ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 128 MB Graphics Card

by ATI

Product Details

Product Manual [372kb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00006IRY8
• Item model number: 100-433003
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: August 29, 2002

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Early Adopters Pick: November 2002. Best image quality in a graphics card to date and best card for PC gaming.

Through a combination of incredible 3-D rendering performance, sophisticated real-time visual effects, unsurpassed image quality, and cutting-edge video features, the Radeon 9700 Pro takes the PC entertainment experience to a totally new level.

Featuring fast 3-D gaming performance with next-generation VPU architecture, complete DirectX 9.0 support for unprecedented realism and sophisticated visual effects, and ATI's Smoothvision 2.0 technology, the Radeon 9700 Pro provides breathtaking image quality.

The Radeon 9700 Pro's 128 MB of DDR memory accelerates the latest 3-D games, while its 256-bit memory interface removes hardware performance bottlenecks and provides end users with faster 3-D graphics. The Radeon 9700 Pro also has the industry's first 8-pixel pipeline architecture, providing twice the rendering power of any currently competing product.

From Digital Living Today

If you're a serious gamer and want to boost your PC's display to maximize the immersive experience of 3-D gaming, you'll want to consider the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 128 MB Graphics Card. Put simply, this is the fastest graphics card around. Ideal for gaming, the 9700 Pro 128 MB has the speed and power that enables it to handle the 3-D rendering and real-time visual effects that the latest software demands. No more annoying hiccups, no more bottlenecks. But how much faster is it? Boasting the industry's first 8-pixel pipeline architecture, the 9700 Pro 128 MB is almost twice as powerful as the competition's graphics cards.

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Much better than geForce, November 23, 2002

By 

D. S. Sedov (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 128 MB Graphics Card (Personal Computers)

I purchased this card recently, after some tweaking and looking
for updated drivers most of the problems went away. Quite a few
users have reported having problems such frequent frame
skip/delay in games such as NOLF2.

The good side: This card has quite a few advantages over its arch rival - geforce 4 Ti. For one, its the only card at the moment to support full DX 9 specification. It is also more powerfull, ATI put 2x of everything in this (that is compared to nVidia).

The bad side: there are still game issues in Windows XP, so before purchasing - give ATI another couple of months to come
out with stable drivers that do not crash your system.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What you should know about this graphics card, June 9, 2003

By 

Jonathan S. Kemp (Omaha, NE United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 128 MB Graphics Card (Personal Computers)

This card is probably the biggest technological leap in the graphics industry since the original Voodoo. It's future-proof (supports DX9), and was the first card that ran at high framerates with antialiasing and anisotropic filtering enabled. It's fast, the prices have dropped, and now is a great time to buy one; there are only two more powerful cards that will undoubtebly be available between now and Half-Life 2 (September 30th)--the Radeon 9800 and the Geforce FX5900--but they are more expensive. If you must have the fastest on the market, skip the Radeon 9700 Pro and get the 9800. (The FX is a big ? because it hasn't been relased yet, but early benchmarks have shown it to be slightly faster than the 9800 albeit with lower image quality). But if you're looking for a card that offers the highest price/performance ratio at the moment, the Radeon 9700 Pro is it.

If this is the card you want, there are some things you should know first:

-Installing a graphics card can be an easy ordeal for some and a disaster for others. The 9700 Pro has been available for nearly 8 months and the drivers are mature; if you completely uninstall your old video drivers and install the latest ATI drivers, you SHOULD have no problems. However, not everyone's computer is the same, and it is possible that something could go wrong. If it does, don't sweat it. Back up some of your important files before installing the new card; if something does go wrong and the problem can't be solved, there is the option of reformatting, which will nearly guarantee a successful install. Just remember, not all computers are perfect, but given the maturity of this product, you should be able to avoid conflict and have it up and running within minutes of installing. Make sure those old drivers are completely gone!

-Have a fast CPU. This card is rather useless with anything slower than an AMD 1700+ processor. A fast graphics card requires a fast CPU, and you'll be disappointed that you spent $$$ for an accelerator that doesn't seem to accelerate much.

-If you don't play many games, don't get the 9700; it's a graphics card best used when running newer games at high resolutions with the image quality cranked to max. If you find yourself playing older games like Counter-Strike or Unreal Tournament, an older Geforce or a Radeon 9500/9600 would suit you much better.

Keep these things in mind if you're considering buying the 9700 Pro. If you run into any problems or want to know more about the card and it's competition, try visiting websites such as rage3d, anandtech, or beyond3d. All these sites have well written reviews and messageboards that can help you if problems arise or you're still torn about investing 300 dollars in a graphics card.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If you need to have the best of the best..., January 13, 2003

By 

Douglas Welzel (Seattle, WA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 128 MB Graphics Card (Personal Computers)

Without question, the Radeon 9700 is currently (though this will probably change by the time this posted :)), the top of the graphics card tower.

The capability of this card is simply amazing. You'll be able to crank up the detail and resolution on virtually every application and enjoy silky smooth graphics.

That said, let's be honest, you're paying the early adopters premium for this card. The features of this graphics card aren't supported by any major applications and if you don't have a system to support this thing, it isn't worth it. Let me emphasize that last point. If you are interested in this card, make sure you're putting it in a powerful (probably equally high end) system. If you don't, your system will be limiting factor and you won't realize the full potential of this card. Sites such as Tom's Hardware have more detailed information about what kind of system you'll need to back a card like this.

If you're ok with all of that, this is definitely a great card. Installation (on Windows XP) was as simple as plugging it in (note, it does need to be connected to your power supply) as installing the drivers. I've had no problems with system instability and the graphics are simply amazing.