FX5800 or 9700PRO

[jjjayb]

So ROLLO, how do you feel about the 5800 ultra automatically throttling it's clock speeds down from 500/500 to 300/300 when it get's hot (re: when you are gaming more than 5 minutes)? I've just read yet ANOTHER review today where they mention that the card automatically throttled the clock speeds down while they were in the middle of running a benchmark. Actually the one today said it happened multiple times. They said the benchmark numbers dropped 30% when this happened. Did they include those benchmarks in the review though? NO. Just like every other site I've seen thats said the card has automatically underclocked itself while running benches, they threw the score out and reran the bench until it made it through without throttling itself and used that score. So Rollo, those benchmark scores you are seeing, don't count them for a representation of what actual gaming will be like. You can bet if a 3 minute benchmark overheats the card enough to make it throttle itself down, an hour of gaming will certainly cause this to happen multiple times. Can you imagine the dissapointent you will get when you spend $400 for this card because of the wonderful bench scores it got in the reviews, yet find out it keeps clocking down to 300/300 when you actually play a game for more than 5 minutes?

Looking at the 9700 and the nv30 the 9700 running at 325/310 is running neck in neck with the nv30 running at 500/500. What do you think happens when the nv30 clocks itself down to 300/300? Thats 25mhz SLOWER than the 9700 core and 10 mhz SLOWER than the 9700 memory. If the Nv30 runs neck in neck with the 9700 with a 175mhz advantage it's getting eaten for lunch when it throttles itself down to being slower than the 9700.

I've got a BIG problem with this. First off, I don't think the reviewers should keep reruning the bench till they get the score they want. If the nv30 downclocks and has a crappy bench score, it should be used. Why? Because that will be indicitave of what actual gameplay will be like. Don't you remember Nvidia making a big stink about 3dmark03 because it wasn't indicitave of actual gameplay? Well neither are these fraudulent bench scores that had to be reached by continually having to let the card cool down and rebench.

The second problem I have with this is that NOBODY is making much of a big deal about this. I've seen this Casually mention in MULTIPLE reviews now, that they had problems with the card automatically slowing down. This is not something that should casually be mentioned. This is something that needs to be stressed. Who the heck wants to deal with a card that automatically slows down when the gaming is getting intense and the card gets hot?

Another problem I have is with all of the 5800 ultra reviews period. Why are all the sites comparing an ultra card that will only be available in VERY LIMITED supply. (only those who've preordered will ever see one) to the 9700 pro. Why have seen NOT ONE 5800 non ultra review? Why has Nvidia not made any of these available for review? The only card made available for review is a card that very few people will actually be able to buy.

So now Huang and the Nvidia PR machine (oh, and you too rollo) are running around claiming they hold the performance crown. What a joke. They claim the crown with a card that has to be rebenched multiple times to get the desired performance on a card that will not be available.

Enjoy your fx Rollo. Hope you don't mind paying $400 for a 500/500 card that will keep dropping to 300/300 when you are in the heat of battle. That's a 40% reduction. Ridiculous.

 

[chizow]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
Perhaps "most" in your choice of low detail benchmarks, but look at some 1600 x 1200 x 32 benchmarks (preferably with FSAA and/or anisotropic filtering) and you'll soon see just what "most" of them are showing.

I made this distinction earlier, and I'm sure its probably just a slip on your part (as I know you know the difference). Detail and resolution are very different things, as are AF and AA. AF and AA benefit the most from detail level, not resolution. You can apply 2,000x AF and 1000x AA to a stick figure making a huge skid mark on the ground, and its still gonna look like sh!t. Which is why I've been saying a moderately high resolution with max detail and effects is more important to most gamers than simply a high resolution.

I know you've said you don't need to sacrifice such features, but in newer games, thats clearly not the case. I've got a G420 that is totally capable of running 1600 or even 2048, but do I ever use them? Hell no. The performance hit is too great and it makes some games simply unplayable (due to the ridiculously small text, icons, etc. etc.) and massive hits to frame rates in key situations.

Your comments seem to try to make the cards appear equal in terms of performance and image quality. Even if that were true, after you factor in pricing and heat/noise the 9700 Pro is still the superior card.

