Radeon 9000 Pro

[iamthewookie 0]

Has anyone bought one?

 

Don't trust benchmarks. Want to upgrade my Radeon VIVO 64DDR and can't afford the puffdaddy 9700.

 

Any opinions?

 

cheers.

[Four and Twenty 0]

My opinion is nVidia. But ATI has been gaining ground recently. I still don't trust ATI's drivers, nVidia drivers seem to be more compatable/stable than ATI and ATI is just barely starting to have a good card anyhow. With the NV30 just around the bend I could give a crap about what ATI has to offer.

[DosFreak 2]

My suggestion:

 

Buy it but see if you can return it. Then do a compare between the latest that Nvidia/Matrox/ATI has to offer. Pick which one you like the most but be fair towards's each.

[Four and Twenty 0]

Quote:

My suggestion:

Buy it but see if you can return it. Then do a compare between the latest that Nvidia/Matrox/ATI has to offer. Pick which one you like the most but be fair towards's each.

Word
the only problem with that is you will get the best prices online and not in the shop. But you could buy from the shop return it and buy the same thing online. also if you are going the return route make sure you ask if it is for store credit or cash and if there is a restocking fee.

[pmistry 0]

I do believe the 8500 is a good buy too, I got an 8500 LE and it is quite fast and has great features. In fact recent benchmarks show that it is faster than the 9000 since that card was designed to compete with the Geforce 4 MX. As for ATI drivers, they are good now, they used to suck when I had other ATI cards so thats why I switched to a GF2MX, but with an 8500LE I am quite happy.

[BladeRunner 0]

Oh I'm sure the NV30 will beat ATI's current offering.

However you have to ask - at what price?

NVidia release cards and charge a fortune for them.

 

Your best bet maybe to wait until the NV30 is released (2003 by the looks of things) and then pick up a GF4 at a knock-down price.

 

I'm not 100% convinced by ATI's drivers, but once the card becomes more widely available, especially here in the UK I'll take a very close look at it.

 

Personally for work I'm buying in 6 of the nice new Matrox cards.

Sure they do not offer the sheer 3D performance that ATI & NVidia offer, but you've gotta love that 2D and general image quality.

[Four and Twenty 0]

I like nVidia cause they have something for everyone. None of their cards are bad and you get the same drivers for all. I don't buy nVidias latest shit cause I am not some crazy gammer. I will soon be buying a gf4mx to get some mad cheap dual head and decent ogl performance.

[Brian Frank 0]

The Radeon 9000 is pretty much on par with the 8500 currently. Drivers may improve it in the future, however. As far as ATI's drivers sucking, that's no longer a very valid argument. I was on the same fence as Four and Twenty, but I put my money where my mouth was and found the 8500 to be very nice. ATI has done a massive improvement in the driver arena. They are 100 times a better company then they were a year ago.

[Four and Twenty 0]

i see games now that are marked

designed on nVidia to be played on nVidia

i also still see post on lots of board with varios games producing blank or garbled screens when using ATI so I don't think you can say 100% that ATIs driver issues are over and done. All companys have some problems nVidia just has a lot less kinda like Intel. The big machines are where they are at for a reason. MS NVIDIA and INTEL kick ass and they raise the bar for the industry. ATI is reminding me a lot of AMD right now. Also ATI's new cards don't meet AGP spec what kinda shit is that?

[iamthewookie 0]

Cheers.

 

I bought one. Thanks for the input.

Price was just too good to pass. $140 (Canadian/ equals $20 US - ha )

 

Not too much performance gain from my Radeon VIVO64DDR; benefits are Smartshading - better T&L.

 

One thing have to mention: clarity.....Crap is it clear. Used it on my Samsung 950P 19" beautiful pic.

 

Drivers are stable.....video out to TV Res is same as desktop.

 

I'm Canadian so we tend to cheer on ATI for being a local superstar....but no more "just because it's Canadian" it is sweet on it's own merit.

[Four and Twenty 0]

I am glad it is working well for ya

I hadn't thought of where ATI came from b4

never crossed my mind

[pmistry 0]

Yeah I rejoined the ATI Camp and the Radeon 8500LE is way better then their Rage 128 and Rage Pro line, simply put the drivers are better. Though I have nothing against Nvidia the GF2MX was great for me.

[tHêGhð§tÔfT¡mé 0]

im thinking bout getting a ati 9000 pro 128mb card...just curious as to whether it supports agp 8x or not...i had seen on some sites like http://www.tomshardware.com that it does support 2x 4x and is compatible with 8x....does that mean it runs at 8x on a 8x mainboard?? one thing that is making me lean towards the 9000 pro is that it has pixel shader 1.1 and vertex shader 1.4 and full support for directx 8.1 where as the nvidia gf4 4200 only has pixel shader 1.3 and directx 8.0 support and as i have seen in prices..the 9000 pro is $100 cheaper then a gf 4 4200....

