ATI Radeon 9500 PRO Retail and OEM in stock at newegg again!

[tch]

Retail is at $197, OEM is at $180 ordered myself the OEM Not a bad deal at all.

**Edit: Free Shipping too!

 

[SIDEARMS]

Why not just buy the 9500 for $157 (pircewatch) and make a little modify to it to be a 9700.

 

[GoodToGo]

Originally posted by: SIDEARMS
Why not just buy the 9500 for $157 (pircewatch) and make a little modify to it to be a 9700.

Umm no, I think I will just stick with the unmodded product. Good find tch, got retail

 

[Tab]

Heh, I dont trust pricewatch anymore than I trust Saddam Hussian. While not all the sites are reputiable, some are...but not that much.

 

[tch]

yep, any pricewatch deal is a non-deal, nothin beats newegg.

 

[Helical]

Originally posted by: GoodToGo

Originally posted by: SIDEARMS
Why not just buy the 9500 for $157 (pircewatch) and make a little modify to it to be a 9700.

Umm no, I think I will just stick with the unmodded product. Good find tch, got retail

Good idea... this whole ATI mod trash going around seems to be 95% complete misinformation. THE 9500/9700 MOD ONLY WORKS ON EARLY 9500 CARDS BUILT ON 9700 PCB'S!!!! Period. The russian site which posted this mod is not necessarily held in high esteem by many techs... The new "9xxx to fire GL mod" seems even worse - just because you flip a resistor doesn't mean you change the complete capability of the card!!! There is *NO* documentation to back it up, just a bunch of totally mis-informed posturing posted as fact. Lame. I hold the "Software mod" in equal suspicion. (Note that there is little discussion on WHY those early 9500 parts AREN'T more-profitable 9700 parts to begin with... chances may be that those other four pipelines may not be fully stable.)

I dunno... seems to me like a lot of n00bs are starting to get into OCing / modding and whatnot, putting stupid cold cathodes in their b0x0rs to be 1337 =rolls eyes= without knowing bull-plop about hardware and computing. I think this amount of misinformation is a symptom of that. Even if that russian mod does work on those specific cards (which may not even be manufactured anymore), I don't think de/re-soldering a surface-mount resistor package is as simple as bumping up the FSB on your Dell.

Sorry to go off topic from Hot Deals. Just sick of the misinformation. NewEgg's OEM deal (free shipping!) looks great to me.

 

[DoobieOnline]

Linked

 

[jacky72]

oem is made by sapphire, is it same card as the built by ati retail card?

 

[johto]

fyi, hack link. @ xbit labs.

Helical, it doesn't seem to be pcb related. Its the actual radeon chip you f*ck with. Comments?

 

[GoodToGo]

Originally posted by: johto
fyi, hack link. @ xbit labs.

Helical, it doesn't seem to be pcb related. Its the actual radeon chip you f*ck with. Comments?

Doesnt matter what you f*ck around with, I will still stick with the unmodded product. You guys are more than welcome to mess around with your video cards.

 

[tch]

The built by ATI retail card is a PowerColor, that card isn't in stock right now -- It's $189, my buddy got that last week and it seems to work fine. I think I had read somewhere (video card forums?) that all the Built by ATI for the 9500/9700 are built by sapphire.

 

[Elixer]

OEM usually means that the card is slower/cheaper in some way, I know the last OEM ATI cards I saw were 75MHz slower, and had slower ram also. This was for the radeon 8500 OEM card though.

 

[TekDemon]

Originally posted by: Helical

Good idea... this whole ATI mod trash going around seems to be 95% complete misinformation. THE 9500/9700 MOD ONLY WORKS ON EARLY 9500 CARDS BUILT ON 9700 PCB'S!!!! Period.