I never said it was its equal, I've said exactly the opposite, that the 9700pro is the card that suits MY needs best. All I'm saying is that there are people out there who focus on the lower resolutions (1024 or 1280), where its clear that the FX is the 9700pro's equal and in many cases, its superior. I'm not sure why you always exaggerate resolutions in your explanations, but again, the majority of people play at 1024 or 1280, whether its b/c of their video card, monitor, whatever. I use 1280 b/c its my LCDs native, but I'd still use it on my G420. If I had a G520, I'm not sure, but I'm still leaning towards 1280 since my 19'' VIS 1900FP isn't much smaller than the Dell FP2000 I have at work and 1600 takes too much of a performance hit at times.

Whatever the case the 9700 Pro will always do better in those situations, especially in anisotropic filtering. I'm not convinced that nVidia's method is very good at all except in cutting corners and ATi's 16x anisotropic still delivers the best combination of speed and image quality available IMO.

Again, that's totally subjective, as you've never seen the results side-by-side. Considering you're looking at a zoomed-in snapshot of a small section of the monitor, I think you'd have a very hard time telling the two apart at normal viewing (anyone care for a blind taste test?) unless someone told you which was which. I honestly don't spend much time noticing AF textures, as I'm too busy looking for my next frag

So what are you going to do? Not play any games at all? Run at 320 x 240 x 16?

I'm all for a balance of eye candy and framerate but the 9700 Pro has enough horsepower to run just about any game well at the settings I use. Going to 1024 x 768 on a 9700 Pro is rather fruitless

Again, no one ever said anything about balance. Its simply a matter of what you find to be acceptable performance may differ from others. Personally, performance in an FPS is unacceptable to me if the minimum drops below 80fps. And guess what the first thing going away is? AA. AF goes next. Any type of real eye candy like high detail textures, lighting, effects, wall marks, filtering, etc. are the last to go. Now, my resolution is fixed at 1280, but for most others, I'm willing to bet they drop their resolution down from 1600 to 1280 or 1024 before any of those options go away, and those are also the resolutions where the GF FX compares well with the 9700pro, with or w/out AA and AF. That's all I'm saying.

Chiz

 

[lifeguard1999]

Well, the 9800 is announced ... prices on the 9700 Pros are dropping ... life is good.

 

[Tocca]

I've just found this forum, and i'm real happy about it since there's a lot of useful info here and it seems like many of
you have very good knowledge of videocards.
I'm about to buy a new card and to me the most important things to me are, in order:
1. Compability.
2. Speed
3. Eyecandy.

I have a GF3 TI500 right now, it's a good card, i could probably hang on to it some time. But i have two
computers in a network and the second computer is in dire need of something better...
So i'll buy a new one, and put the TI500 in the second PC.

Now, i have three choices. GF TI4600, GF FX or 9700Pro.
If we rule out no1 above, i'd buy a 9700Pro today...!
The thing is, i had a Radeon 8500 earlier and it had lots of compability problems. I've read in many places
now that the 9700Pro is much better and ATIs drivers are often updated and so on...

But yesterday i visited Rage3Ds support forum (where i was a frequent visitor when i had my 8500).
I'm not happy to say that i found atleast as many complains about the 9700 as i ever found about the 8500!

Now, i know that at such a place as a support forum, the only ones (almost) posting are people with problems,
so it's not really fair judging the card by reading there.
But anyway... Is it just that thoose guys have done something wrong? (Old drivers, having uninstalled the old drivers
wrongly and so on) or are there still compability problems with the ATI cards?

Two days ago i was almost on the way to the store to buy a 9700Pro, but then i hesitated. Now i don't know what
to do. I don't like two things about the new GF FX, the noice and the automatic downclocking due to heat!

Now i'm actually considering getting a TI4600... I know i'll get a much slower card, and i'll have to run many games
without FSAA and AF to get them up to speed... I don't like the thought of that, but i'm positive that with a
TI4600 the games will atleast work properly.

It's not easy to decide...

Thomas.

 

[lifeguard1999]

Tocca

A) Do you really need a new graphics card? Do your games really require it? Do you really want to play with AA and AF turned on?

