Customer Reviews

ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 128 MB Graphics Card

5 star:		(27)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

ATI has certainly delivered on all accounts with the Radeon 9700 Pro. Not only does it beat the competition in every benchmark thrown at it, but in most tests, it simply rips other cards apart. Performance is phenomenal across the board, but the R9700 Pro really shows its strength when used in high resolution gaming, especially with full-scene anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering. Using this card and a fairly fast processor, gaming at 1600 x 1200 is a reality with every current game on the market. Or,if your monitor doesn't like high resolutions, crank it down to 1024 x 768 or 1280 x 1024 and turn on the anti-aliasing and get extremely good performance as well.
Worth every earned penny!

It beat the geforce 4 4600 so bad it wasnt even funny! it was ahead by 30~50% in EVERY benchmark i did. the scores it got also stayed consistent as the processing got harder (higher res, more aa) which tells me that the radeon 9700 could have done much better, but the cpu wasnt giving it enough power! i have a athlon xp 2400+ and the radeon is so good, my cpu is the bottleneck! if you want something that will constantly amaze you, get this card. now. you wont regret it, trust me, i would have paid a lot more for this card, thats how much i like it
Make sure you unistall old drivers, befrore installing this card, especially from Nivida, couse you might find problems!

I got this card about 2 weeks ago and it has lowered my stress considerably. I use my computer heavily and go through parts and upgrades quickly. While I always admired the lionized power of the geforce line of video cards, all three geforces that I have used in the last year constantly crash my computers. Needless to say, this behavior disrupts important applications, algorithms that are in the middle of a three day running period, and the stability of the overall computer. This card has been running smoothly since its been in the computer without a problem or onscreen news (no news from computer parts is good news). As a result, I run my programs and work much more at ease. I cannot speak as to its performance on games, but its general performance for all types of multitasking with high powered applications has been flawless and quick. I definatly reccomend this to those seeking computer harmony.

I have a model made by PowerColor and love it. I picked mine up from another etailer for less than here. I have not had one problem. All of the games I have thrown at it run flawlessly at 11x8 or 12X10. I briefly loaded a friend's copy of Halo to see how that system slugger ran on my machine and it ran fine. if you can find one, I'd get it. They have been phased out and are no longer produced. Priced in between the 9600 line and 9800 line. If you can find a 9500 pro, even better as it is basically a tuned down 9700 pro. I can't wait to try out some real dx9 games. Come on Half-Life 2.

My specs:
p4 2.4ghz
soyo dragon ultra mobo
1 gig ram
160 gig raid 1 (stripped)
9700 pro

I really do not understand why people are having so many problems with this card. My system specs are as follows:

Pentium 4, 1.7 Ghz
256 mb RAM (soon to be 512)
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
Sound Blaser Audigy 2 card
5.1 Surround Sound Logitech Speakers
Windows XP Professional

Now, from day one, this card installed extremely smoothly and I have never had a problem with it since. I have never gotten lock ups when running applications even for a long period of time, and there were no slowdowns during my games.

Secondly, I have experienced no problems whatsoever with the drivers supplied on ATI's website. The website is very easy to navigate and so simple a child could do it. I downloaded the drivers and installed them, which slightly boosts the performance of the card even more. I do not know why people have been giving this driver (there's only one simple download!) such bad reviews, because it seems to be a very good one to me.

Yes, I have noticed a great deal of performance increase overall on my system since installing the card. Everything runs smoother and a lot faster ever since I installed this one. Games are now quicker than ever, giving you an advantage online because you will have less lag to contend with. Even with the settings cranked up on my games, I hardly receive any lag whatsoever (though my cable internet service gets cranky at times!)

Why upgrade your graphics card? Overall, I personally found that upgrading my card caused a greater increase in performance than any other upgrade (RAM, CD Rom drives, etc.) However, I do want to caution everyone who wants to buy this card. I do suspect it is created for high end systems, and if your computer is a dinosaur, don't even touch this card or you'll have problems. Go with the GeForce 4 in that case.

For those of you who do have problems, that is a shame, but again, I guess it depends on the person. I am very experienced now at taking apart my computer, and again I say this: the installation could not have been easier and more painless.

Strangely, and conveniently, the Radeon 9700 pro is actually a bit smaller than the GeForce 4 Ti4600 that I had installed previously (a good card in itself, but I wanted to go further up the ladder). This creates a bit more room in my Dimension 8100 computer.

Lastly, connecting to the internal power supply should not be a hassle if your computer was made within the last 2 or 3 years. The Dell Dimension 8100 is not exactly the newest model, but I seem to have more than an ample power supply, and despite having only 4x AGP, this card still runs great (I can only imagine how great it would be with 8x!).

Advice: Talk to an expert before assuming you know everything..and put aside your ego and let someone else install it if compatability concerns you. :)

People are saying the the card [is insufficient] because they probably forgot to do something as simple as uninstalling old drivers before installing the Radeon. The crashes and freezes ya thats your old drivers talking not your new card. Kudos to Radeon they truly buitl a great card. :)

I agree that this card has some very good points when it comes to gaming and other applications (video quality in watching DVDs is excellent compared to my older Nvidia card). I have noticed increased performance, speed, fps and textures in several games, too. However, I have also noticed that since installing the card (it's less than three weeks old as of this writing), I've been getting increased system lock-ups in the middle of game playing and DVD watching, something that was never a problem before. ATI recommends that you have at least a 300 watt power supply to get the best performance out of the 9700 Pro, and so I had upgraded that (to a 350 watt one) shortly after I bought the card. The funny thing is, I really didn't notice that much difference in performance when I was using a 200 watt power supply. My computer is also a Pentium III 1.4Ghz with 384MB, it should in theory be more than ample to run the card flawlessly.

I can't tell for sure if the drivers are to blame, as been discussed many times. I used the ones that came with the product and also the newest ones from their website, and it didn't seem to matter, nor did it matter what settings I used. I'd still get random lock-ups. And even though I'm using Windows XP, the crashes are bad enough to require re-booting of the system. Sometimes it takes several re-boots before the system comes back to its proper capacity (i.e., after the Windows XP logo comes on, the screen stays blank--no option to do a "safe mode" or "last configuration" menu option boot.

I'm not even sure if the card is overheating, even though it has its own built-in fan (and yes, it runs fine). As of now, I'm having second thoughts about the card, which I had bought due to many great reviews it had. Maybe I should have waited for the newer GeForce FX, as I had never had problems with Nvidia cards and drivers like I do now with ATI products.

I generally like the card, BUT with reservations. If I had enjoyed the stability I thought I would be getting (especially considering I'm using Windows XP), it'd get five stars from me. Performance is one thing, but without running into the inconvenience of crashes, it's just not worth it.

The only time I haven't experienced crashes is when I do light stuff, like surfing the net, word processing, writing e-mail, etc. When it comes to "heavy duty" gaming (why it crashes on older games dating back to 1998 is beyond me), I seem to be missing the boat on this one. Your mileage may vary.