Best ATI Radeon 9.7k Pro for me!

[amor]

I need to buy a video card for a system i've been putting together for the past couple of months..specs below!


Would the 9700 Pro be a good choice for me? If you don't think so, please recommend something in the 9700 pro price range. I'm open to nVidia!

I read the roundup of the pro cards at tom's hardware. And i'm a bit more confused than i was before i read that.


my questions.

1. Which pro card will overclock the best? Is it the one that i made by ATI itself.

2. What are the things i should look for when choosing a card? Is stuff like the type of memory, manufacturer, etc, important?

3. Where should i buy it from?

4. Should i get one from Ebay

5. Does the 9700 pro have any problems with any of the components i already have!

6. Card Cooling????????????????????


Epox 8rda+ rev 1.1
Barton 2500+
SLK800 with Tornado
1 gb twinmos ch-5
Xaser II 6000a
SyncMaster 19"



Thanks for your reply..And sorry for any bad spelling and english.

[PonzSpyder]

Not sure if I can answer all your questions but I will tell you that I have a similar setup and everything runs perfectly together

8RDA+
2500 Barton ( stock HSF )
1GB Geil PC 3200
Antec Tower Case
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro ( built by ATI, I heard they OC better )
SyncMaster 957mb ( 19" )

Bought everything from newegg.com and have no complaints

[amor]

Great! It works with 8rda+


Now i need confirmation on which is the best overclocker. I will need to overclock cuz i wouldn't be planning on buying another video card for O say two - three years.

I read somewhere, amdforums, i think that it is important to get good memory with these cards????????

[PonzSpyder]

I wish I could help you more but I am new to OC'ing and I haven’t tried to OC video cards yet. I know I heard form several people that the "built by ATI" ones OC better but I am sure there are much more knowledgeable people here that can answer your questions better than me

[amor]

Thanks.


Anybody else?

[F/A-18 MechDood]

Tyan Tachyon 9700 pro. $308 shipped. See my post here

[amor]

The price isn't bad.

I wonder how the Sapphire overclocks?



btw..Smallville Rocks. I just wish i didn't have to wait so long for the new eppys

[Omardeth]

overclocking video cards only really helps with benchmarks . other than that you won't see any "real word " difference in performance .

[Strawbs]

I have the Sapphire 9700pro. It is currently O\C'd mildly and I noticed yesterday that fast moving images (toca race driver at max detail 1024x768x32bit) tend to blur slightly more than usual after about an hour and a halfs play (probably a heat thang).

Omardeth is correct about not being able to notice any improvement in games, but I got 5068 points in 3DMark03 with settings of 328MHz core and 322MHz Memory, I could prolly push it a bit further, but it's a fairly new card\system and I don't intend to burn it just yet!

Specs:
A7N8X Dlx
2600+ (333MHz) @ stock speed
1Gig PC2700
WD800JB (8Mb cache) HDD
Sapphire 9700pro Atlantis

[F/A-18 MechDood]

Nice thing about the Tyan is it has it's own software to OC. it also monitors the vid card temps.