Is It Worth It? Radeon 8500 to Radeon 9700 Pro Upgrade

Shaith · Dec 6, 2002, 08:06 PM

It's finally time to talk to you about a rather popular topic, especially as holiday sales and time-on-market lower the cost of the Radeon 9700 Pro to more affordable levels. Prices under $350 are common, and rumors of sub-$300 price levels for this card are coming more frequently each day.

So our topic today is: Is It REALLY Worth It? The Radeon 8500 to 9700 Pro Upgrade.

First, a few specs, for those who haven't already checked them out:

Eight parallel rendering pipelines
Four parallel geometry engines
256-bit DDR memory interface
AGP 8x support

SMARTSHADER™ 2.0
Programmable pixel and vertex shaders
16 textures per pass
Pixel shaders up to 160 instructions with 128-bit floating point precision
Vertex shaders up to 1024 instructions with flow control
Multiple render target support
Shadow volume rendering acceleration
High precision 10-bit per channel frame buffer support
Supports DirectX® 9.0 and the latest version of OpenGL

SMOOTHVISION™ 2.0
2x/4x/6x full scene anti-aliasing modes
Adaptive algorithm with programmable sample patterns
2x/4x/8x/16x anisotropic filtering modes
Adaptive algorithm with bi-linear (performance) and tri-linear (quality) options

HYPER Z™ III
3-level Hierarchical Z-Buffer with early Z test
Lossless Z-Buffer compression (up to 24:1)
Fast Z-Buffer Clear

TRUFORM™ 2.0
2nd generation N-Patch higher order surface support
Discrete and continuous tessellation levels per polygon
Displacement mapping

VIDEOSHADER™
Seamless integration of pixel shaders with video
FULLSTREAM™ video de-blocking technology
Noise removal filtering for captured video
MPEG-2 decoding with motion compensation, iDCT and color space conversion
All-format DTV/HDTV decoding
YPrPb component output
Adaptive de-interlacing and frame rate conversion
Dual integrated display controllers
Dual integrated 10-bit per channel 400 MHz DACs
Integrated 165 MHz TMDS transmitter (DVI 1.0 compliant)
Integrated TV Output support up to 1024x768 resolution
Optimized for Pentium® 4 SSE2 and AMD Athlon™ 3Dnow!
PC 2002 compliant

Whew! Quite a list, isn't it. Well, it'd have to be to get the dollars this year, not to mention needing to live up to its name as the nVidia killer, which it does quite handily. But we're not comparing the Ti4x00 lines in this review - that's been done to death.

Today we're looking at the fundamental question:

IS IT WORTH THE UPGRADE?

Let's look first at raw performance figures. The figures used for the Radeon 8500 will not change throughout the review, as I ran multiple tests and took the highest result using STOCK figures.

So for those who aren't paying attention: There was NO overclocking done for these tests. All values are STOCK.

System specs for test:

AMD Athlon 2200 XP+
Zalman CNPS6000-Cu Cooler
MSI KT4 Ultra BSR
256M PC2700 CAS2
Seagate 40G 7200 RPM 'Cuda ATA IV
Seagate 18G 10000 RPM Cheetah
3Com 3C905 10/100 Ethernet Adapter
SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 Xgamer
Viewsonic G773

Video card 1:

ATi Radeon 8500, 64 MB, using 6200 series drivers.

Video card 2:

ATi Radeon 9700 Pro, 128 MB, using 6200 series drivers.

Round 1

Radeon 8500 score: 9237 - view here: http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=5092408
Radeon 9700 score: 4438 - results put out of their misery according to the Geneva Convention.

Round 1 winner: Radeon 8500.

What?!? The 8500 was faster?

