Rating: 
Summary: Get the 9800PRO series if you can... you know you want it...
Review: ... but did you also know you need it? Why? Because on a top end machine the following games have settings that go way past the limitations of even this card - Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004, Doom 3, FarCry and the soon to be released Half-Life 2. These are all new engines that will drive the games of tomorrow, meaning that I will probably be trading this one in for Xmas 2005 when the 512 line should make its mark. Anyway how does this card pan out?
First of all it is a nightmare if you setup your card on a television and then forget to change it back for use with a monitor. So learn a lesson well about these monitor/television compatible cards. Make sure to change the Display Properties to whichever type you are using next because if you don't then you will not see anything and thus can not change it back. Next you need to know that these cards are top of line and make quite a great deal of noise. We are talking about listening to something like a 50cfm fan in your box doing the rounds. You are probably going to want to run your box cooler with these types of high-end chipsets running to get the most out of them so go searching on the net for a good environmental setup.
All these new series of graphics card come with DirectX 9.0c or higher but the real key to unlock this God is with the new ATI range of drivers that enhance and accelerate the visual experience - CATALYST™ (Basically complete Real-time 3D immersive game play*). The four games for this card I have already mentioned (Playing it with Counter-Strike: Source is extremely good although I believe maybe a 128mb would give virtually the same playability for now). So if you want those games then consider this card.
FarCry has an exceptional environment with something like X100 zoom on your binoculars. The enemy AI is unreal but in terms of graphics it is a real ride with this card. I believe you need this card for the full FarCry experience; however I do not believe that it pushes this card to its limit.
MS Flight Simulator 2004 does push this card past it limits. Put everything up full in the details panel and look out the window over populated areas. You will see a delay and suddenly several sectors start to pop up. A 512mb card will make that game real-time.
Doom3 has the ability to actually configure to a 512mb card if one existed now. Doom3 is an experience and a half, not 100% but unlike anything you have seen before and pretty scary to say the least. Anyway with this card the demon disintegration graphics are akin to watching someone getting beamed up in front of you. The lighting dynamics are also crucial to the game play. Get Doom 3 and this card and you will be stunned by something that looks like an XBOX 2 or PS3.
Half-Life 2 really needs this... if you buy the new Bronze edition from Steam you can DL the encrypted HL2 files onto your HD along with CS: Source and Play Source right away which is a big improvement on any version of CS you have seen. Anyway it looks top spec on this card but I believe a 128mb card can play Source at it highest settings. Anyway the point is to look for the HL2 video and know that in reality HL2 is going to cost you $300 if you want the full experience.
It's a tough cookie but let's face it. You have no choice. Now go work or Beg for it. We all did it!
*As for using unsupported ATI drivers for this card. Well even Catalyst is unsupported (Use at your own risk from ATI sort of thing) so hammering around with this card is probably not a bad idea however it is always useful to do that after the card has passed its warranty but the choice is there is you want it. Personally I would stick to the ATI releases and get some good tutorials on your computer environment
5 Stars but an XBOX is almost the same price.
Rating:
Summary: If you can't configure your system, don't review things
Review: First off, I acknowledge that ATI's hardware tends to exceed their driver packages in quality but guess what - ATI releases driver fixes all the time. Now what would you rather have - an inferior card with good drivers, or a juggernaut of a card that you might have to update now and then. If it's too hard for you to get driver updates (11 keystrokes and 5 mouse clicks - whew I'm tired) you are a waste of oxygen. Do any of you people read benchmark reviews before you buy things? If so then you must be familiar with the sight of that ATI bar chart towering over nVidia's latest attempt to not suck.Now - to the naysayers:
Washed out graphics? Guess what - there is a color configuration option in the ATI control panel. You can make your colors be anything you damn well please. You can play all your games in sepia tones with rainbow overlays if you want. Also - post your system specs before you go right to blaming your card. Installing a nitrous tank on 1981 Sentra will most likely also result in disappointment. I have a Cadillac of a computer and this card has turned in into a damn starcruiser. I have played all the games mentioned as not working on this card and they look great. What does that tell you? Games crashing after a few seconds? YOU ARE RUNNING YOUR CARD IN 8X MODE and further, you are an idiot. At least at the time of this review, there are no games I know of that can run in 8X mode without crashing. What you are seeing is your card being smarter than you. Please stop breathing my air. This card rocks and will only get better with time and further driver releases, but if you don't know how to tinker with configuration just don't buy it or any other electronic device as you will likely choke to death on the small pieces.
