I am trying to make a purchase decision of what to put into my custom-built PC. What is stopping me from placing the build order is the video card choice.
I'm trying to decide whether to order the ATI 9800 PRO 128, ATI manufactured retail version not OEM, or an Asus manufactured nVidia FX5800 128MB DDR card. I know that ATI currently holds the speed crown and that the Radeon is the darling of the computer industry press for the hour.
I was about to place the order with the ATI product installed when the guy at the local computer shop told me that he has had the ATI product returned to him due to incompatibility problems and poor Windows drivers, while he has never had a returned nVidia FX card returned to him or complaints of incompatibility.
I know that ATI has had problems with writing stable video drivers in the past and the early reviews for the ATI Radeon remarked about buggy video drivers.
System stability is ultra important to me and over the years I have gotten less and less tolerant of Fatal Exception Errors or system crashes. Especially since this computer will be used primarily for remote access to work projects. But I thought I would throw in some toys so that it's also an entertainment machine in the off hours and play the newest games like Elite Force 2.
So my question to all you out there who have ATI Radeon 9700 Pro or Radeon 9800 Pro video cards out there, have you run into compatibility and stability problems with games in your library or in Windows XP with your video card? Are you happy with your purchase decision, or do you wish you would have bought something else?
Posted by Charles Capps (Member # 9) on :
I own an old GeForce2 and a new Radeon 9700 (AIW), and have had no driver problems with either card. (The AIW catches interference from the system very easily, resulting in horizontal lines on the screen in certain resolutions and refresh rates. While they are distracting, they're not bad enough (and are avoidable enough) for me not to consider returning it. This is only a problem in AIWs, though, and then only certain models.)
The Radeon is pure ATI... the GeForce is via Dell. I don't trust third party companies...
Personally, I prefer the nVidia drivers over the ATI stuff... all of the ATI stuff is skinned poorly.
Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
I recently bought my uncles computer after he got a brand spankin new one, it came with a Chaintech Geforce 4 Ti 4600, and I havn't had a single problem with the card.
BTW, My NTFS file system drivers or whatever it's called, got corrupt a while back, and i had to wipe both my drives and re-install XP Pro, does anyone know what may have caused this? Or was it just a "shit happens" kinda thing?
Posted by First of Two (Member # 16) on :
My CRQ needs more FLEEM.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 24) on :
I'm using both a Radeon 9500 PRO and an ATI TV Tuner card on a nForce 2 motherboard (its a chipset made by Nvidia). The combination works quite well and it quite stable, albeit I am running Windows 2000, so the drivers are quite mature.
In the end, however, I would personally avoid the 5800 like a plague, probably because it has one of these.
From what I've heard, its as loud as it looks Posted by Jeff Raven (Member # 20) on :
I've had issues with ATI cards in the past, but once I started buying NVIDIA cards, I've never had problems. I currently have a Geforce4 ti 4800(so I can have two monitors on one card ). If what my friends tell me, ATI has done better with drivers of late, but NVIDIA still makes better drivers.
It all comes down to your choice of Stability over Performance(isn't that how it always ends up?)
Posted by Cartmaniac (Member # 256) on :
ATI's drivers may have been shoddy in the early Rage / Fury / Radeon days, but the current generation Catalysts can easily give NVidia's Detonators a run for their money. Stability issues are a thing of the past, really.
And as for raw power, the only NVidia card that's even remotely in the same ballpark as the R9800 Pro is the FX5900, which happens to require a dedicated cooler that usurps your primary PCI slot... not good.
[ August 07, 2003, 02:25 AM: Message edited by: Cartmaniac ]
Posted by Triton (Member # 1043) on :
Thanks to all who responded. I don't quite like the idea of losing an expansion slot to the nVidia video card because of a fan dubbed the "leaf blower".
But I was reluctant to buy the ATI product because of the bad old days with the UAEs and GP Faults with the Riva and Rage drivers under Windows 95 and Windows 98. They don't seem to mention compatibility or stability in hardware reviews lately, just bar charts with the number of frames. So when I had heard about possible stability and compatibility issues with the current generation of ATI product, I thought that I would ask people who owned ATI products what they thought of them, their experience, and if they would have made the same purchase decision again. Its also sometimes hard to swallow the positive reviews the ATI cards have been getting lately when at the top of the review there is a an ad for the ATI Radeon written in Flash or multiple page ads in the game magazines. You just wonder about their objectivity sometimes.
Thanks again.
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
Over here in the land of non-hodiously biased hardware reviews, a quick flip through past PC Format issues reveals several mentions of ATI's history wit stable drivers, plus references to alledged fixing of 3dMark scores, and the whatnot.
Anyway, they mention that ATI's drivers are a million times better than they used to be. They are possibly not up there with nVidia, who do make lovely drivers (apparently), but they are no-where near as buggy as they used to be.
Their main summerising points on the 5800 review are:
1/ It's not as fast as we were hoping.
2/ That fan is ridiculous.
I suppose it's up to you. Possibility of system instability verses the sound of an aircraft taking off inside your PC.
Doesn't the model down from the 5800 not have the super big fan? Couldn't you get that?
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
). If what my friends tell me, ATI has done better with drivers of late, but NVIDIA still makes better drivers.