[pmistry 0]

http://mirror.ati.com/products/pc/radeon9000pro/specs.html

 

Looks like it does support AGP 8x.

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

I will say once again, myself, or my uncle have NEVER had any dirver related issue with ATI's cards. I would have gotten an ATI aiw 8500 128mb card but could not find them anywhere, so i got a g4 4600 ultra.

 

And hopefully by next year ATi will have their 256mb versions out (as in the specs it says support for 128mb or 256mb)

 

 

i would take ATi any day over Nvidia - Nvidia does have a "faster" driver system going, but again @ the same time, why does a company have to release drivers SO often?

 

ATI may not release them as often because they do not need to? Yet at the same time, these means that people who are having issues that are driver related have to wait.

 

Anyways, just my 2 cents' worth.

 

Either way, i look @ the specs of each card, and compare them both, then chekc out sites that have done "fair" benchmarks, and check forums on what people who have the cards think, that is the best way to go,.

 

Diff, people will have Diff. experiences with cards - mine for both nvidia and ATi have been good (although i have had more B.S.O.D with nividia cards (tnt2 riva /;g4 4600 ultra) then i have ever had with ATI (never had any).

[adamvjackson 0]

Quote:

i would take ATi any day over Nvidia - Nvidia does have a "faster" driver system going, but again @ the same time, why does a company have to release drivers SO often?

Nvidia doesn't HAVE TO release any driver updates. All they are REQUIRED to do is include drivers with the hardware. New drivers that boost performance simply retain a customer base, IMO. And hey, free performance upgrades are great. When was the last time your auto dealer offered you a real free performance upgrade?

[pmistry 0]

I dislike this Nvidia logo being on all the new games. Like UT 2003. What the hell is this? Its like the Windows logo on PC compatible games, which makes more sense.

[tHêGhð§tÔfT¡mé 0]

i like nvidia they r a good company who will be around for a long time due to excellent products blah blah blah.,..one thing that bugs me bout them is they release a new set of drivers say 30.82 and were ment to see an proformance boost of 25% at least....well im still waiting for that to happen...been waiting since around the time i bought my nvidia card back when driver versions were around 21.83....if anything i think nvidia drivers r going backwards in proformance...DET 30.00 was ment to be the best thing that nvidia ever put out...what a load of crap. i know i only have a shitty tnt2 m64 pci card..and the most i get on 3dmark 2001 is around 700 on a good day...thats with the new drivers 30.82 with the older drivers like 21.83 i got at least 900....just goes to show new drivers arent always a good thing.

[adamvjackson 0]

It's no secret that new drivers are optimized for newer hardware, Tom's had a review of driver versions for different cards, and the conclusion was that the drivers circa the era of the card are usually best. And FYI, it was the Detonator 40's that are supposed to add 25% performance gain... Yes, they're still in beta, and no, that doesn't mean that you'll get an extra 30FPS in Quake 3 on your TNT...

[JP- 0]

Up to 25% gain....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(in 3dmark)

[Mr.Guvernment 0]

^^^^

 

exactly, in 3dmark..lol - which u all know does not mean SHIET!

[tylau 0]

ATI hasnt got things in the mod range to compete with Nvidia, true their 9700PRO is great on every aspect, but with the price tag and early adoption problems, there still need something like 9500/PRO king of offering for the mid range, to say compete with the TI4200 kind of thing, as the current 9000PRO is not really up to the level of G4 TI level. AFAIK, current TI4200 boards are starting to use the A3 stepping of the G4 TI core, which technically speaking is the same core of the TI4600, just pick some good board and power design offer, and you are in for a bargain TI4600.

[tHêGhð§tÔfT¡mé 0]

I don't really care which new vid card i buy next, after buying my first PC with a diamond stealth 2400 2D card then a S3 GX + 3DFX monster 3D card, to a prolink TNT2 M64 PCI card, any card i buy next will be an improvement by a few hundred fps in any game....i thought when i bought my tnt2 card it was the best thing cuz i could finally play D3D games under win2kxp lol...stupid driver support for 3dfx ended back before win2k was released so i was stuffed....just out of curiousity which card would any of u buy out of a gf4 4200 or a radeon 9000 pro 128mb? knowing the gf4 card is a bit faster but with less features like full directx 8.1 and older pixel shader engine?

[adamvjackson 0]

My vote goes to the Geforce4 ti4200, but if you wait a bit, you'll be able to get a ti4400 for about the same price.... probably around christmas time when nv30 is released... Pure speculation, of course....

 

[Yearout 0]

I was just reading somthing about the new NV30 http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=5833

I am not sure how ture it is but wow..