[Spunky]

Got an email this morning from crucial tellling me there's an etra £15 off their 9700pro.
http://www.crucial.com/uk/promo/newsletterspecial.asp
If anyones looking for a good deal on a gcard this'll look like a decent bargin.

Spunky

[crazzy kopite]

Has anyone seen this card cheaper elsewhere and is it worth buying this card with the next generation cards comeing out in January

[MackemX]

thing is if you wait for next gen, the price will be nearer £300 as it always is

then if you hold out a bit for price drop, the next next gen cards come out

the best thing to do is buy 2nd gen cards a month or so after latest gen come out to get best performance per buck price

[Shteve]

Don't forget that the £210 is ex VAT!

[Ripco]

Isnt the Radeon 9700 a next gen card??? Its twice as fast as a GF4 TI4600. I would say that was next Gen.

[MackemX]

the 9700 is the latest gen card, the next gen are listed here

roadmap for next gen cards

ATI R350 & Nvidia NV30 are the next Gen by the looks of things like crazzy kopite mentioned, looks like they are coming out soon

couple of quotes from site
"GeForce FX 5800 (400Mhz) and GeForce FX 5800 Ultra (500Mhz) are the supspected new names for Nvidia cards.
ATI Radeon R350 is expected to be released in Q1, 2003. The R350 is expected to be an enhancement to the Radeon 9700's R300 core, manufactured on the same 0.15 micron process. Optimisations made to the core will allow higher clock speeds, and there are rumours that the R350 may noticeably outperform the NV30. The R350 is being released to counter the release of the NV30 by nVidia."

the 9700 is not exactly twice as fast, but it is faster than the 4600, but then again its also more expensive
good comparision review

so unless you are desperate for a card and want to pay top buck prices, wait until the release of these and either pay over the top for them or just get the then 2nd Gen cards for a better price than now

always best to buy 2nd gen computer stuff, as your losses aren't as great when you upgrade, especially if you upgrade quite often like me

I learn't my lesson about upgrading to the latest and greatest a long time ago!!, cost me £100's for that extra few % increase in performance and it's not worth it, unless you are rich enough to not be bothered

p.s. still a good price regardless NJOY

Sapphire Radeon 9700 Atlantis PRO 128MB

GBP 247.00 inc. VAT

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?a...tID=24&GrpID=1

[Seahorse]

Originally posted by Ripco
Isnt the Radeon 9700 a next gen card??? Its twice as fast as a GF4 TI4600. I would say that was next Gen.

Twice as fast LMAO ...

9700s only outpace GF4 4400 by 14% (Benchmarks ) let alone the 4600, which is within 7%. You pay through the nose for for a few extra frames you can't detect in the first place...

Do you work in the ATI PRT dept or something...

[Shteve]

BF1942

Playing different maps on the net at 1280x968 with 4x AA and 4x Anisotropic filtering resulted in framerates around 50-60 fps. Doing the same on the Ti4400 wasn't an option since the stuttering made the game unplayable. To get playable framerates on the Ti4400 I had to turn off AA/Anisotropic filtering and play at 1152x768 (or lower the res to 1024x768 and turn on Quincunx AA/4x anisotropic filtering). This would give me framerates around 30-40 fps. The game looks great on both cards though.


UT2003
Already at 1024 the Ti4400 is left behind losing almost 50% in framerates. The Radeon actually manages to hold itself over 30 fps even at 1600x1200. This level is outside, where you take more of a framerate hit than when playing inside-levels.



Did you not read the whole review? Or do you work for nVidia's Marketing dept?

[Seahorse]

My 4400 does all it is required to do, especially considering the 1 Gig Tbird is bottle-necking it.

Counter Strike 1280 x 960 x 32 everthing on. 99fps - which is what the game caps out out. Smoke Grenade - no stutter. This is the only measure of performance relevant to my gaming requirements.

I ALWAYS recommend buying the second best piece of hardware because:

A. It's a damn site cheaper .
B. It's normally hard to tell the difference.

Re articles: I used the Q3 benchies BTW; the last game that I had that needed more horsepower than I had available was SOF2, which has neither the longevity to be playable once completed, nor the online 'feel' to make it a permanent resisdent on my HD. So I don't buy monster cards for short term games.

It did cause my old GF2 to go live in the kids PC

I don't use the AA - higher resolutions defeat the need for it.

If nVidia need a spokesman, I'm him...

[Shteve]

I still can't help but feel that if the Ti4400 has 50% the frame-rate under some test conditions of the 9700pro, that the 9700pro must be twice the speed under those conditions. You chose to look at other tests where the 9700 was only 14% faster - still faster though. Or does the fact that you only play CS (a and have a 1gig processor mean that the card is not worth buying for anyone who may read this?

Took a long time to reply eh?

[GrahamC]

It always makes me smile when people jump at top end graphics cards and pay the big bucks, then attache em to a poxy 17" monitor that can only do 1024*768 (now TFT are the rage its worse). Its a simple rule less on the card more on the monitor

[Shteve]

Or buy the right card for your system? No point buying a GeforceFX for a Celeron 300 system, or a 21" monitor to use with a Geforce2MX graphics card - horses for courses. I was just irritated by Seahorses blanket dismissal for everyone of the Radeon simply because it wasn't much better for his use .

[t@xman]

I'd al;ways say to buy the biggest and best monitor that you can afford as this is always the last part of any system to get upgraded and will therefore need to be the longest lasting!