Which Radeon 9700 brand?

[Metalloid]

Alright here is my situation. I first have to RMA my PNY Geforce4 TI4400, but when I get it back, I have a friend who wants to buy it. I built his system a few years ago, and I put a Hercules Kyro II in it. My dad wants a new comp, so the Kyro II would suffice perfectly. I told my friend that he could have my GF4 for the Kyro II and $150. He said that he will buy it once he gets $150 (which should be pretty short after the RMA).

As you can see, I need a new video card (I love upgrading! ). I was considering 3 choices:

Leadtek GF4 TI4600 now for around $250
Wait for NV30.
ATI Radeon 9700.

After seeing the recent $35 price drop, and reviewing the articles on it again just to recap on the performance difference (I have heard IQ is better too, which is a very high priority for me), I reasoned that by the time I RMA the card and sell it, prices would be reasonable. Especially with the anticipation of NV30 in or around December, ATI should drop prices again.

Ok now, should I get the actual ATI board, or go with a different manufacturer. Are all of the clock speeds the same between brands, and depending on retail or OEM? I know that with the 8500 series had different clock speeds for OEM and retail, and I wasn't sure if they tried to do that again.

I would really appreciate it if you guys could give me a list of all of my options, and prices.

Thanks a lot everyone.

 

[Sub51]

I'm sorry to hijack your thread, but I have a similar problem:

Buy Radeon 9700 Pro now or wait for the NV30/Geforce 5? How much faster should the Geforce 5 be? If it's only 20% faster on average I wouldn't wait.

Btw, if you do get a Radeon 9700 Pro, get the one made directly by ATI.

 

[Metalloid]

I dont mind the hijacking, you actually asked a question that I would like to hear answered also.

Sub51, do you know if there is a difference between OEM and retail except for the box and warranty?

 

[cmdrdredd]

At this point every 9700Pro is the same card...same specs same memory and same core etc etc etc

Just buy the ATi version for 2 reasons 1)easy RMA and 2)better warranty and tech support direct from the chip maker

I wouldn't bother waiting for the NV30 because you'll be waiting until after the first of the year it looks like. Plus you WON'T see a difference between the NV30 and 9700Pro like you did with the 9700Pro and Ti4600. I can gurantee you that it will not be such a big jump and definately not worth the $399 pricetag it will likely hold for a few months.

I suggest you upgrade to the 9700Pro now and don't worry about anything else. If you say I'll wait for NV30 then you'll say I'll wait for the next 9700Pro revision with .13 process. It's endless...just buy what's good NOW not what may be good because you might be burned.

 

[WyteWatt]

cmdrdredd exactly! You can't keep waiting or you will never buy anything. So buy something when you need to inless a new piece of hardware is like one day away or something like that.

 

[Metalloid]

Well, because I will be RMA'ing my GF4, I won't buy the 9700 until I get the GF4 back, that will give it some more time to let the price come down. I did see though on guru3d.com, that Hercules will be making a 9700. They are one of my favorite companies, and the board comes with ramsinks and a copper GPU cooler. Only a very slight performance increase, but does anyone know when it will come out? I will probably buy the ATI version anyway, but from my experience with Hercules, they are a very awesome manufacturer.

As far as the NV30 goes, seeing as the performance difference will not be huge, and the IQ for nvidia isnt always as good as ATI, I have decided not to wait too long.

Are there any ideas as too the specs for ATI's 9700-DDR-II or whatever it will be called?

 

[Thor86]

Hercules 9700 Pro

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this will be out anytime soon. Still a paper release, but if anyone knows where to obtain one (RETAIL), please post here!

 

[tenoc]

Both Crucial and Sapphire seem to be selling 9700 Pros now with the same specs as ATI. Probably same source as of now too.

The Herc should be available shortly too. That link was a month or two old.

 

[Metalloid]

Do you guys think it would be worth getting the Hercules? It seems that I could put a better GPU HS/F and ramsinks on for a lot cheaper (altough there goes my warranty). How do you think the image quality will compare?