Unfortunately, yes. My first 3dMark test with the Radeon 9700 did not fare well at all. Neither did the next several attempts, despite following the ATI manual carefully, completely uninstalling the drivers and 8500 prior to installing the 9700. 4438 was indeed the best it could do, and I knew that couldn't be. I'd heard of people having problems, with some blaming ATI, some blaming their mainboard manufacturers. Well, in this case, I think the answer is: Neither one. When I used the VIA 4.43 4-in-1 set, I got the performance of a 1X AGP card out of an 8x card. But after some careful research and some digging, I located the Grail, the VIA 4.40 AGP drivers (newer than the AGP driver offered in the 4.43 set, oddly enough). After completely reinstalling XP, SP1, and everything else failed, I figured it couldn't hurt.

Well boys and girls, the folks at VIA have their work cut out for them. The 4.40 drivers are BETA, but they WORK, and are a necessity if you have 8x AGP. Because apparently, when an 8x AGP card is installed, all of the lower speeds (1x, 2x) become unavailable, leaving only 4x and 8x as options. Most 8x boards also seem to lose the ability to manually set the AGP bus speed once an 8x card is installed, so intentionally setting the rate lower isn't a solution - you gotta get the drivers, or your top-of-the-line card gets whipped by a couple of kids with an Etch-a-Sketch. Let me emphasize however that this is NOT a Radeon fault - this is a VIA fault.

So, armed with the 4.40 AGP drivers, I forged once more into the breech.

Round 2

Radeon 8500 score: 9237 - http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=5092408
Radeon 9700 score: 13093 - http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=5250022

Round 2 winner: Radeon 9700.

All subsequent rounds: Radeon 9700. Big surprise - that's how it was supposed to be in the first place, right?

Now for the gravy. That's right, it's time for a few screenies!

All settings max'ed out (which garners an amusing audio soundbyte when you turn all of them up to full). 1024x768x32, 16x aniso/6x FSAA.

First up: Unreal Tournament 2003.

Now try this on for size: No One Lives Forever 2.

And another:

Then there's one of my favorite wastes of a few hours: Hot Wheels Velocity X.

Frame rates throughout are completely solid, and these screenshots really don't do this card justice - you simply have to see it for yourself.

So, an easy 3800 3Dmarks, improved image quality, phenomenal performance, requiring only minor intervention to get it running properly makes the Radeon 9700 Pro a definite buy this holiday season.

Images of Radeon 9700 and packaging are the property of ATI Technologies, Inc. All other screenshots and this review are Copyright © 2002, DriverHeaven.net, and may not be used or reproduced without the express written permission of DriverHeaven.net.

Malus · Dec 7, 2002, 12:32 AM

Wouldn't it be good to have comparison shots in order to compare the image quality of the two cards?

Stafford · Dec 7, 2002, 09:49 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Malus
Wouldn't it be good to have comparison shots in order to compare the image quality of the two cards?

Yeah, gotta have the comparison, that 1st screenie is awesome!

Robert McClelland · Dec 7, 2002, 02:37 PM

Ya but you do need test ot with 128 meg version of the card bud not the 64mb with Radeon 8500 lol

~~DriveEuro~~ · Dec 7, 2002, 03:02 PM

Well what resolution are the pics and did you change the resolution to upload them. Cuz the quality isn't so hot. The JPG compression killed the quality of the pic. I can render frames that look that nice on my Ti4200. Smack some new links up for pics that are maybe 1280x1024..... Cuz with those pics you can't really tell how good those games really look. I know NOLF2 looks better than that pic. I'm currently playing it.

RIV@NVX · Dec 7, 2002, 03:42 PM

Waiting.... next summer... Radeon 9700 = $150 card.... hmm....
Buying one....

digitalwanderer · Dec 7, 2002, 05:03 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by RIV@NVX
Waiting.... next summer... Radeon 9700 = $150 card.... hmm....
Buying one....

Right on! The rusty edge is just SO much more economical! I can hold off a few more months for a 50% price drop.

RIV@NVX · Dec 7, 2002, 05:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by digitalwanderer
Right on! The rusty edge is just SO much more economical! I can hold off a few more months for a 50% price drop.

