who makes Radeons?

[joker_927]

I'm thinking of buying a Radeon 9800 Pro. I find it extremely difficult to know the quality of some of he Radeons manufacterers.

For instance, I found a cheap 9800 pro card, then I noticed the brand was "House Brand". I don't really like the idea of having a "House Brand" card in my computer. Are they bad though?

Also, I have seen Saphire cards. Someone told me these perform worse. True?

Some others I have seen: Gigacube, Power Color.

Most are made my ATI though.

[Undeadlord]

I know ATI licenses their chipsets to other manufacturers, I have only ever bought ATI cards. Makes finding drivers alot easier. So if you are asking opinions, I would go with a ATI made card, seems to be a good bet.


Undeadlord

[poopeyhed2]

I do what Undeadlord does as well, buy the BBA, so what.. it costs more sometimes, but you know it'll have the best support and compatability with the drivers.

Also, I've seen over the Internet that because ATI and Sapphire are so close in terms of business, sometimes Sapphire supplies the boards for ATI in the North America, while Sapphire handles the Asian market.

[Bob The Great]

Powercolors are generally very good overclockers. I have a powercolor 9800 in my PC. It cost me $284 at mwave.com and its been a good preformer. Its overclocked very well though I'm waiting for the ambient temps to fall a bit before I really hit it hard.

Generally its the software package that differenciates the different cards. Powercolor has decent packages though I've seen some with amazing packages. They are usually a lot more expensive. Personally I'd go with Powercolor even though they have a silly name

[joker_927]

Ok, so BBA means standard ATi made.

Bob, you say you have the regular 9800. What is the real difference between the regular 9800 and 9800 Pro.

Any reviews onlive? There is almost a $50 price differnce.

[joker_927]

I mean almost a $100

[Bob The Great]

The difference is about 100Mhz off the mem clock and about 70mhz off the core I believe. I think my card can make up the core almost and get another 30 or so with some ram sinks, but basicly the way it is defualt your getting about 800+ less 3dmarks in 2k3. Still it whups up on almost all nVidia FX's. I e-mail you my specs and benchmark results if you'd like. my address is zap_e m@juno.com (take out the space between the e and m and thats the address).

[Urban_Squrill]

Power color makes great cards. Never had a problem with mine.

[joker_927]

wow. I read some review over at [H] place. The 9800 performs just slightly better than the 9700 pro, but it overclocks a lot better. Also, in a review of the Power Color, Xtasy, and Regualr ATI card, the ATI card overclocked the most. The Xtasy was a joke, and they said the powercolor didn't perform as well as their earlier cards had.

It looks like I'll just get a ATi card.

If you wonder hwy I only care about overclocking, it's because I just built a fully customed water-box and Ineed some stuff to cool.

[eagle1]

Sapphire is making good ATi cards too!
But it is better to go and buy a BBA card!