Sapphire ATI cards, DO NOT BUY!!!

R

rsvrmille

Guest
[edited by nutcase_1uk]

basically there seems to be a "well known" (i didn't!) problem with them. they cause corruption of pixels, ghosting, and disjointed output in the bios/dos and windows.

there are some big threads on the sapphire website forums and it seems loads of people have the same problem

so mine is going back and i need another card.

supposedly( ;) ) the ati cards are the ones to go for as i'm going to be outputting to a PJ. Now this card was about £280 so i need a replacement, any advice gratefully received. Oh it has to be from here aswell.

www.overclockers.co.uk
 
Mine's always been alright! I thought a while ago the sapphire ones were the good ones to get as they had reliable memory so the "hack" firmware to upgrade a lesser card to a better one was 100% solid.
 
Mines been stable for the last six months. It's a very popular card because of it's ability when overclocking by all accounts. I keep mine a stock though as all games that run today can still be played to the max settings. When Doom and the like come along I may fiddle about with powerstrip to get the best out of these games or alternatively upgrade my card if the 9800pro's replacement has arrived by then.
I've been very happy with this card till now and would buy an ati card again (be it sapphire or not) always had nvida cards before.
 
Sapphire ATI cards, DO NOT BUY!!!

they are crap..........

Shock ! Horror ! Drama!!!

It's clear that you have a problem, and I hope you find a solution to it, or a video card which doesn't give you the same problem, but I've been running a Sapphire Radeon 9000 in a hcpc with no issues and perfect stability from new for quite a while..........

Sean G.
 
Originally posted by rsvrmille
supposedly( ;) ) the ati cards are the ones to go for...

Sapphire manufacture "Built by ATi" AIBs, BTW.

MuFu.
 
too true. sapphire are the most reliable, pretty much a given otherwise they wouldnt be building other people cards.

my softmodded sapphire r9500np is doing just fine thankyou:)
 
I've been running two Saphire Radeon VEs for a couple of years now (htpc and a desktop), and with no problems on either.

Gary.
 
you would answer your own question if you had read that thread:rolleyes:. they all have the same batch number on their cards, and they ALL have erontech ram on their cards.

it's the ram. now the screenie they posted look identical to what i get when i o/c the memory too far. my guess is that the bios has incorrect settings for the ram. but thats just a guess.

edit:
on page 6 there is a new bios posted.
on page 7, people have used it, and it WORKS. so yes, i was right.
 
Blimey - £280 is more than my htpc cost!

Is there much to be gained with the likes of a 9500? There wasn't anything between Radeons for DVD playback, only games IIRC.

Gary.
 
Originally posted by Gary Lightfoot
Blimey - £280 is more than my htpc cost!

Is there much to be gained with the likes of a 9500? There wasn't anything between Radeons for DVD playback, only games IIRC.

Gary.

Not true, DVD playback, in particular DXVA mpeg decodeing improves conciderably with the 9500 and above.
 
So it's a recentish improvement then. :)

In what respect? Less mpg blocking and artefacts?

Cheers,

Gary.
 
My Sapphire Radeon 9500 (Over clocked and fan replaced with a zalman heatsink is performing just fine, though does appear to run a little hot.

Is it a specific model that's been causing the problems? £280 is a mighty expensive GFX card.

Mark.
 
Originally posted by Gary Lightfoot


In what respect? Less mpg blocking and artefacts?


Exactly that.
 
I had some of the problems listed in the other thread with Sapphire 9700Pro, but managed to cure them by setting BIOS AGP aperture to 32MB.

The motherboard is Asus P4C800.
 
I've got a abit IC7 and the damn thing just doens't work properly. I'm running a 350w PSU (which should be plenty). Then i tried it in my AMD box which has an EPOX 8k3a+ board in it with a 350w psu and the damn thing didn't work again
 

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