ATI RADEON 9700 Pro and AGP 4x

[-[xs]-mirage]

I have a mobo that only supports AGPx4

If i bought the card how much of a performance hit would it have?

And

NVIDIA 4200 TI

vs

ATI RADEON 9700 Pro

Both a 4x i think the 9700 would win..

but i need to know how much a performance hit i would take using only 4x vs 8x.

Please help.

Many thanks in advance.

 

[Taurus]

very little, if any. trust me. the biggest performance jump i've seen from going from 4x to 8x has been a matter of about 200 3dmarks... on a machine that gets 15-16k. so, about 1%.

later down the line with even faster cards, 8x will have a larger advantage. but current cards don't really use up more than the 1gb/sec of agp 4x.

 

[shoulin]

yep mr. elk grove is right, not much difference as of yet

 

[-[xs]-mirage]

any more opinoins?

 

[Nick M]

A very slight increase, hardly noticable but in benchmarks..

 

[gonaads]

The ATI RADEON 9700 Pro is a more stout card but at 4X it's not much.

 

[-[xs]-mirage]

9700 pro ... here i come!

thanks guys.. im gonna get that card..

Now.. onto the actual card. i was wondering if you guys had an opinion about which card is best?

Tacheyon?
ATI Reference etc

??

 

[Jz1397-5]

if you are going to buy an ATI 9700 Pro, i would either suggest one from BBA (built by ATI) or one from Hercules. They chips are all the same, ATI makes em and ships them out to other suppliers, so really you will get the same chip wherever you go frorm ATI. (in my experience i find that the BBA is the best bet)

 

[-[xs]-mirage]

what about the ram.. some of the ram has the capacity for higher speeds due to their higher quality etc..

whats the best overall card. (i know the best is the Herc.. but )

 

[Sazar]

Originally posted by -[xs]-mirage
9700 pro ... here i come!

thanks guys.. im gonna get that card..

Now.. onto the actual card. i was wondering if you guys had an opinion about which card is best?

Tacheyon?
ATI Reference etc

??

coupla quick points before I guide you to the choice card to get..

first off agp 4x-8x makes NO discernible difference in performance whatsoever... a delta of 1% is negligible... and in some test agp4x is faster... which means that there are no games/apps taking advantage of the extra bandwidth afforded @ the moment...

I am still trying to figure out what gonaads statement about the card being stout but not much @ agp4x really means... makes no sense to me @ this time...

@ this point in time and probably through this year you will not be bottlenecked by the agp4x platform... maybe near the end of the year/year 2k4 you may notice more apps/games using agp8x better and therefore a bigger performance difference..

now... you have a very nice system there... and I assume you are going to water cool your gpu ?

if you water cool your gpu AND the bga ram chips... you are easily going to be able to run the card @ clocks of 400/400 memory/core... better than the default 325/310 clocks..

there are a couple of solutions on the market that you may consider looking @...

the tyan offering is quite nice and it has a cooler that covers the gpu and the bga ram sinks and therefore affords decent overclocking potential... as well as looking hella cool

Tyan 9700pro

the sapphire offering has one of the largest coolers on the market... it is fanless therefore completely quiet...

this card benches very very well but overclocking potential is not as good as the tyan unless you add a fan... turning the passive cooling into active cooling...

sapphire passive cooled 9700pro

bear in mind you can buy a reference 9700pro board for around 310-330 bucks from reputable retailers and remove the stock cooler and install the brilliant copper cooler from zalman...

zalman passive heatpipe

note that the cards and coolers I have listed are BIG and therefore you would need space around your dimm slots and also perhaps your first pci slot to be empty...

if you can't do this... get the reference ati retail 9700pro card and you will be fine...

check out www.rage3d.com if you have any problems with your card... bear in mind reading about problems people have there... it is a tech support channel people are supposed to post their problems..

personally I have never had a problem with my 9700pro and it plays all games I have @ max resolution or @ 1024x768 and AA and FSAA turned on high... depends on the game... ie mohaa spearhead will not let me play @ 1600x1200...

check out the links and enjoy the card... it is quite a nice upgrade...

 

[Sazar]

Originally posted by -[xs]-mirage
what about the ram.. some of the ram has the capacity for higher speeds due to their higher quality etc..

whats the best overall card. (i know the best is the Herc.. but )

ati's main memory provider is hynix

if you get a 9700pro board I would recommend getting the newer revision (has a coupla extra capacitors to regulate signals)

it is not a design flaw with the card... some boards that are supposed to be agp8x boards have a problem in their design... while they work on a solution ati has already fixed the issue...

the card would be a revision 1.3 card...

mine is an original card and I have no probs...

 

[Sazar]

Originally posted by Jz1397-4
if you are going to buy an ATI 9700 Pro, i would either suggest one from BBA (built by ATI) or one from Hercules. They chips are all the same, ATI makes em and ships them out to other suppliers, so really you will get the same chip wherever you go frorm ATI. (in my experience i find that the BBA is the best bet)

didn't know hercules was so hot...

the cards sold by all the retaillers of ati products are basically the reference card.... tyan wanted to sell one clocked @ 400mhz but decided against it because of possible liability if people started oc'ing and rma'ing the products and what not so they stuck with the stock..

overall the card is always the same except for the coolers...

if you look around on rage3d... you will find some newer bios'es that you can flash your card to if that floats your boat...

 

[Jz1397-5]

i still want to know how you got 118 on game 4 nature...


edit: directx 9 maybe? (i will run later tonight and see if i can beat you FINALLY)

 

[Sazar]

Originally posted by Jz1397-4
i still want to know how you got 118 on game 4 nature...


edit: directx 9 maybe? (i will run later tonight and see if i can beat you FINALLY)

no... not just dx9... my old top score which I have since deleted had 117 odd points... almost 118 and I was using dx 8.1 at the time..

but I have refused to push my card... I will push the cpu but not the card...

no real point if I am playing games w/o problems

please do not push your card to the extent where you blow it...

my rig's nature score is higher btw than some people I have seen with 17k plus points in this synthetic and utterly useless benchmark

:edit: its my b'day today and you can still call me daddy