Rad9700 128MB (TVout?) £202 (2-3 days)

www2.theoverclockingstore.co.uk (free P&P 1-5 days)
Connect3D Rad9700 128MB TVout £188 (2-3 weeks)

www.novatech.co.uk (unk)
Novatech Rad9700 128MB TVout £182 (2-3 days)

www.aria.co.uk (unk)
Unknown Rad9700 128MB (pic shows TVout) £199

These are the places I shop or trusted people have rec to shop at, any others you use? HTH!