Same I did for 8500, same I will do for 9700.

sapient · Dec 10, 2002, 03:50 AM

I waited till Radeon was cheap enuff to buy (4 me) and also the 8500 (bought 8500 for 96$ and 7200 4 $80) pretty much less tahn $400 they were both introduced at

Yeah i know i got ema year later but my prev cards worked fine till then (TnT2 and radeon 7200 )
Will wait for 9700 pro to drop down in price or maybe 9500 pro whichever gave best bang 4 buck.

ToshiroOC · Dec 25, 2002, 03:24 PM

An easy 3800 3dmarks? Damn, that little amount is more than my total 3dmarks... If you ask me though, I would say don't spend the money on a 9700 now, but instead get more hard drive space (why not? I have 320gb and I love every platter of it), more ram (256mb isn't quite enough if you are getting into that range of equipment if you ask me), and besides, the 8500 was a great card, and though the 9700 is a better one, at those sorts of speeds you start to see CPU and mobo limiting the scores, not the video card as much...

DaaT · Dec 26, 2002, 06:31 AM

I agree with you Toshiro, though it depends on the games really. Some games really take off when you get a new vid card, others... well.. don't

For example, GP4 pays much more attention to your CPU than your GPU, which is a shame really.. man i love that game

DaaT

~~DriveEuro~~ · Dec 26, 2002, 02:32 PM

GP4?

ToshiroOC · Dec 26, 2002, 08:30 PM

I have no clue as to what GP4 is, but Jedi Knight 2 is most definitely another one of thsoe games that requires a lot of CPU and really minimal GPU - on my GF2 it runs pretty damn well at 1280x1024 with all of the settings on the highest possible (except for anti-aliasing...)

chigger_ns · Jan 11, 2003, 09:15 PM

Here we go!
Trust me If you have a gf2... get a gf4...get a 4200ti 128 meg ....you'll thank me... I ran my gf4 on a p3 933 and it was like giving me a new computer.(previouse gf2 mx 400)
Now the 9700 pro is a really good card, If you have the cash...get one. You will see a good difference too. the 8500 was a good card but is lagging big time! you will pick up big time frames with the 9700!! and quality!!!

Thanks for looking at my stupid reply.
Ive see the 9700 and a 4200ti in action, I like them both.
one is the best bang for the buck and one is the most buck for the biggest bang!!!

xweston · Jan 15, 2003, 08:15 PM

Just wait for the next generation! no games are out that are that good right now anyway. they especially dont need the speed of a 9700

Falstaff · Jan 15, 2003, 08:29 PM

I play a flight sim that demands quality, never had real trouble with the 8500 unless I tweaked too much, had the Nvidia products and settled for quality rather than FPS, my eye can only see a maximum number of FPS, quality is where I am at....

SpikeSpiegel · Apr 1, 2003, 12:05 AM

I was thining of getting the 128MB 9500 pro (soft modding and it's relatively low success rates don't convince me) but i think i'll just hold off for another year or so, especially since even "full" DX8.1 games are still rare. By the time DX9 goes mainstream in games, we would have gotten r400 or r450 maybe. I'll wait till then.

*OpenGL guy* · Apr 3, 2003, 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by SpikeSpiegel
I was thining of getting the 128MB 9500 pro (soft modding and it's relatively low success rates don't convince me) but i think i'll just hold off for another year or so, especially since even "full" DX8.1 games are still rare. By the time DX9 goes mainstream in games, we would have gotten r400 or r450 maybe. I'll wait till then.

Except that you can enjoy games with 4x antialiasing and anisotropic filtering now instead of waiting.

I play nearly all of my games at 1600x1200 w/ 4x AA and 8x AF on my 9700 Pro. The games I play include Soldier of Fortune 2, Warcraft 3, Ravenshield, and C&C: Generals. My CPU is nothing special (XP1900+) but having the power to use AA and AF all the time is great!

