Originally posted by: amdmaxx
def. not..
wait for dd2 r350 or r400.. 256 megs
Originally posted by: Elvis2
I just went to my CC for a set of headphones. They had 2 9700 Pro's on the shelf for $299. I just don't think it's gonna be worth upgrading from my ti4600
'course they do have that return policy....
Would it apply to computer hardware?
R350 won't be packing DDR-2. nVidia has the monopoly on DDR-2 for the time being. Samsung is having a hell of a time producing it in quantity. R400 probably WILL be using DDR-2, though.
I got this card for 199.99 with my gift credit. I decided to bite now for a few reasons:
1 - DX9 games won't even start to be released until at least Spring of next year.
2 - The Radeon 9700 Pro is comparable in speed to a GF FX Ultra, and by all indications, should be faster than a GF FX non-Ultra.
3 - It's 199.99 for something that will run DX 8.1 games (which BTW include games like SWG, Doom III, and my most highly anticipated game, Lock On: Modern Air Combat) at very good/excellent framerates for about another year and a quarter before it's time to think about its' replacement. 199.99 (keeping in mind I had 100 dollars in gift cards) is a damned good price for a card that's going to perform stellarly for a year and a half.
4 - 256MB frame buffer isn't going to be worth much until at least a year and a half from now. Games are just now starting to take advantage of 128MB frame buffers, and the Ti44/4600s have been out for quite some time now.
5 - The Radeon 98/9900s are, all told, simply new card revisions with a .13mu higher-clocked core on them and possibly faster RAM (though you can't get much faster in DDR-1 than what's already on the 9700 Pros). I foresee them beating the 9700 Pros by probably 30-40fps at the most...but when the 9700 Pro makes 170-220fps, an extra 30-40 doesn't matter. The Radeon 9900 Pro is STILL going to be using DDR-1. It would be financially stupid (in addition to being impossible), for ATI to put the 9900 Pro out with DDR-2 for 399.99. It's not going to happen.
6 - If 3DMark2003 is any indicator, even when DX9 games start hitting the market sometime (probably) in 2-3Q 2004, the Radeon 9700 Pro is still going to present *respectable* frame rates in the 60s and 70s, dipping into the mid 40s possibly during "heavy activity" periods.
When upgrading something notoriously expensive like a graphics card, I keep several things in mind:
1 - Cost vs. the time I'll be using it. Sufficed to say, anyone who spends 299.99 on a Ti4600 NOW deserves to be ripped off. I foresee myself using this card for a year and a half, when it'll probably be replaced and put into my SN41G2. The circle of life goes on . If I'm going to be spending 400 dollars on a graphics card, I sure as hell better get good two years *at LEAST* out of it. If I spend 300-350, a year and a half. 100-199, I know I've only got about a year-year and a quarter of top-shelf performance out of the card before it starts to show age.
2 - What's the foreseeable future for the card? Well, right now DX8.1 games run fabulously on the Radeon 9700 and ATI FINALLY seems to be getting their sh*t together with their drivers...they're not out the quicksand yet, but then again, neither is nVidia. nVidia's dearth of drivers is nice, but it's also overwhelming for people who aren't in the practice of maintenance of "insignificant" things like that. I'm sure there are still people running 2x.xx drivers with GF4 Ti cards simply because they're in the "get CompUSA to install it then never do anything on my own" camp. I don't want to have to try six different driver revisions to finally settle on which one works best.
3 - Is it appreciably faster than what I have already? This card is replacing a Ti4600 in "Mercury," my fastest machine. The Ti4600 is going into my SN41G2, and my Ti4200 is going into my third fastest machine...for me, a graphics card upgrade means an upgrade to my entire "stable" of computers. Considering the 9700 Pro kicks the ass of the Ti4x00 series by a decent margin, I decided what the hell.
Oh, and for people wanting to go the Staples route, the Ingram Micro part number for the 9700 Pro is IM1369550.