 

[Lonyo]

Don't Saphire make the Ati boards or summat? or some of them at least.

 

[LivinLaVivaPollo]

Lonyo, it's one way or the other. It's either Sapphire making ATI or ATI making Sapphire, either way, it's the same card, regardless of which box. I believe the ramdacs/filters for 2D are housed within the R300 chip, so regardless of which manufacturer and what they give you in terms of a cooling solution, the 2D shouldn't change. The Hercules software package is tempting though. Don't worry about the overclocking yields so much, Anand wasn't the only one that got a 400 mhz chip, I did too on an ATI Retail Box. It's really about 395 right now, no artifacting, but I'm a puss when it comes to extreme overclocking without some better thermal protection, so I dropped it down to 360. Memory is a cool 350x2 = 700 mhz effective.

 

[Metalloid]

Ok I will just buy the ATI then, because my case is cool as can be with 2x120mm 108cfm Sunon fans.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

Just buy the ATi version for 2 reasons 1)easy RMA and 2)better warranty and tech support direct from the chip maker

1. I've never had any trouble with RMA's through Saphire.
2. The warranty is through ATI, and so is the tech support, Saphire just runs/owns the plant that produces the final product.

As far as any other brands go, I have no idea, but my 9700 pro from Saphire should be here Thursday. It pretty much is an ATI board, Saphire uses the exact same specs, chips, transistors, capacitors, etc., etc., using the exact same layout as the reference design. So a Saphire 9700 pro = ATI 9700 pro. Been that way for years, I've even RMA'd an ATI Rage 2000pro and ATI sent me a Saphire Rage 2000pro...Go figure that!

P.S. the only difference between the Retail and White Box(OEM) is that Retail cards comes with a spiffy box.

 

[LivinLaVivaPollo]

I don't believe the OEM cards come with the software or cables, but I could be wrong. I know for a fact though that the OEM R300s don't come with the Fullstream (pixel shading) enabled version of RealOne.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

Originally posted by: LivinLaVivaPollo
I don't believe the OEM cards come with the software or cables, but I could be wrong. I know for a fact though that the OEM R300s don't come with the Fullstream (pixel shading) enabled version of RealOne.

I does come with Fullstream see here. But I don't know what RealOne is, I am assuming its a video playback software of somekind, I can't find any reference to it on ATI's web site anywhere, so I also assume that it's 3rd party. Of course everyone know what happens when you assume...

 

[Metalloid]

Well I almost never use the software bundles that come with stuff anyways, and I would rather have money than the cool box, so is OEM the way to go? I am pretty sure the retail warranty is 5 years, does ATI even give an OEM warranty? Or is it just the crappy 30 day-1 year warranty from the retailer?

 

[LivinLaVivaPollo]

 

[AmazonRasta]

Originally posted by: Metalloid15
I dont mind the hijacking, you actually asked a question that I would like to hear answered also.

Sub51, do you know if there is a difference between OEM and retail except for the box and warranty?

This has probably been said, but sometimes there is a difference in clock speeds between the OEM and retail cards.

 

[phsf98]

how about the Radeon 8500/ 8500LE /9700 card from Gigabyte??

 

[lobadobadingdong]

Originally posted by: Metalloid15
Well I almost never use the software bundles that come with stuff anyways, and I would rather have money than the cool box, so is OEM the way to go? I am pretty sure the retail warranty is 5 years, does ATI even give an OEM warranty? Or is it just the crappy 30 day-1 year warranty from the retailer?

ATI site says retail has 3yr warranty, didn't look very long on Saphire's site, but newegg says OEM has 3 yr warranty also.

 

[30wolverine30]

Get the cheapest version you can, put tweakmonster BGA ramsinks on ($25 @ sidewindercomputers.com) the stock hsf is adequate. And bang 365.5/355 you're rockin, 17,007 3Dmarks!!! Don't forget to put some artic alumina under the hsf. If ya wanna go big ya got to mod! If you mod, you void warranties!! If you don't want to void warranties, stay on the porch!! Or spend the extra cash for the Gigabyte that has the ramsinks!!! JMHO