~~Crash Override~~ · Apr 3, 2003, 08:08 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by ToshiroOC
An easy 3800 3dmarks? Damn, that little amount is more than my total 3dmarks... If you ask me though, I would say don't spend the money on a 9700 now, but instead get more hard drive space (why not? I have 320gb and I love every platter of it), more ram (256mb isn't quite enough if you are getting into that range of equipment if you ask me), and besides, the 8500 was a great card, and though the 9700 is a better one, at those sorts of speeds you start to see CPU and mobo limiting the scores, not the video card as much...

Warning this post is off topic :P

Toshiro you do realize that the chemical compound listed in your sig is the type of caffeine specific to mountain dew dont you?

ToshiroOC · Apr 3, 2003, 08:13 PM

Who ever said I drank a different kind?

~~Crash Override~~ · Apr 4, 2003, 07:11 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ToshiroOC
Who ever said I drank a different kind?

lol and the man has good taste

SpikeSpiegel · Apr 9, 2003, 09:35 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by OpenGL guy
Except that you can enjoy games with 4x antialiasing and anisotropic filtering now instead of waiting.

I play nearly all of my games at 1600x1200 w/ 4x AA and 8x AF on my 9700 Pro. The games I play include Soldier of Fortune 2, Warcraft 3, Ravenshield, and C&C: Generals. My CPU is nothing special (XP1900+) but having the power to use AA and AF all the time is great!

Heh, you just want to sell more cards!!!

j/k

If only it were cheaper

, heh, than i would not hesitate to upgrade. The eye candy offered by 4x AA + 16x AF, while looking absolutely gorgeous, doesn't warrant (IMHO) the couple hundred of dollars the 9700 will cost me (A 9700 pro here would cost around 1.5k, divide that by 3.8 for the amount in USD, ~USD 395 for the mathematically challenged).