B) Can you really go wrong with a Ti4200, or Ti4600, or 9500 Pro, or 9700, or 9800? They are all good cards. The 4200/4600 will be much better that your Ti500 ... as will the ATI cards.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Originally posted by: chizow

Originally posted by: bunnyfubbles

Originally posted by: chizow
Rollo has a valid point, since the majority of users/gamers simply don't run their games at 1600x1280 or use AF or AA.

And who would spend $300-400 on a video card and purposely not try to milk as much out of it as possible? People don't run at high resolutions because they don't have the 9700 Pro caliber boards. I was running Tribes 2 @ 1280x1024 with all the details up on my Radeon 8500 but because my frame rate would drop to around 20-40 in the thick of things, it wasn't good for competition. I reduced to 1024x768 to keep my FPS upto 80 or so and rarely drop below 30-40. Bow do I sorely miss 1280x1024...

I could easily spend $200 on a GF4 Ti or R9500 Pro and get decent performance out of it, but if I'm going to spend $300-400 I don't want unnoticable gains (80 to 324823 FPS) at a crappy resolution (1024x768 isn't terrible, but it is certainly a "compromise" resolution).

I'd agree with BFG10K on this one, there are very little good things about the GeForce FX. It's loud, its hot, and it doesn't perform as well as the 9700 Pro where it counts. And guess what happens if you give the 9700 Pro cooling equal to what the GeForce FX has access to? That's right you get 400+MHz cores which only further hammers in the adavantage of the 9700 Pro.

People don't run 1600x1200 for the very same reason you indicated, performance. I guess some people don't mind playing pixel hunter, and at 1600x1200 you'd better memorize script patterns and macros/hotkeys, b/c you'll sure have a lot of problems reading text and icons on anything smaller than a 21'' CRT (19.8'' VIS) or 20'' LCD. Framerate fluctuations will be amplified, as they are in each increase in resolution as well.

Your comments about the 8500 further my point; What you see in benchmarks are average framerates, but if you run any demo or benchmarks, you'll know there are enough significant slowdowns to make a certain resolution undesirable, but will yield a seemingly acceptable average fps. Realistically, you would need to have a minimum fps of ~80 to not notice any significant slowdowns, but again, that's something neither card can do in newer games with AA and AF at 1600x1200x32.

By the way, this argument is already dated, as it seems the newer FX previews show greatly improved performance "where it counts."

Chiz

No you are wrong, I never proved you point, my Radeon 8500 CANNOT drive my more demanding games at my desktop resolution (BTW I BOTHER TO HAVE A QUALITY MONITOR) of 1280x1024. No card could run 1280x1024 with FSAA and AA cranked and expect something other than a slide show. Any gamer would want to run their games on a large monitor at a high resolution with all the goodies turned up, and before the 9700Pro that was impossible to do with the latest games. Good job, maybe the FX can still run with the 9700, its a good thing I can by one today and for $299 MSRP. If you can afford a GeForce FX, there is no reason you should even be running at the lower resolutions where it seems to be faster, AND EVEN THEN YOU WONT BE ABLE TO TELL A DIFFERENCE! Name a few games available today that are too tough for a 9700 Pro @ 1024x768. Certainly none that I and many others play.

BTW my comments about my 8500 are NOT benchmarks, they are my personal experiences. When I say average I mean 90% of the time I'm hovering at 80. Maybe 0-5% of the time I've dropped a "low" as 40 which is still very playable for T2. All my other games my 8500 blows away @ 1024x768 allowing me to run them at 1280x1024, which is another point supporting my stance. IF AN 8500 IS "TOO FAST" FOR 1024x768, THEN WTF DO I NEED A GF FX?! To play at higher resolutions with FSAA and AA turned up, DUH!

I dunno, why defend a GFFX with a point that its faster at slower resolutions, when you could easily go with a much cheaper video card and then use the saved money on a CPU/Mobo/ram upgrade which will more than make up for the cheaper card, especially at low resolutions where games tend to be bottlenecked at the CPU.

 

[Tocca]

Originally posted by: lifeguard1999
Tocca

A) Do you really need a new graphics card? Do your games really require it? Do you really want to play with AA and AF turned on?

