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ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB AGP Graphics Card

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB AGP Graphics Card

List Price:
Your Price: $242.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Buyer Beware!
Review: ATI has created a decent product in the past -- good hardware with good software and drivers. However, recently they have gone straight down hill with their drivers. They now have major bugs in the driver/software updates and program downloads. Don't take my word for it, go to their own website for "customer care" and you will see what I mean. Specifically, look at the lack of technical coordination and total mess of DVD playback issues and decoder problems. There exist a whole bunch of problems that are not even covered by their useless FAQ section, such as the windows media player crashing when trying to play a DVD.

My advice is to avoid any ATI products until they clean up their act. At the very least I would suggest investigating the known issues on the web -- and you may be surprised to see how many have no fix or even a workaround. ATI's management must have become arrogant enough to no longer care about ATI customers. Bad news.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Very good card, but needs new drivers
Review: ATI has very high quality cards which are superior to Nvidia's, but their CATALYST graphics drivers are horrible. So go on google and search for the OMEGA drivers for RADEON series. You will be surprised at the results.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: OK for gamers, but avoid for other purposes
Review: By now, it has become painfully clear to me that ATI builds its cards for the gaming market, and little else besides. As you can see above, the gamers are satisfied. However, if, like me, you expect this card to improve the performance of 3d design software - forget it. Ever since installing it, I've seen nothing but trouble. Much of this has to do with the fact that this card poses as an OpenGL-card, but really offers only an approximation of it. As soon as you run applications that demand true an full OpenGL support, prepare for frequent malfunctions and crashes. I actually had to switch the hardware accelareration off in my design programs simply to be able to work with them at all. ATI customer support has also proven to be less than forthcoming and extremely minimalistic. All in all, what a sorry waste of money!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Piece of junk (inject other 4-letter word)
Review: I bought this card hoping it would be better than an "inferior" NVIDIA AGP card with less memory. The Radeon 9800 Pro AGP 128 MB was a big disappointment. Compared to the much cheaper NVIDIA card which came with my 1+ year old system, the colors are washed out and there is no noticeable performance improvement while watching DVDs. If you're a gamer, perhaps this card has features that you can appreciate. However, I've managed to find lots of posts on web forums from gamers who have had difficulty making their 9800 Radeon Pro AGP 128 MB cards meet expectations. The possible solutions that are flown in reply are extremely technical and complex and don't seem to work. Unless you're an expert, steer clear of the 9800 Radeon Pro AGP 128 MB.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: No...
Review: I bought this card thinking it would blow Nvidia out the doors, but I was wrong. The performance isn't bad, but it has many disappointments, such as when you set the resolution to 1600x1200, your desktop gets stretched at least 5 inches bigger than your monitor on all 4 angles, and you're stuck scrolling around to find your icons and taskbar. I've tried many times to resize, but the resize options barely work, the duel display is horrible, especially if you compare it to GeForce's nView, which rocks, and works perfectly. This card also misplaces all your games when you set the resolution too high (in game), I've never had this problem with any GeForce card. So if you're used to GeForce cards, stick with them. If you're looking for a good card, get a GeForce FX 5600 256MB DDR.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: PCI Express is an unknown technology
Review: I don't even have this card, just felt the PCI Express loving guy is pretty stupid. There are no cards out so how in the heII do you know that it's so much better than AGP. AGP 1x to 8x there barely is a performance increase and with computers still coming out with AGP these cards will be supported for a few years to come.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A cautious shopper
Review: I don't get the latest and greatest thing to hit the shelf every week. But let me say this...I had a gforce 5200 ultra...upgraded to the 9800pro, and was blown away. explosions, scenery, and all kinds of other things were able to be seen that I never saw with my 5200. The frame rate is unbeleivable, and so freakin smooth. If you are looking to upgrade, this is it. I'm playing SWG, HALO, UNREAL, FF11, etc... A MUST BUY for gamers especially. (this review is based off of a PC running with a Intel P4 2.8 and 1 GIG of memory)

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Hot! Turned My Computer Into a Toaster!
Review: I have been using my $xx.00 geForce Ti4200 for a long time. The 4200 runs pretty good for the money and it doesn't get hot like this 9800 Pro. Speed wise, though, there is no comparsion. The 9800 Pro is at least 3-4 times faster than the Ti4200. Everything runs very smooth. For the visual, I really cannot tell. Both cards look the same to me. Although installing the software for the ATI is not as smooth as the nVidia but it does get the job done. I get the 9800 on sale for a little bit less than what they charge for the 9600XT. So, this may be a pretty good deal. But for the same money, I could have got a PlayStation2 special with 2 controllers, 2 games, and a network adapter for less than just one video card alone. If you are a console fan, just get yourself the PS2 special. If you like to keep Bill Gate the richest man on earth for longer, this ATI is not a bad deal.

CONS:
I have no problem running this ATI in my computer. However, it gets really hot. My computer used to be running around 80 degrees. It is running over 100 now. I'd suggest to get a bigger power supply and an additional case fan. My Antec 350W seems to be sweating because the power supply is cranking the fan full speed after I installed this ATI in my computer.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: God's Gift to Gamers
Review: I just recently put together my first computer (my aim was gaming) and i could not have chosen a better video card. I have had absolutely no trouble running even the most demanding games. Unreal 2, Unreal Tournament 2003, Tron 2.0 (retail version), and Planet Side all run at breathtaking frame rates with details all on full (including the trilinear filtering option in UT2003). Sure it is very pricey, but you won't need another card for a very long time.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: ATi's the best in the business right now
Review: I upgraded from a Gainward Ti4200. First thing I noticed: this 9800pro is so much quieter! It no longer sounds like I have a Huey in my PC.
The catalysts work great with all games out in the past several years, every blue moon a game comes out that has a few issues, but ATi releases a new driver to take care of it in a week or so, and the problems are always minor. A lot of people complain about the drivers because they incorrectly set their bios(on older VIA AMD boards you need to turn off FastWrites).
Compared to my Ti4200 this card is as I said is quieter, the 2d is leaps and bounds better, and of course 3d is much better.
By far my favorite card ever, and I started out with Voodoo cards.


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