ATI 9700 Pro $299 in Circuit City starting 3/2/2003...

[xenolith]

If an OEM 9700pro will be $250 soon, and has everything a retail version has, then why is this CC deal so hot? What I'm missing here. Is a pretty retail box really that important?

 

[MontyBurns]

i guess it's all about what your idea of "soon" is.

lots of people on these boards swore the TI 4600 would be $99 by now, and that's obviously still a long ways off.

 

[xenolith]

Well, if ATI doesn't "paper release" their next flag ship like Nvidia did, then hopefully it'll be within the next two weeks... hopefully.

 

[tedinde]

What's so hot, I paid $330 retail boxed for this 6 months ago. I think i got my $30 worth in all that time.

 

[gothaggis]

this card is $299 at all major retailers now.....I believe because the next generation of cards are getting released within 30 days...well not really next gen, but a souped up 9700

 

[BillGates]

I gave in today during my lunch hour..... I've waited long enough. I hate waiting days for online orders to arrive. Next stop is another puter store after work to pick up an Athlon XP 2400 so that my CPU can keep up to the card.... Current 1.33 Thunderbird probably isn't going to cut it with that card.

 

[Krueger81]

Originally posted by: Lezmaka

Originally posted by: Krueger81
what they will probably do is give you 279.99 bucks towards a new one. THat's how they do it at BBY

What screwed up best buy you going to? If it's within 30 days, you'll get your money back. If you paid by cash or check, you'll get a check from the corporate office. If it's the same day, you can try and get em to post void the transaction and give you your cash/check back, but depends on the senior/sup.

As for why all the major retailers make pricing changes, part of the reason is reactionary. One will drop prices, the others follow. I see some rebates in the system that say Market Reaction, Circuit City Reaction, or something similar.

Too Fvcking bad he was asking what happens let's say after 350 days. Read other people's post before replying. First post at this forum is a fvcking rip on someone that's been here for quite a while. Not very smart.

All best buy's work differently. you know that as well as I do.

Phil

 

[DestruyaUR]

Straight from FIC, here are the specs on the upcoming Radeon 9800s from 3dchipset.com:

FIC Radeon 9800:

325MHz Core

310Mhz Memory (620Mhz DDR)

128Mb of DDR memory

------------------------------

FIC Radeon 9800 Pro:

400MHz Core

460MHz Memory (920Mhz DDR - this is going to have to be passively cooled)

128Mb or 256Mb capable

IIIIIIIIIIIInteresting. If the 9800 Pro has addressability for 256MB of frame buffer, what will the 9900s offer? 3DChipset is a bit confused why the 9800 non-Pro has the same specs as a 9700 Pro...

 

[elkinm]

Strange the 9800 would be no better then 9700 Pro. The 460 MHz DDR sounds impresivem but expensive to?

 

[DestruyaUR]

2.17ns works out to be 460Mhz. Not a tremendous difference in ns, but a large jump in speed. The non-Pro 9800 appears to be packing 3.2ns DDR for that speed.

Formula for calculating RAM speed: 1000/ns rating of RAM. 1000/3.2 = 312.5Mhz (625Mhz effective)

 

[Fingolfin269]

Bah, just do this.

Take the Circuit City ad with you to CompUSA. Tell them you want to buy the Western Digital 80gb special edition and they will PM the CC price by giving you a $70 CompUSA giftcard. Then tell them you want to PM the Radon 9700 and you'll get it for $290-70 = $220. That should be around $360 total for WD 80gb spec edition plus Radeon 9700 Pro. That's not a half bad deal imho.

 

[ElFenix]

jeez that 9800 pro is ~30GB/sec!

i think what they mean by 256 addressable is that the chip can handle that, since the R350 is the same chip for the 9800 and 9900. the only diff is supposed to be the amount of ram. so 98 would have 128 and 99 would have 256.

 

[Lark888]

Just ordered one from Amazon.com (I also had a company safety award for $100 at amazon). Of course the shipping date kept changing as I went through the order Hopefully it'll come sooner rather than later. At least this way it shows up at my door and I don't have to pay the sales tax immediately. Thanks for the note above about "all major retailers" - when I thought about this last night, amazon was still at $349 and I passed on the deal.

 

[toant103]

Originally posted by: Elvis2

Not true. There's a difference in waiting for something that's 6 months away, compared to something that's only 1 month away. Since we know ATI is releasing new cards in a few weeks, its worth it to wait.

Agreed.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Hey disregard my earlier post about PM'n with CompUSA. Obviously you guys already pointed out they dropped it to $299 so forget it Sorry for not reading them all but I was busy at work

Krueger, I used to work at Best Buy and while yes it is against Best Buy's rules to inboard it's not illegal or anything. I'm pretty sure CompUSA and "old" CC could do that whenever they wanted.

Also, two of my best friends work as techs at the local BB and they have informed me that beginning sometime in the near future BB will begin inboarding as well when it comes to your advertised package deals. It's not the "true" version of the ideal but it would still fall under the definition.

 

[amdmaxx]

So, can I go and return JUST my compUSA 1 year replacement plan? and keep the card for $279?