B) Can you really go wrong with a Ti4200, or Ti4600, or 9500 Pro, or 9700, or 9800? They are all good cards. The 4200/4600 will be much better that your Ti500 ... as will the ATI cards.

Do i really need a new graphic card? Depends... I do need a new card for my second computer, if i am to use it to play network games!
Otherwise it's probably a bit of luxure to upgrade from a TI500...
But, i have the money for it. And since i play games quite a lot it seems like a nice gift to myself...

There are games that doesn't run as good as i'd like... Nascar2003 is an example, Rallisport Challenge another... In Sim City 4
i have to turn down the eyecandy some and that's without using FSAA/AF on any of theese games.
As an example, if i run N2003 in 1280x960 with all graphic settings on max (no FSAA/AF) i get framerates around 12-15 or so in a race.
Totally unusable!
Being able to run N2003 with 8xAF and every setting on max, with ok framerates, would be heaven!

BTW, i have a P4 2.2 with 512 mb RAM...

I'm almost sure that even a 9800Pro won't be able to run N2003 with FSAA/AF on at a high resolution and all settings on max on ANY
computer!!

Of course i would rather pay $200 for a card that can do all that i want. But if i by paying $500 can get much higher performance,
without any compability problems, then i will. I'll probably use that card for more than a year, after that i might be able to sell
it for... say $200. That's $300 for one year of fun. Not much imo...

Thomas.

 

[kylebisme]

i recommend a 9700 non-pro for ~250$ as the best bang for your buck and usage the moment Tocca, you could skim a bit and get a 9500pro right at 200$ but the extra 50$ is well worth it in my opinion. as for ati compatibility, i imagine that most of the people on the forums you say complaining are isolated cases where they have made their own mistakes. there are a few issues here and there, i here sacrifice doesn't run well for one, but everything i use works just great and i know quite a few people in the same *very happy* boat as me. i can't say i play n2003 or simcity4, but i can assure you rallisport chalange runs like a dream on my 9700pro and looks like one too. granted, sence nvidia is the inudsry's leading manufature, you are less likely to have issues with one of their cards. however, as it stands today between ati and nvidia, a card your experice with either is quite likely to be problem free.

and back to the topic, Anand just put up a good comparison showing the 9700pro along with the 9800pro and the geforcefx that doesn't get so hot it slows itself down here.

beyond3d has comparisons of the the 9700pro along with the 9800pro here which are on the same testbead as the fx ultra and ti4600 tests here.

also worth noting, is a surprisingly well put together comparison from hardocp here.

please note that there are some great image quality comparisons using specially designed tests as well as real games in the beyond3d and hardocp articles.

 

[blindtothagame]

I HOPE YOU DIDNT GET THE NVIDIA FX B/C U WILL BE SRY WHEN U READ THE REVIEW ANANDTECH N OTHER HAVE GIVEN FX BAD REPORTS.
ATI 9800PRO RULES.........

 

[Tocca]

Ok, thanks for your input The Snowman, i'll just make sure i find a store with a good returnpolicy (should problem arise)
and then buy an ATI after all. Should there be compability problems, i can always trade it. If i go the other way, i will
always wonder what it would be like with the 9700/9800...!
And i don't want the card with "the best bang for your buck", i've saved money for this and i simply want "the best bang"...
So, a 9800Pro will probably be it. If it works flawlessy i'll be a real happy man. If not, i'll exchange it. Simple...

Phew, it has taken me LOTS of hours research, reading, asking and so on, to get to a conclusion.

Now i must call my store and ask when they get the 9800Pro...

Thomas.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

wow, I just read the reviews of the 9800 Pro, I must say that I was semi-dissapointed in the mere "tweeking" of the R300 core and the increased clock speeds weren't all that impressive (primarily the memory's clock), but the tweeks made me a believer and the room to overclock to 420MHz core and 380MHz ram was also very impressive, and you end up with 10% boost in AA/AF performance. The really impressive thing was the 9800 Pro with qualtiy AF consistently matching or beating the 9700 Pro with perfromance AF... not to mention the 9800 Pro blowing out everything with Performance AF.

The hard part will be forking over the $ for a 9800 Pro instead of a much cheaper 9700 Pro. The more effecient R350 core definately leaves a lot more to be desired than its increase in clock speed.