Umm...no. The NEW Sapphire 9500 128MB boards are still built on 9700 PCB's, although if you care, it's the Rev. 3.0 PCB...or so I hope since I ordered one =P

Now...some soldering, some praying, and 9700 time =P

 

[smilingbeast]

Actually saphire cards are pretty much like buying the ATI cards from what I understand. Saphire technologies has worked very closely with ATI for the last 10 years and if u compare alotta the boards from saphire to ati pcbs they are identical.

I have a saphire 9000 pro which works great except under winxp

 

[TekDemon]

Originally posted by: smilingbeast
Actually saphire cards are pretty much like buying the ATI cards from what I understand. Saphire technologies has worked very closely with ATI for the last 10 years and if u compare alotta the boards from saphire to ati pcbs they are identical.

I have a saphire 9000 pro which works great except under winxp

not exactly...originally ATI wasn't planning on having 128MB 9500 boards, but sapphire decided to make one(cuz sapphire is nutz =P)
Except they used the 9700 PCB since it was handy...which resulted in a 256 bit bus...
Of course since the pixel pipeline was still neutered to only 4 the extra memory bus was useless...until someone fixed that problem =P

Oh and to make this that much sweeter....

NO MORE SOLDERING FOR THIS MOD =P I dunno how accurate this is but it seems legit...only time will tell though!
Software Patching 9500 to 9700

 

[smilingbeast]

sorry, i was actually replying to the guy who asked if sapphire was any better/worse than the ATI retail boards...i didnt mean in comparing the 9500 to 9700 pcbs...

 

[vexingv]

good deal; they even lowered the price of the retail ATI card by $4
man, the retail ATI i ordered last friday for $201 just came in today; well at least i have 3 yr warranty, s-video, and composite cables

 

[Helical]

Originally posted by: johto
fyi, hack link. @ xbit labs.

Helical, it doesn't seem to be pcb related. Its the actual radeon chip you f*ck with. Comments?

Yes it DOES matter, and you're NOT messing with the R300 core. You're messing with resistors BY the core under the HSF. And you need a 9700 PCB not a 9500 PCB as ATI has built... apparently some (all?) of the OEM's have built their parts on the 9700 design to get their product to market while ATI developed the final PCB layout for the 9500s. 9700 PCBs have the wiring for a 256-bit bus / 9500s are wired for 128-bit. TekDemon's posts seem to be right on - and best of luck to you BTW!! I'm definitely keeping my eye on how this 128MB 9500 -> 9700 thing turns out for my own greedy purposes hehe. (If it works, everyone better act soon 'cause those extra traces are more expensive to manufacture and I suspect most OEM's are going to start switching to the 9500 PCB soon...)

 

[tch]

OEM is not any slower, see this thread.

 

[dud]

tch, Newegg is GREAT but not always the best. Be carefull about making blanket statements like that. I have purchased many things from Newegg and they are great. If you are looking for a great deal on this board (retail) try Allstarshop.com. The have a 9.5+ rating on resellerratings.com and many times their prices are better then Newegg. I just bought an Abit Siluro TI 4200 from them for only $113. They have the RETAIL version of the 9500 PRO for $191 shipped:

Radeon 9500 PRO at Allstarshop

I am highly satisfied with this company. I hope someone finds this usefull ...

 

[MisterE]

Helical, The UPS delivery man just handed me my brand-spanking-new Sapphire 9500 that I ordered from Googlegear on Sunday night. Is is revision 3.0 and is built on the 9700 PCB. This means that it is moddable to a 9700.

E.

 

[eljaye925]

Microcenter has these on sale for $175 until mid-month. I was able to get my local CompUsa to pricematch this past Saturday. There was a thread about it.

 

[freebee]

Or I got my neutered 9700 at newegg. Probably shoulda waited till the 9500 (9500 retail was 201 last week) came back in stock....but needed it badly. Maybe it will overclock to pro levels...haven't tried it yet. Its not that much more than a 9500 retail.....though some say i shoulda got the 9700 pro.....since i only want round heads in CS....it doens't really make a difference which on i get.