Just bought Radeon9700Pro

[khunkami]

I just bought radeon9700pro 8x 256mb. Is it good choice? I paid 120$ US including shipping to Canada.

All i want is smooth graphic on WoW, and Battlefield 2.

Im going to upgrade ram too. from 512 to 1gb.

 

[anandtechrocks]

It's an older graphics card... I would have gone for a 6600 GT or X700 Pro (used to be <$100). You'll get smoother graphics if your previous card was from the nVidia FX or ATI 8000 Series, but overall I would not have bought it.

 

[jiffylube1024]

I don't play BF2 so I can't comment on that (although I've heard that particular game likes 2GB of RAM). It should be fine in WOW depending on the resolution you play at.

$120US isn't a great deal for a 9700 Pro at all. For starters, the extra 128MB on that card is worthless; you get no performance benefit with a 256MB 9700 Pro or 9800 Pro. It's basically just like a regular 9700 Pro, meaning it's a bit slower than a 9800 Pro, which is slower than an X700 Pro or 6600GT ...

Considering that works out to about $140 CDN, it's not grossly overpaying, but you can get a 6600GT for about $35 CDN more, which would be a nice bit faster.


As long as you keep the resolution around 1024X768, both games should be pretty playable.

 

[Griswold]

$120 for a more than 3 year old (it was the first DX9 card after all) vid card is a bit too much.

 

[RiDE]

I'm currently running a 9700 Pro and I can run both WoW and BF2 ok at 1280x960 with everything on medium with no AA/AF. Averaging about 40fps. Turn off shadows in BF2 and it goes up to around 60fps.

There's people here selling 9800 Pros for $80 so maybe you just paid $20-30 too much.

 

[videoclone]

My friend is still using a Geforce4 Ti4200 128mb and he plays Counter-strike "Source DOD-Source " FEAR " and most other new games and they all run at 40-60 FPS ... no problems no slowdown .. its amasing what an Athlon64 3200+ 939, 1GB DDR 400 Dual Channel does for an old videocard ...

YOU really gotta see it to beleive it .... Now if he had a 9700Pro ... OMG ownage.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: videoclone
My friend is still using a Geforce4 Ti4200 128mb and he plays Counter-strike "Source DOD-Source " FEAR " and most other new games and [/b]they all run at 40-60 FPS[/b] ... no problems no slowdown .. its amasing what an Athlon64 3200+ 939, 1GB DDR 400 Dual Channel does for an old videocard ...

YOU really gotta see it to beleive it .... Now if he had a 9700Pro ... OMG ownage.

Ugh, I don't even want to get into it right now. Yes, with reduced settings you can play these games with acceptable framerates.

Nonethless, games like FEAR are DirectX 9 titles. They will look like crap on a Ti4200, and no wonder they perform so well! Also, you need a 7800GTX to get over 40 fps @ 1600X1200 in FEAR, which is the resolution some people like to play at.

To each their own...

 

[dfloyd]

40-60 fps in Fear with a Ti4200? Ouch I would hate to imagine how bad that looks.

I know it sucks when someone says that was a bad deal etc, but honestly you probably would of been alot better off getting what some of the others have suggested. The 9700 Pro is a great card, but not really a great card for newer games. I cant run Fear at what I want to with a X800XL and its quite a powerful card. Of course its all relevant in how good you want your game to look. Not sure what 6600 GTs are going for and so on but if you could maybe resell and get one of those you would be alot better off in all the next gen games that have just come out and will be coming out in the future. My X800XL runs Fear at HQ settings (This is the demo) with 2x FSAA and 1280 x 960 resolution pretty well. I cant remember exactly but it was around 50-60 fps on Average with a minimum of around 29-30. That with a Athlon 64 3200+, 939, and 1 GB of DDR 400 ram (And for me Videoclone this system does not carry my fairly newer video card that well). My system still dont run Battlefield nearly as well as I would like so if Battlefield 2 is your main reason for upgrading you may want to consider another path.

I know the one reason I am considering upgrading is BF 2. My current system runs most everything, including Fear very well, but BF II I have to back off quite a bit to get really smooth gameplay. Which is a shame as that game looks very nice when you open up the settings, but it takes a huge hit to do so.

But whatever you decide good luck friend.