 

[nRollo]

"All I'm saying is that there are people out there who focus on the lower resolutions (1024 or 1280), where its clear that the FX is the 9700pro's equal and in many cases, its superior. I'm not sure why you always exaggerate resolutions in your explanations, but again, the majority of people play at 1024 or 1280, whether its b/c of their video card, monitor, whatever. I use 1280 b/c its my LCDs native, but I'd still use it on my G420"

You are a FOOL Chizow. The wise gamer ONLY runs at the exact same settings I run at, and has the exact same preferences I have! You don't know ANYTHING about video gaming. Who WOULDN'T want to cut their framerate in half to smooth out some teeny tiny 12X10 jags!?! You are obviously criminally insane, so I have nothing more to say to you except shouldn't you be holding up a gas station somewhere!?!?

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1794&p=6
12X9X32 UT 2003 no AA/FSAA=175fps
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1794&p=7
12X9X32 UT 2003 AA/FSAA=89.9fps
It's as plain as the nose on your obtuse face Chizow- with powerful cards like these, there is NO performance hit using IQ enhancing features! At a game like UT2003, you're standing around looking at the scenery a lot- you DON'T want jaggies!

-BFG10K

LOL

 

[nRollo]

The UT2003 FX vs 9700 Quiz:

1. You're playing the CTF Maul map. You've just captured the flag and are running/jumping up a ravine with 3 opponents chasing you, firing a variety of weapons. Do you:
a. Stop, look at the edge of a building in the distance, see the lack of jaggies and thank God for your 9700s powerful FSAA and anisotropic filtering
b. Wonder why you seem to be slowing down, compliments of your 9700s powerful FSAA and anisotropic filtering
c. Spin around, run backwards while laying down flak bombs with alternative fire

2. You're playing Q3 Team Arena, with several other players online. An opposing team player has captured your flag, and he has armed escort. They're retreating for their base fast, firing rockets at you as they go. Do you:
a. Stop to marvel at the smooth edges of the rockets, and thank God for your 9700s powerful FSAA and anisotropic filtering
b. Watch one rocket jerkily fly by, while another hits you in the face, and thank God for your 9700s powerful FSAA and anisotropic filtering
c. Alter your course to avoid the rockets while returning fire, and thank God you didn't cut your framerate with your 9700s powerful FSAA and anisotropic filtering

If you answered A or B to either of the above, the 9700/9800 are your probable best choice.

Bonus Question:
3. Do you enjoy scrolling, wavey lines rolling through your desktop?
a. Yes, I think that would give me a headache, and I like pain and eyestrain
b. Why would anyone put up with that?

If you answered a. to the above, you can join the literally 100s of people who have experienced this on their "perfect" R9700s.

 

[BoomAM]

Rollo,
incase you didnt realise, i was`nt calling you an idiot. Its just a phrase, just like some people call others fanATIcs. Your previous history with your computer components were unknown to me. All i was saying, was that, i was getting the impression that you were a big nvidia fan.

 

[BoomAM]

Rollo.
Theres no such thing as a zero performance loss when enabling something like AA/AF.
And belive it or not, graphics do make a difference in games. The more realistic the graphics, the greater the imersion in the game.

 

[nRollo]

BoomAm:
I am a computer hardware, first person shooter gaming fan.
I think the FX and Ultra are being judged too harshly, I don't plan to buy either as I'm happy with my 9700Pro. I'll upgrade on the next gen of cards, and buy whichever suits my needs best. (highest minimum framerate at 12X10X32, whatever shooter I'm playing at the time)
I think the non-blow dryer version of the FX is an excellent card. If MSRP is $299 to start, street prices will be much lower, soon. To pay $250-$275 for that level of performance is more than fair.
I'm troubled by the noise, speed reduction of the Ultra as well, if I were still a dual income, no kids, I'd buy one just to play with and see first hand how big of an issue it is.

Mostly, I'm just tired of the whining and lies along the lines of :
"The R9700 is faster in most situations"
"nVidia has the curse of 3dfx! They'll go broke!"
"The FX Ultra suxorz! ATI is the KING!"

