Sapphire Radeon 9000/9700- what do YOU think? POLL

[bluemax]

Sapphire products are becoming more and more common. In light of this, I'm wondering what the "general public" thinks about the Sapphire name and its products. Would you buy one? Why or why not? Questions? Fears?

How do you feel about "Powered by ATI".....

And if/when they release a Radeon 9700 card, it would likely be less expensive than a Retail ATI card. Would you buy one?
Have a look at Sapphire Home

 

[DeschutesCore]

We recently recieved some of the Sapphire Radeon 9000 Atlantis cards in our shop, and I must say, they work just fine. Drivers are stable, image quality is good, performance was decent. Overall, I'd be satisfied with the purchase on a mid to low range box.

DC

 

[Rand]

To be honest, I'm not sure what to think of Sapphire anymore... my experience with their R7500LE and R8500LE boards was quite negative. They were of noticeably inferior quality of manufacturer and the R8500LE was clocked disturbingly low relative to other third party Radeon boards, while their R7500LE used SDR rather then DDR SDRAM.

On the other hand I've heard nothing but positive comments of their reg. R8500, and their latest Radeon 9000 products. Apparently their clocked according to ATi's specs and I've heard they overclock decently with no significant quality issues.

So personally... I'd probably do exactly what your doing and look for more information before considering them.
One positive aspect is that for a relatively small company their RMA practices and customer support were reasonably good. Not the best I've seen but they were quick and efficient.


I voted negative as I wasnt favorably impressed with either Sapphire product I've seen/used, but with all the positive comments I've heard of late I'm slightly reconsidering that impression.

 

[Dolemite76]

never heard of the company... but i'm gonna research 'em to see what they offer... maybe i'll like 'em... who knows???

 

[Budman]

I like then and i have one right now, 8500LE 128 megs.

But be aware if you get a 8500LE they are clocked lower,mine was 250 core & only 200mem,but I am able to OC the core to 290 & the mem to 250 without problems.


Overall it's a good cheap card.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

Distributors/wholesalers in CA sell Sapphire's ATI cards as original ATI oem cards.
I'm wondering is Sapphire actually the oem for original "built by ATI" cards?
Otherwise, why they treat Sapphire's cards as original ATI oem cards?

From http://www.sapphiretech.com/

SAPPHIRE - Your Reliable Source on High-quality ATI Video Graphics Adaptor
Ever since ATI announced its manufacturing & distribution
relationships with ODMs and AiBs in June of 2001, SAPPHIRE
has always been the key ATI Graphics Boards Supplier
worldwide. SAPPHIRE designs, manufactures and distributes
the most complete range of ATI video boards--from mainstream
level Xpert98 to the state-of-the-art technology-enriched
Radeon 9000Pro boards. SAPPHIRE never compromise in quality.
All ATI board designs are strictly layout to represent the usual
high-quality image on ATI original board. We also layout other
designs to accommodate different market niches. SAPPHIRE
ATI video board has long been the reliable choice for a great
number of OEMs and large SIs in Europe, North America, Asia
and Latin America.

All SAPPHIRE ATI video boards are
manufactured under 100% ATI production
criteria including QC and outgoing system.
Our factory is an ISO9001 and ISO14001 certified facility. Our monthly video board production capacity could reach 1.8 million.
Our factory has always been the major manufacturer
on ATI boards for most of the top ten tier 1 OEMs worldwide.
With this background, you should undoubtedly be guaranteed
on the impeccable quality, production capacity and
product reliability of all ATI video boards from SAPPHIRE.

 

[bluemax]

Bump for Sapphire.... would YOU buy a Radeon 9700 for less money if it was a Sappire brand?

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: bluemax
Bump for Sapphire.... would YOU buy a Radeon 9700 for less money if it was a Sappire brand?

You don't work for them do you? Sounds like a marketing survey!

Anand recently previewed Gigabyte's 9700 Pro. In that preview, he praises the card's ability to OC to 400Mhz, but also complains of some quality issues like the heatsink being poorly mounted. "Powered by ATi" cards are a relatively new thing, so it remains to be seen whether they are worth the reduction in price.

 

[AnMig]

snagged a $75 sapphire 9000 oem 64mb (non pro) at new egg about 3-4 weeks ago for my daughters computer.
It works well and stable but does not overclock well. I get the sense that they may use inferior memory.

If I had to do it again I would have bought a radeon 8500. it benches about 2000 less 3dmarks se scores than my non overclocked 8500.


I would probably stick to ati boards or wait until somebody does a review on them before I buy a built by somebody else board next time.




peace

 

[Aquaman]

Bring it on

Cheers,
Aquaman

 

[bluemax]

I'd like to say first off, I do not work for Sapphire. I wish I did.
I like what I'm hearing, folks... all opinions are welcome.

What I'm hoping to do is a "research project" of sorts. I'm looking into "Powered by ATI" products and doing a quality assessment.
Totally on my own.
Why? Well, if I can help out an underdog (if they're worth helping...) I'd feel good about it.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

AnMig, 9000 is slower than 8500, this is well known. That's why Sapphire 9000 is cheaper than Sapphire 8500.
The best buy is Sapphire 8500LE 128MB ($119 from newegg) and original retail ATI 8500 128MB (once buycom had it for one day special $130).

 

[rbV5]

Sapphire seemed to be getting there act together......but how, how, how could you solder 6ns micron ram onto a PCB with an 8500 GPU? With a straight face? and sleep at night?