 

[Kyanzes]

As it was already told the 9700PRO is a nice card from ATI, one of the most important releases that have been made on the market, but it's getting dated. You really should have bought a 6600GT. In Doom3 for example, a 6600 gives about twice as much performance. In certain games they tie. Still, the 6600GT has more up to date architecture, so it's more future proof.

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: videoclone
My friend is still using a Geforce4 Ti4200 128mb and he plays Counter-strike "Source DOD-Source " FEAR " and most other new games and they all run at 40-60 FPS ... no problems no slowdown .. its amasing what an Athlon64 3200+ 939, 1GB DDR 400 Dual Channel does for an old videocard ...

YOU really gotta see it to beleive it .... Now if he had a 9700Pro ... OMG ownage.

With the same settings on a 7800 the average frame rate would probably be close to 150.

 

[Jeeper94]

khunkami, to put your purchase in perspective, I paid $44 for a used ATI Radeon 9700np (non pro) about a 10 days ago. I don't play games on PC(Xbox does fine), but I would have to agree with the consensus; you paid too much for a kick ass card that is still respectable today, but not meant for todays demanding games.

 

[Pabster]

9700 Pro is pretty outdated now. But it is still a decent card.

 

[ScrewFace]

I think you made a good choice because you're on a budget. The difference over the GeForce4-Ti4200 will be like night and day. It supports SM 2.0 so you'll get all the eye candy that us with more powerful cards enjoy. It's just that you have to play at a lower resolution (1024x768). That's all. I had an AiW Radeon 9700 Pro and it rocked! Enjoy your card!

 

[Rock Hydra]

Originally posted by: jiffylube1024

Originally posted by: videoclone
My friend is still using a Geforce4 Ti4200 128mb and he plays Counter-strike "Source DOD-Source " FEAR " and most other new games and [/b]they all run at 40-60 FPS[/b] ... no problems no slowdown .. its amasing what an Athlon64 3200+ 939, 1GB DDR 400 Dual Channel does for an old videocard ...

YOU really gotta see it to beleive it .... Now if he had a 9700Pro ... OMG ownage.

Ugh, I don't even want to get into it right now. Yes, with reduced settings you can play these games with acceptable framerates.

Nonethless, games like FEAR are DirectX 9 titles. They will look like crap on a Ti4200, and no wonder they perform so well! Also, you need a 7800GTX to get over 40 fps @ 1600X1200 in FEAR, which is the resolution some people like to play at.

To each their own...

That's true. Those Voodoos running in SLI playing D3 at 60 FPS was accomplished because the freakin' cards couldn't render half of the stuff.

 

[fbrdphreak]

You could've got a 6600GT for that price.

6600GT >>>> 9700P

You lose

 

[Kalessian]

Why would you post this in retrospect?

Wouldn't it have been wiser to ask here before you bought it?

In any case, feel confident that your PC will be more powerful than all of your friend's (unless you're friends with the guy who sold the 9700p).

 

[Munky]

He said he paid $120 for it in Canada which by US standards would be somewhere ~$100. Not a bad deal, although he could have gotten a used 9800p, or a 6600gt for that price, which is slightly better. Anyway, on a fast AXP system, I usd to run BF2 on a OC'd 9800p with an XT bios, and I got 40-50 fps using medium settings + AA/AF at 10x7. It may not do so well in FEAR but in BF2 and CS:S the 9700p should still offer playable framerates at acceptable quality settings.

 

[Madellga]

Originally posted by: khunkami
I just bought radeon9700pro 8x 256mb. Is it good choice? I paid 120$ US including shipping to Canada.

All i want is smooth graphic on WoW, and Battlefield 2.

Im going to upgrade ram too. from 512 to 1gb.

My advice: next time ask before you actually buy it.

 

[Killrose]

A 9700Pro with 256mb of ram? Should help the card a little bit maybe since normally they were 128mb ram cards. My second comp has an overclocked 9700np and it plays BF2 OK with medium settings and 2xAA on a 2gig AMD XP.

You could have done better sure, but also could have done much worse

 

[amheck]

Originally posted by: fbrdphreak
You could've got a 6600GT for that price.

6600GT >>>> 9700P

 

[Rage187]

Originally posted by: munky
He said he paid $120 for it in Canada which by US standards would be somewhere ~$100. Not a bad deal

Read it again:

I paid 120$ US including shipping to Canada.

as noted, you should have got a 6600gt.