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269
Hey disregard my earlier post about PM'n with CompUSA. Obviously you guys already pointed out they dropped it to $299 so forget it Sorry for not reading them all but I was busy at work

Krueger, I used to work at Best Buy and while yes it is against Best Buy's rules to inboard it's not illegal or anything. I'm pretty sure CompUSA and "old" CC could do that whenever they wanted.

Also, two of my best friends work as techs at the local BB and they have informed me that beginning sometime in the near future BB will begin inboarding as well when it comes to your advertised package deals. It's not the "true" version of the ideal but it would still fall under the definition.

 

[HQH51]

Time for some educational information. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

The best formula to calculate any RAM speed given is to take the marked *seconds (* = pico, nano, micro, whatever) and invert it. So for an example, from the 2.17 ns you've given, it's as easy as doing (2.17x10^-9)^-1. So that should read something like this: Two point seventeen times ten to the negative nine, all raised to the power of negative one. That would give you about 460 MHz. Same as your magical 1000/ rated ns. But this formula works 100% for all values of the RAM's timing, as long as you know how to convert pico, nano, micro, etc to their proper values.

Where does the formula comes from? Anybody who's taking electrical / physics classes would know the formula: f = 1/T. That is, frequency (Hz) is equal to the inverse of the period (sec). RAM markings have the period marked, like 2.17 ns for example. Inverting the 2.17 ns would yield frequency.

Well, I'm done lecturing for nothing, so carry on.

Originally posted by: DestruyaUR
2.17ns works out to be 460Mhz. Not a tremendous difference in ns, but a large jump in speed. The non-Pro 9800 appears to be packing 3.2ns DDR for that speed.

Formula for calculating RAM speed: 1000/ns rating of RAM. 1000/3.2 = 312.5Mhz (625Mhz effective)

 

[Davinci]

lol HQH51.

Anyway, could somebody summarize or explain what is the best deal out there ? how do you get the item # for ingram ? I guess that's the best deal. Am i correct ?

thanks

 

[Parasitic]

Don't know how long this deal will last, but the 9800 (from this point a renaming of 9700 Pro) will phase out the 9700 Pros altogether @ possibly a higher price too.

bad...I can really use that Amazon $75 gift certificate now

 

[DestruyaUR]

As I posted in my earlier (and frighteningly long) message:

Oh, and for people wanting to go the Staples route, the Ingram Micro part number for the 9700 Pro is IM1369550.

I was just on the porcelain throne reading an article penned by the scourge of all hardware reviewers, Greg Vederman of PC Gamer, on "how to overclock your video card like a pro" located in this month's issue. Of course, when he means "like a pro," he means himself....

Anyway, I was checking the tables and saw that a "mid-level PC" using a GF4 Ti4200 somehow achieved 58fps in Game 4: Nature in 3DMark2003.

Sweet leaping Jesus, you wanna know what *I* think has happened? An nVidia card has become sentient and learned DirectX 9.0 through osmosis! :Q Whereas installing DX9.0 on the AVERAGE machine nets you positively nada, evidently in VedeLand it works! Jeez - a sentient nVidia video card...that could potentially be the most dangerous piece of technology ever - think "Cartman's Trapper Keeper" for comparison.

Or the only other logical explanation is Vederman halved the Radeon 9700 Pro's score and tacked on an extra 4fps because he was half-assing it. BUSTED!

 

[bfonnes]

none of this means anything until Doom 3 comes out... Has it?

Bfonnes

 

[DribbleDrive]

This article came out on Friday so maybe it's already been posted:

MSI is going with ATI for some of their vid cards. For now its specifically for German retailer Medion. Sign of things to come?

Linky:
http://biz.yahoo.com/djus/030228/1155000456_2.html

Here's a snipet from the article:

Micro-Star Inc. chose ATI Technologies Inc. instead of Nvidia Corp. because it appears that Medion - the German retailer that will be using Micro-Star's ATI-equipped products - wanted ATI's Radeon 9500 chips for its Spring sales promotion, Friedman Billings Ramsey analyst Eric Rothdeutsch said.

Rothdeutsch said he believes Medion will also request ATI chips for its Fall promotion. If that occurs, the analyst said he believes Nvidia, Santa Clara, Calif., could lose as much as $30 million in sales this year. Furthermore, now that it has a relationship with ATI, Micro-Star could choose the Toronto graphics chip maker for other designs, hurting Nvidia's sales even more, he said.

Micro-Star Inc. chose ATI Technologies Inc. instead of Nvidia Corp. because it appears that Medion - the German retailer that will be using Micro-Star's ATI-equipped products - wanted ATI's Radeon 9500 chips for its Spring sales promotion, Friedman Billings Ramsey analyst Eric Rothdeutsch said.

"Up to now, Micro-Star has used Nvidia in 100% of its graphics cards," Rothdeutsch said. "This loss may open the door wider to ATI and place other design wins at Micro-Star at risk for Nvidia."

 

[DestruyaUR]

Originally posted by: bfonnes
none of this means anything until Doom 3 comes out... Has it?

Bfonnes

Doom III is a DirectX 8.1-based game. DX9.0 games aren't due for at least another year. Hell, Game 4 on 3DMark2003 is so far the only DX9 test available for consumer use!

 

[Fingolfin269]

I would say you could return it and get the money back on just the service plan. Hell, it would definately not hurt to try.

 

[tuan121]

prices are down b/c the 9800 pro are due on this week!