FuNsTeR · Apr 9, 2003, 04:03 PM

just get the non pro of the 9700 i have a sapphire card ... it rox big time

Dec 6, 2002, 08:06 PM	#1
Shaith DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 914 Rep Power: 0	Is It Worth It? Radeon 8500 to Radeon 9700 Pro Upgrade It's finally time to talk to you about a rather popular topic, especially as holiday sales and time-on-market lower the cost of the Radeon 9700 Pro to more affordable levels. Prices under $350 are common, and rumors of sub-$300 price levels for this card are coming more frequently each day. So our topic today is: Is It REALLY Worth It? The Radeon 8500 to 9700 Pro Upgrade. First, a few specs, for those who haven't already checked them out: Eight parallel rendering pipelines Four parallel geometry engines 256-bit DDR memory interface AGP 8x support SMARTSHADER™ 2.0 Programmable pixel and vertex shaders 16 textures per pass Pixel shaders up to 160 instructions with 128-bit floating point precision Vertex shaders up to 1024 instructions with flow control Multiple render target support Shadow volume rendering acceleration High precision 10-bit per channel frame buffer support Supports DirectX® 9.0 and the latest version of OpenGL SMOOTHVISION™ 2.0 2x/4x/6x full scene anti-aliasing modes Adaptive algorithm with programmable sample patterns 2x/4x/8x/16x anisotropic filtering modes Adaptive algorithm with bi-linear (performance) and tri-linear (quality) options HYPER Z™ III 3-level Hierarchical Z-Buffer with early Z test Lossless Z-Buffer compression (up to 24:1) Fast Z-Buffer Clear TRUFORM™ 2.0 2nd generation N-Patch higher order surface support Discrete and continuous tessellation levels per polygon Displacement mapping VIDEOSHADER™ Seamless integration of pixel shaders with video FULLSTREAM™ video de-blocking technology Noise removal filtering for captured video MPEG-2 decoding with motion compensation, iDCT and color space conversion All-format DTV/HDTV decoding YPrPb component output Adaptive de-interlacing and frame rate conversion Dual integrated display controllers Dual integrated 10-bit per channel 400 MHz DACs Integrated 165 MHz TMDS transmitter (DVI 1.0 compliant) Integrated TV Output support up to 1024x768 resolution Optimized for Pentium® 4 SSE2 and AMD Athlon™ 3Dnow! PC 2002 compliant Whew! Quite a list, isn't it. Well, it'd have to be to get the dollars this year, not to mention needing to live up to its name as the nVidia killer, which it does quite handily. But we're not comparing the Ti4x00 lines in this review - that's been done to death. Today we're looking at the fundamental question: IS IT WORTH THE UPGRADE? Let's look first at raw performance figures. The figures used for the Radeon 8500 will not change throughout the review, as I ran multiple tests and took the highest result using STOCK figures. So for those who aren't paying attention: There was NO overclocking done for these tests. All values are STOCK. System specs for test: AMD Athlon 2200 XP+ Zalman CNPS6000-Cu Cooler MSI KT4 Ultra BSR 256M PC2700 CAS2 Seagate 40G 7200 RPM 'Cuda ATA IV Seagate 18G 10000 RPM Cheetah 3Com 3C905 10/100 Ethernet Adapter SoundBlaster Live! 5.1 Xgamer Viewsonic G773 Video card 1: ATi Radeon 8500, 64 MB, using 6200 series drivers. Video card 2: ATi Radeon 9700 Pro, 128 MB, using 6200 series drivers. Round 1 Radeon 8500 score: 9237 - view here: http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=5092408 Radeon 9700 score: 4438 - results put out of their misery according to the Geneva Convention. Round 1 winner: Radeon 8500. What?!? The 8500 was faster? Unfortunately, yes. My first 3dMark test with the Radeon 9700 did not fare well at all. Neither did the next several attempts, despite following the ATI manual carefully, completely uninstalling the drivers and 8500 prior to installing the 9700. 4438 was indeed the best it could do, and I knew that couldn't be. I'd heard of people having problems, with some blaming ATI, some blaming their mainboard manufacturers. Well, in this case, I think the answer is: Neither one. When I used the VIA 4.43 4-in-1 set, I got the performance of a 1X AGP card out of an 8x card. But after some careful research and some digging, I located the Grail, the VIA 4.40 AGP drivers (newer than the AGP driver offered in the 4.43 set, oddly enough). After completely reinstalling XP, SP1, and everything else failed, I figured it couldn't hurt. Well boys and girls, the folks at VIA have their work cut out for them. The 4.40 drivers are BETA, but they WORK, and are a necessity if you have 8x AGP. Because apparently, when an 8x AGP card is installed, all of the lower speeds (1x, 2x) become unavailable, leaving only 4x and 8x as options. Most 8x boards also seem to lose the ability to manually set the AGP bus speed once an 8x card is installed, so intentionally setting the rate lower isn't a solution - you gotta get the drivers, or your top-of-the-line card gets whipped by a couple of kids with an Etch-a-Sketch. Let me emphasize however that this is NOT a Radeon fault - this is a VIA fault. So, armed with the 4.40 AGP drivers, I forged once more into the breech. Round 2 Radeon 8500 score: 9237 - http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=5092408 Radeon 9700 score: 13093 - http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=5250022 Round 2 winner: Radeon 9700. All subsequent rounds: Radeon 9700. Big surprise - that's how it was supposed to be in the first place, right? Now for the gravy. That's right, it's time for a few screenies! All settings max'ed out (which garners an amusing audio soundbyte when you turn all of them up to full). 1024x768x32, 16x aniso/6x FSAA. First up: Unreal Tournament 2003. Now try this on for size: No One Lives Forever 2. And another: Then there's one of my favorite wastes of a few hours: Hot Wheels Velocity X. Frame rates throughout are completely solid, and these screenshots really don't do this card justice - you simply have to see it for yourself. So, an easy 3800 3Dmarks, improved image quality, phenomenal performance, requiring only minor intervention to get it running properly makes the Radeon 9700 Pro a definite buy this holiday season. Images of Radeon 9700 and packaging are the property of ATI Technologies, Inc. All other screenshots and this review are Copyright © 2002, DriverHeaven.net, and may not be used or reproduced without the express written permission of DriverHeaven.net.