Fanboy bleating like that gets no one anywhere, especially not those considering both cards. For the kind of gaming I do, I'd be a fool not to consider both cards.

<steps off soapbox>

 

[JamesC]

Well Rollo

You certainly get the title of 'Forum Comedy Genious' for that last post! Even if i dont totally agree with what you are saying.
Out of interest do you get scrolly wavy lines with your 9700 and what do you reckon my chances are if i get one i..e is it 1 in 10 or more common than that.
thanks
James

 

[blahblah]

Originally posted by: Rollo
BoomAm:
I think the FX and Ultra are being judged too harshly, I don't plan to buy either as I'm happy with my 9700Pro. I'll upgrade on the next gen of cards, and buy whichever suits my needs best. (highest minimum framerate at 12X10X32, whatever shooter I'm playing at the time)
I think the non-blow dryer version of the FX is an excellent card. If MSRP is $299 to start, street prices will be much lower, soon. To pay $250-$275 for that level of performance is more than fair.
I'm troubled by the noise, speed reduction of the Ultra as well, if I were still a dual income, no kids, I'd buy one just to play with and see first hand how big of an issue it is.

I think everyone here is really tired of how Nvidia Promised Everything and the Kitchen Sink when they released the info on FX 6 - 7 month ago.

So here we are now, the actual card performance is shall we say "a bit underwhelming", certainly not what we were promised. If this is suppose to be the biggest contribution that NVidia has made. Then call me not impressed. In fact, I think my old TNT2 Ultra was more cutting edge when it was release.

Is it a bad card? probably not. Certainly it has its own problems at least the FX Ultra, such as heat and noise. But these issues can be overcome.

I am just upset that NVidia Lied to people hoping that they would not buy the 9700pro. String us along for 7 month and gave us a card that is similar to 9700pro. (For better or worse, I'll let you be the judge)

If they do decide to only filfill the preorder for the Ultra card. If you have the choice between 9700Pro and regular FX, can you honestly say that the regular FX is better than 9700pro?
Checkout this reviewers opinion on the FX Ultra.
http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/r350/index8.htm
What about the FX? Is this even a serious question anymore? well I know alot of Nvidia groupies who would perhaps argue its merits, surprisngly very few im in contact with have done, from my own experience after playing with one for a few days, I couldnt even say I would take one for nothing. No, im NOT crazy, im not "anti" nvidia, im still the happy owner of a 4600, but the FX - its ludicrous noise levels and the problems I had with drivers trying to get some games running. Not worth the effort, and certainly not worth the earplugs.

I am not a hardcore gamer by any strech of imaginations. The game I play are usually RTS such as starcraft, warcraft and so on, so you don't really need a blazing fast video card.

But I am into spending my money wisely. I am all for the best bang for the buck.

As a consumer, if I have $300 to $400 to spend on a card today, which would I buy.

I think the choice is obvious. I'd pickup the Build By ATI Radeon 9700Pro for $299 at Bestbuy. It performs better than the regular FX. And cost less than the 9800Pro. For me, the extra $100 is not worth the difference. But again, I am not into games that stress the card.

Before I get labelled as a crazy fan, I should point out that I current have 8500 and Ti200 in my machines and i am happy with both as they do the job that I need it to do.

Don't buy cards because you liked company A better than company B.

 

[BoomAM]

Heres a logical way to look at this guys.
Is any card above a GF3 slow at todays games. No they arnt. Its doesnt matter too much which is faster/better, all that matters is that they can both play todays/tomorrows games without really significant slowdowns.

 

[JamesC]

well for features i reckon the 9700Pro is the way to go for me. Although i havent seen or been able to find any reviews of the non ultra benchmarks were included in the tomshardware review of the 9800Pro and to me the ATI seemed to have the upperhand without any noisy cooling solution. I downloaded a file of the FxUltra booting up and when i played it i thought a plain was passing within feet of my house!!!!

My main concern however with this card is the same as Tocca's - personally i would prefer a rock solid stable card which is really fast as well, rather than a card that has the performance but I cant rely on Ati to sort out any probs i might have with it. Call me fussy but if i am paying this sort of money i expect excellence.

How widespread exactly are these problems that people are experiencing and can i rely on Ati to sort them out, or now the 9800 pro is around will support for the 9700 pro be neglected.