 

[jacktesterson]

Well I bought a Saphire Radeon 7500 64 MB DDR for a friend and put in his machine. I installed the drivers that came with it, and then tried drivers for ATI's Radeon 7500 and they worked as well, but went back to saphire drivers. Overall the card works great, stable, good drivers and performs like the ATI (once o/c)...reason I say once O/C, they come a little underclocked, but with Powerstrip, I was able to bump it up to ATI's standards without a problem....(I remember buying an Apolo GeForce2 MX-400 and it was underclocked as well)....but some of these brands do this. My main machine has an Apolo 4500 (Kyro II 64 MB) and it came clocked the same as the Herclues model has the same design and get same scores on 3d marks....Id recommend the Saphire truthfully

 

[bluemax]

Originally posted by: rbV5
Sapphire seemed to be getting there act together......but how, how, how could you solder 6ns micron ram onto a PCB with an 8500 GPU? With a straight face? and sleep at night?

Ask Crucial.

 

[rbV5]

Ask Crucial.

Its not like the Sapphire isn't familiar with customer expectations as far a video card performance is concerned - they'll expect a "little" less with budget pricing = good bang for the buck, a little voltage mod pencil trick, a little bios flash, some ram H/S and a fan upgrade perhaps= potential awesome bang for the buck.

And its not like crucial doesn't understand branding and performance, hell thats what they built their good name on.

The expectations for a Crucial Card..at least in my mind...was for a sweet performance based card, perhaps at a little premium, but a mad overclocker with quality components.

Sapphire and Crucial both out to be damn ashamed of the Crucial Radeon 8500....Premium Price, No possible way to squeeze performance from that piece of crap at all. Same ram speed as my original AIW Radeon...that is utterly pathetic.....and then to listen to the BS from Crucial about valuing Quality over Raw speed for their entry into video card market...OMG...absolutely horrible.

 

[bluemax]

Funny.... I don't see a Radeon 8500 product on the Sapphire website clocked below 250MHz RAM speed.
You sure you're thinking of Sapphire, not Crucial?

6ns RAM couldn't get to 250MHz, could it?

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: bluemax
I'd like to say first off, I do not work for Sapphire. I wish I did.
I like what I'm hearing, folks... all opinions are welcome.

What I'm hoping to do is a "research project" of sorts. I'm looking into "Powered by ATI" products and doing a quality assessment.
Totally on my own.
Why? Well, if I can help out an underdog (if they're worth helping...) I'd feel good about it.

Hmm, bluemax, sapphire . . . coincidence?



Anyway, I vote for more info before I decide.

 

[bluemax]

Originally posted by: apoppinHmm, bluemax, sapphire . . . coincidence?

Anyway, I vote for more info before I decide.

LOL! Well, I've been BlueMax for longer than there's been a "Sapphire" brand.
If I worked for the company, I'd probably have a shiny new Radeon 9700 at this point.
I'd love to work in this kind of field... promotion, sales, computer industry.... something so much larger than a store lackey.
Goodness knows I have the qualifications for it... just don't rub elbows enough, I guess.

 

[rbV5]

You sure you're thinking of Sapphire, not Crucial?

Sapphire manufacters the Crucial Radeon cards, I hold them both equally responsible for that POS.

Snippet from Reactor Critical:
We reported less than a week ago that Crucial Technology, known for its memory-modules, started to sell videoboards based on RADEON 8500LE. This time we have some more information to tell you about their card thanks to PC-Stats.

The videoadapters sold by Crucial are manufactured by Sapphire Technology. The latter is a subsidiary of Hong-Kong based PC-Partner holding who collaborates with ATI and manufacturers almost all the boards sold under "Built by ATI" label (see this news-story for details). All in all, the cards are quality enough.

The very bad thing about the board is that they are equipped with 128 MB of 6ns memory from Micron clocked at 166 (333) MHz, hence, we can expect quite poor performance of such card. We afraid that this one can be the slowest RADEON 8500LE (or should we say LELE?) on the market. We are sure that even 128 MB of such extremely slow memory will not be able to compete with 64 MB of normal 250 MHz RAM used on most of RADEON 8500LE cards.
.

Key points to consider:
*"manufacturers almost all the boards sold under "Built by ATI" label"
Sapphire Technology is a subsidiary of Hong-Kong based PC-Partner. ATI Technologies has been collaborating with the latter for ten years already and this company manufactured almost all the boards for ATI for the past four or five years. All the videocards with "Build by ATI" sign are made by PC-Partner.
*equipped with 128 MB of 6ns memory from Micron clocked at 166 (333) MHz

Sapphire obviously knows how to build a Radeon board, Crucial obviously knows the performance of Micron Ram...WTF were they thinking?

 

[eplebnista]

Sapphire Radeon 9000/9700- what do YOU think?

I don't know if I can trust third party manufacturers.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

That matches my guess on Sapphire and original ATI cards.

Very strange, I don't see any Sapphire brand ATI cards in Hong Kong.

 

[bluemax]

Bump for the official Sapphire Radeon 9700.

 

[eplebnista]

Originally posted by: bluemax
Bump for the official Sapphire Radeon 9700.

 

[AndyHui]

Neither do I. Plenty of ATI, Torica, Creative and Gigabyte cards, but I can't say I saw any Sapphire cards (and I've been on the lookout for them too).