Dec 7, 2002, 12:32 AM	#2
Malus BSD SMASH! Join Date: May 2002 Location: A rabbit hole. . . Posts: 1,170 Rep Power: 0	Wouldn't it be good to have comparison shots in order to compare the image quality of the two cards? __________________ quad (FreeBSD/amd64 8-CURRENT): Intel Q6600 - Asus P5E-VM HDMI - 2x2 GB Kingston PC6400 DDR2 Ram - Seagate 320GB 7200RPM HD - 2xSeagate 1TB 7200RPM HD in RAID 1 via ZFS - Lite-On 20x DVD Multi Recorder - Coolermaster Centurion 5 router (FreeBSD/amd64 8-CURRENT): Intel E4500 - Intel D945GCNL - 2 GB PC6400 Mushkin Ram - Lite-On 48x24x48x16 - Seagate 320GB 7200RPM HD - Silverstone SST-SG02-F wanderer (FreeBSD/i386 7-CURRENT): Lenovo Thinkpad T61p mini (OS X 10.5): Intel Core 2 Duo @ 1.8Ghz, 4 GB Mushkin PC5400 Ram - Headroom MicroDAC Portable sound: Rockboxed iPod Video -> Westone UM2's Not-So-Portable Sound: Headroon MicroDAC -> Singlepower PPX3-SLAM -> Grado RS-1's or Beyerdynamic DT-880's Very-Not-Portable-Sound: Squeezebox v3 -> Denon AVR-1507 -> B&W 683's & Sunfire HRS-10

Dec 7, 2002, 02:37 PM	#4
Robert McClelland PAX Tweaker, PAX Expert. Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Some Where in Ohio Posts: 6,353 Rep Power: 103 System Specs	Ya but you do need test ot with 128 meg version of the card bud not the 64mb with Radeon 8500 lol __________________ "XTREME AUDIO IS CRAP!" "There no support for it. It's crapist card on face of the earth it should be throw into the sun"

Dec 7, 2002, 03:42 PM	#6
RIV@NVX Freedom is a feature. Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Croatia, Rijeka Posts: 4,480 Rep Power: 53 System Specs	Waiting.... next summer... Radeon 9700 = $150 card.... hmm.... Buying one.... __________________ -- Vedran

Dec 25, 2002, 03:24 PM	#10
ToshiroOC Unbiased. Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 4,812 Rep Power: 0	An easy 3800 3dmarks? Damn, that little amount is more than my total 3dmarks... If you ask me though, I would say don't spend the money on a 9700 now, but instead get more hard drive space (why not? I have 320gb and I love every platter of it), more ram (256mb isn't quite enough if you are getting into that range of equipment if you ask me), and besides, the 8500 was a great card, and though the 9700 is a better one, at those sorts of speeds you start to see CPU and mobo limiting the scores, not the video card as much... __________________ [img][/img] [color=White]Peace be with you, Joe.[/color] Driverheaven Staff Member (Supermoderator)

Dec 7, 2002, 03:02 PM	#5
~~DriveEuro~~ Banned Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Gurnee Illinois Posts: 4,677 Rep Power: 0	Well what resolution are the pics and did you change the resolution to upload them. Cuz the quality isn't so hot. The JPG compression killed the quality of the pic. I can render frames that look that nice on my Ti4200. Smack some new links up for pics that are maybe 1280x1024..... Cuz with those pics you can't really tell how good those games really look. I know NOLF2 looks better than that pic. I'm currently playing it.

Dec 10, 2002, 03:50 AM	#9
sapient DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	I waited till Radeon was cheap enuff to buy (4 me) and also the 8500 (bought 8500 for 96$ and 7200 4 $80) pretty much less tahn $400 they were both introduced at Yeah i know i got ema year later but my prev cards worked fine till then (TnT2 and radeon 7200 ) Will wait for 9700 pro to drop down in price or maybe 9500 pro whichever gave best bang 4 buck.