James

 

[BoomAM]

I dont know why ppl still critisize ATI for having crap support and poor drivers. There`re equal to nVidia IMO.
They dont release drivers as often, but when they do, its because they need to, not just to say that they update them often.

 

[JamesC]

Hi BoomAm
I have never owned an ATI card so i can only go by other peoples experiences but stories like this :

The thing is, i had a Radeon 8500 earlier and it had lots of compability problems. I've read in many places
now that the 9700Pro is much better and ATIs drivers are often updated and so on...

But yesterday i visited Rage3Ds support forum (where i was a frequent visitor when i had my 8500).
I'm not happy to say that i found atleast as many complains about the 9700 as i ever found about the 8500!

And this

Bonus Question:
3. Do you enjoy scrolling, wavey lines rolling through your desktop?
a. Yes, I think that would give me a headache, and I like pain and eyestrain
b. Why would anyone put up with that?

If you answered a. to the above, you can join the literally 100s of people who have experienced this on their "perfect" R9700s.

Do really make me concerned. I there is one thing i cant stand it is stuff that doesnt work how its supposed to when its supposed to. If it wasnt for that i would order a sapphire 9700 pro tomorrow! I have no brand loyalty to Nvidia, its just i dont particularly have a lot of faith in getting support from ATI!

 

[BFG10K]

Originally posted by: Rollo
I notice the difference between 96fps minimum and 60fps minimum.

I didn't see those scores anywhere. However if you're referring to the 96.3 FPS vs 66.1 FPS scores then the latter minimum score is still above 60 FPS so I'm happy with that, but I do take your point and you're certainly entitled to your opinion.

However if framerate is your only concern as you've hinted in your posts then why aren't you running at 1024 x 768 to instead achieve 105 FPS? Or how about 640 x 480 for a possible 120 FPS?

I notice losing half my fps to quality aniso settings even more]

I agree with you that quality anisotropic impacts the performance quite a lot which is why I use performance anisotropic instead, producing performance hits of around 10%-15%. For such a small hit the extra image quality is more than worth it.

You are a FOOL Chizow. The wise gamer ONLY runs at the exact same settings I run at, and has the exact same preferences I have!

Silly comments like this do little to further your cause.

Who WOULDN'T want to cut their framerate in half to smooth out some teeny tiny 12X10 jags!?!

I don't know, you tell me Rollo, why aren't you running at 640 x 480 when framerate is the most important thing to you? Afterall in your lame jokes you didn't seem to feel that addressing jagged edges was a priority.

Oh, and you do also realise that higher resolutions do more than just increase the visual quality of a game, right? Higher resolutions make targets both easier to see and easier to hit at long ranges. So unless you have a significantly higher framerate, you're at a disadvantage to anyone running at a higher resolution than you are.

But of course I'm sure you knew that, right?

If you answered a. to the above, you can join the literally 100s of people who have experienced this on their "perfect" R9700s.

Of those "100s" I wonder how many have overclocked their boards, have poor power supplies and/or other hardware faults.

Don't be so quick to blame a video card for everything.

 

[nRollo]

"Out of interest do you get scrolly wavy lines with your 9700 and what do you reckon my chances are if i get one i..e is it 1 in 10 or more common than that"
I had them on my 19" Sony, don't on my 21" Nokia. I don't know what your chances are, but a lot of people have this problem. I love the R9700 though. It really is an awesome card, and it's a steal at $299..

 

[LordLee]

Just throwing my 2 cents:

I have been a long time Nvidia fan (Got 3 PCs at home...1 w/ GF2 GTS, 1 w/ GF3 original, and last one w/ GF 4600). The GF4600 one is my gaming rig, and for the last several months, some weird NV error kept showing in my event log (do a search "nv error parse hash" on google and you will see) and screwed up my system big time...

Switched over to ATI 9700 Pro about two weeks ago...what a huge difference...

Everything is working great and there is a significant performance gain in terms raising the MINIMUM FPS (which was what counts for me for smooth gameplay).

I am now an ATI convert

The truth is, Nvidia is ONE FULL product life cycle behind ATI...I don't think they can regain the lead this calendar year.