Radeon Upgrade Question

[bergenvr6]

My visiontek Geforce4 Ti4200 128MB seems to be crapping out on me. The fan just stops at random times and I have to fiddle around with the card, moving it back and forth, to get the fan running again. I suspected it might be the AGP slot on my motherboard, so I put in my old Voodoo5 and it worked fine.

So to my question, I am looking to upgrade to a ATI Radeon 9500 Pro, which seems to be the best bang for buck video card these days. Is there a major difference between the different brands, Athlon Micro, Sapphire, ATI? The ATI is a bit more expensive but if there is a big difference, I'll spend the extra and get ATI, rather than the Sapphire or AM for less bucks.

Suggestions?

 

[J5im8yo]

Of course the ATi built ATi 9500 Pro =D. If its just the fan why not replace it ?

 

[bergenvr6]

I'm not sure if it's just the fan, because I wiggle the entire card back and forth and it works again. Thanks for the reply, but I just pulled the trigger on a Sapphire Red PCB w/ L shaped memory from allstarshop. Supposedly a hack turns it into a 9700, so we'll see

 

[J5im8yo]

There still a chance that it won't work, but its a good chance that it will. For some reason this hack is not toally reliable since my friend who also hacked a 9500 to 9700 said that it was good to start out with than later problems occur. It started when I play wc3 with him he would suddenly drop out. He said the card was giving him artifacts. Anyway, good luck.