Dec 26, 2002, 06:31 AM	#11
DaaT DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Canada Posts: 8 Rep Power: 0	I agree with you Toshiro, though it depends on the games really. Some games really take off when you get a new vid card, others... well.. don't For example, GP4 pays much more attention to your CPU than your GPU, which is a shame really.. man i love that game DaaT

Dec 26, 2002, 02:32 PM	#12
~~DriveEuro~~ Banned Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Gurnee Illinois Posts: 4,677 Rep Power: 0	GP4?

Dec 26, 2002, 08:30 PM	#13
ToshiroOC Unbiased. Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 4,812 Rep Power: 0	I have no clue as to what GP4 is, but Jedi Knight 2 is most definitely another one of thsoe games that requires a lot of CPU and really minimal GPU - on my GF2 it runs pretty damn well at 1280x1024 with all of the settings on the highest possible (except for anti-aliasing...) __________________ [img][/img] [color=White]Peace be with you, Joe.[/color] Driverheaven Staff Member (Supermoderator)

Jan 11, 2003, 09:15 PM	#14
chigger_ns DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Nova Scotia, Canada Posts: 14 Rep Power: 0	Here we go! Trust me If you have a gf2... get a gf4...get a 4200ti 128 meg ....you'll thank me... I ran my gf4 on a p3 933 and it was like giving me a new computer.(previouse gf2 mx 400) Now the 9700 pro is a really good card, If you have the cash...get one. You will see a good difference too. the 8500 was a good card but is lagging big time! you will pick up big time frames with the 9700!! and quality!!! Thanks for looking at my stupid reply. Ive see the 9700 and a 4200ti in action, I like them both. one is the best bang for the buck and one is the most buck for the biggest bang!!! __________________ Xp2500+ , Tt volcano 9 MSI KT3 Ultra2 mb,512, 2700ddr ram, sblive,12xdvd, 48/16/48crw burner ATI9800 pro 128meg, Enermax 3051 dancy lite case Thermaltake 420 watt psu I've got a chevy 454 runing my cpu fan... ...AWEEE-YeahhhHH!

Jan 15, 2003, 08:15 PM	#15
xweston DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: San Diego, CA Posts: 12 Rep Power: 0	Just wait for the next generation! no games are out that are that good right now anyway. they especially dont need the speed of a 9700

Jan 15, 2003, 08:29 PM	#16
Falstaff Old Codger Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: USAFA Posts: 18,145 Rep Power: 131	luv my 8500 128 I play a flight sim that demands quality, never had real trouble with the 8500 unless I tweaked too much, had the Nvidia products and settled for quality rather than FPS, my eye can only see a maximum number of FPS, quality is where I am at.... __________________ The tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut by the scythe.

Apr 1, 2003, 12:05 AM	#17
SpikeSpiegel DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Malaysia Posts: 39 Rep Power: 0	I was thining of getting the 128MB 9500 pro (soft modding and it's relatively low success rates don't convince me) but i think i'll just hold off for another year or so, especially since even "full" DX8.1 games are still rare. By the time DX9 goes mainstream in games, we would have gotten r400 or r450 maybe. I'll wait till then. __________________ - An ATI is Forever -

Apr 3, 2003, 08:13 PM	#20
ToshiroOC Unbiased. Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 4,812 Rep Power: 0	Who ever said I drank a different kind?

Apr 9, 2003, 04:03 PM	#23
FuNsTeR Caledonian & Proud Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Darkest Ayrshire Posts: 1,077 Rep Power: 54 System Specs	just get the non pro of the 9700 i have a sapphire card ... it rox big time __________________ "They say when you play a Microsoft CD backwards you can hear satanic messages ..... but that's nothing, if you play it forward it will install Windows"