Rating:
Summary: only thing better will be PCI-Express
Review: I bought this card to replace a Gforce 4200ti which I loved. This card didn't run smoothly at first because It sucks so much power. I had to up the voltage to my cpu, ram etc. Now it runs perfectly. Hit 6500 on 3dmark and 47k on aquamark. with a pentium 2.6c and 1gig of golden dragon pc3500. Can't compare it with the geforce but i'm thinking those other guys didn't configure their system properly.
Rating:
Summary: 9800 XT Rocks!!!
Review: I just upgraded from the 9800 Pro to the 9800 XT and what a difference. Enough to make me replay "FarCry" to get more "eye candy"!!! And you also get a coupon for "Half Life 2"!!!
My only complaint is that I have to wait until next week when "Painkiller" is out!!!
Rating:
Summary: 9800 XT Rocks!!!
Review: I just upgraded from the 9800 Pro to the 9800 XT and what a difference. Enough to make me replay "FarCry" to get more "eye candy"!!! And you also get a coupon for "Half Life 2"!!!
My only complaint is that I have to wait until next week when "Painkiller" is out!!!
Rating: 
Summary: Worst card ever................
Review: I was disapointed after purchasing card to find out it crashed after running any game or application which used 3d animation. I tried the graphic card on two diffrent PC's and both crashed with the card. I sent card back thinking it was defective, after reciving new card, i promptly installed it. I had the same results. This card is a pile of S**T. This was my first experience with ATI and will never use there products again. I have recently purchased a new Geforce FX 5950 ultra, no problems runs games with settings maxed out and no freezes, or crashes have yet occured. Geforce still remains the card to go with!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: To Worst card ever, and to people who complain
Review: Obviously the red-neck guy does not know what he is talking about. (hard NVIDIA fan) Infact I do believe he did not purchased that card.I have this card running for a month now and did not see nay trouble running this card, also, I do know 4 people who own this card and from forums, nobody ever complained about it. So it's obvious that guy is lying.
Rating:
Summary: sheep
Review: sheep sheep. to all you "yay" sayers, your all sheep. That's why companies slack off on quality becaue of all of you insulting the consumer who knows what is best for you and knows better than you do because you aren't really that smart(or you wouldn't be sucking up to "the company" Bill Gates, and GWB and all that). and I breath everybody's air, and you breath what I exhale and that's all you breath, your brain is dry. If you have nothing but bad things to say about other people then maybe you should just get off this site! ATI sucks and that's not an opinion that's a fact! thier dirvers suck! My Falcon Mach V with top of line parts proves it and I know perfectly well how to configure a system and have been since you were in diadies, junior!
Rating:
Summary: sheep
Review: sheep sheep. to all you "yay" sayers, your all sheep. That's why companies slack off on quality becaue of all of you insulting the consumer who knows what is best for you and knows better than you do because you aren't really that smart(or you wouldn't be sucking up to "the company" Bill Gates, and GWB and all that). and I breath everybody's air, and you breath what I exhale and that's all you breath, your brain is dry. If you have nothing but bad things to say about other people then maybe you should just get off this site! ATI sucks and that's not an opinion that's a fact! thier dirvers suck! My Falcon Mach V with top of line parts proves it and I know perfectly well how to configure a system and have been since you were in diadies, junior!
Rating:
Summary: One of the best that you can ever have...for now.
Review: There is nothing better than this video card except for the new GeForce 6800 Ultra, Radeon X800 Pro, and Radeon X800XT. This card beats the Radeon 9800 Pro and it even beats the new GeForce FX 5950. My very close friend works in the CyberPower Inc. so I have whole bunch of computer stuff and I get new video cards about every two to three months. I have tried many video cards and I have to say this card beats it all. It beat all cards (except for the three cards mentioned on the top) on 3D marks and frames per seconds on games like FarCry, Unreal Tournament 2004, and Call of Duty. There is nothing that can go wrong with this card. Believe me, I might not know everything about video cards but I know what I know. Only problem that I have with this card is the price. It's about $450 on Amazon.com but the new Radeon X800 Pro will be also $450 and there is no point of buying Radeon 9800XT unless you think that the new Radeon X800 Pro will perform worse than the Radeon 9800XT. If you do think that, then you really deserve a slap because Radeon X800 Pro will beat Radeon 9800XT in everything that you can think of. Wait until this card drops its' price or if you are looking forward to pay $450 then buy the new Radeon X800 Pro. You can even pay $50 more to buy the new Radeon X800XT or GeForce 6800 Ultra. I highly recommend this card when it's like $350.
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