9800Pro from PowerColor - really that bad?

[Ke-vin]

Hi,

I am planning to buy a 9800pro 128 MB card as a replacement for my old GF3.
Do not need "all-in-wonder" dingles, do not want extra overclocking
capabilities - all I need is raw R350 might & power

Looking around I can see that cards from PowerColor are one of the best
deals (price-wise) as far as 128 MB 9800pro is concerned. One notch up
(approx. 10% more expensive) is Saphire product - at least here in Europe in
shops available to me (pricewatch shows somewhat different situation in
USA). So I was leaning towards a PowerColor product untill I browsed this
newsgroup, where cards from this manufacturer are often flamed for their low
quality.

This confuses me a bit. As I have learned from numerous reviews & tests
available on the Net, the 'regular' 9800 pro card is basically always the
same: the same reference PCB design, exactly the same components, the same
standard ATI heat sink fan, in most cases even the same memory chips
(Samsung K4D26323RA-GC2A, rated 380 MHz). Comparing pictures of PC's 9800
with other brands (Saphire etc.) just confirms this.

So what is actually wrong (if anything) with PowerColor cards? Isn't PC a
main supplier of ATI cards for other 'manufacturers', who just sell them
under different brands?

If anybody had some practical experience and could give me any advice reg.
what should I look at choosing my new card - I would be gratefull.

Kevin

 

[Rick]

I can't give you any good advice about the Powercolor cards, but I do have
2ea Sapphire brand cards (9500pro and 7500) and they work perfectly and OC
very good. I would buy the Sapphire just because of previous satisfaction.

bye, Rick

 

[fook me]

I have the Powercolor 9700 Pro and mine is fine. Can overclock it fine as
well.

The card is the exact same picture as the built by ATI one so I think they
are bought from ATI by Powercolor.

Although I wouldnt swear by that.

But yeah - apart from a power problem in my case and my rathe rold Processor
and motherboard holding it back a bit I dont have any complaints.

Everybodies system is different in the end and you either get it working or
you dont.

 

[Mason Verger]

I have the Powercolor 9700 Pro and mine is fine. Can overclock it fine as
well.

I had a Powercolor card some time back, and it was rubbish - the 2-D image
quality was very poor (very fuzzy on good quality monitors). I returned it
and bought a more expensive card.

However, I have no idea what they're like now.

The card is the exact same picture as the built by ATI one so I think they
are bought from ATI by Powercolor.

If this was the case, they would have the "Built by ATI" logo on the box,
would they not? So you should be able to tell for sure.

Tim

 

[Darthy]

Hi,

I am planning to buy a 9800pro 128 MB card as a replacement for my old GF3.
Do not need "all-in-wonder" dingles, do not want extra overclocking
capabilities - all I need is raw R350 might & power

Powercolor is not a top brand quality... I wouldn't trust their low
end - where they, like many companies will cut as many corners as
possible. Their 9800Pro is pretty much 99% the same as a real
9800Pro. (but there are some 9800Pros out there that are not at full
PRO speed). I used AIDA32 to confirm my GPU speed... Also look at
the specs from the maker. My 9800Pro is a PowerColor, works fine.


A poster said "2D image was crap" - most likely an older PowerColor
Nvidia chipset card - which were typical junk when PowerColor was
kinda new.

 

[Darthy]

Hi,

I am planning to buy a 9800pro 128 MB card as a replacement for my old GF3.
Do not need "all-in-wonder" dingles, do not want extra overclocking
capabilities - all I need is raw R350 might & power

PS: The rest of you system needs to be rather current for good
performance... If you';re still using an old P3 setup - you won't see
much.

 

[fook me]

I had a Powercolor card some time back, and it was rubbish - the 2-D image
quality was very poor (very fuzzy on good quality monitors). I returned it
and bought a more expensive card.

However, I have no idea what they're like now.

Yes, must have been an old card, mine is fine. graphics qaulity is superb.

If this was the case, they would have the "Built by ATI" logo on the box,
would they not? So you should be able to tell for sure.

Not neccessarily. As you will see in many forums all over the web, certain
companies got hold of excess/unwanted/whatever stock from ATI and plugged it
as there own (must be a legal thing) without classing it as built by ATI yet
everything about the card says built by without actually specifying it.

Powercolor (cp technologies) being probably the oldest ATI distribution
partner, whether they are cheap or not, in my opinion, now provide a quality
product that works for the customer (quality memory - samsung, decent
processor that is highly overclockable). Unfortunately, they do not include
the overdrive option, but I suspect this is down to th ereasons specified by
other comanies why they havent. Which is performance issues, overdrive does
nothing to improve performance that o/c cannot do, in fact it is worse, the
only bonus side to it is the fact you can monitor temperatures, but to keep
cost down on the poroduct, why put in a luxury (yes I know temps are
important) when you can generally work out if a card is working too hard or
getting too hot

Tim

So yes - I still maintain Powercolor cards are of a high enough quality to
consider buying, 1 because they are generally the cheapest, 2, they have
very good aftersales (personal experience) support, 3 cheapest is not
neccessarily the worst - Just go to any forum and see how many people are
moaning about ther sapphire or hercules or wahtever - then count how many
are moaning about there powercolor?

And yes you can argue that is about numbers out there - sapphire being the
most popular etc, but Powercolor are also popular and sell in their many
thousands. this is my first ATI card and I found the forums so I'm sure
other powercolor owners have and they would moan their tits off if they
didnt work properly, like many sapphire owners.

 

[Strontium]

-
Darthy stood up at show-n-tell, in
(e-mail address removed), and said:

Powercolor is not a top brand quality... I wouldn't trust their low
end - where they, like many companies will cut as many corners as
possible. Their 9800Pro is pretty much 99% the same as a real
9800Pro. (but there are some 9800Pros out there that are not at full
PRO speed). I used AIDA32 to confirm my GPU speed... Also look at
the specs from the maker. My 9800Pro is a PowerColor, works fine.


A poster said "2D image was crap" - most likely an older PowerColor
Nvidia chipset card - which were typical junk when PowerColor was
kinda new.

PowerColor are 'still' junk. They use subpar PCB and second-rate memory.
It's very rare for one company to have so many 'defective' boards.
Powercolor has excelled record, in that arena. Glad you got a good one.
You got LUCKY.

 

[John]

Hi,

I am planning to buy a 9800pro 128 MB card as a replacement for my old GF3.
Do not need "all-in-wonder" dingles, do not want extra overclocking
capabilities - all I need is raw R350 might & power

Looking around I can see that cards from PowerColor are one of the best
deals (price-wise) as far as 128 MB 9800pro is concerned. One notch up
(approx. 10% more expensive) is Saphire product - at least here in Europe in
shops available to me (pricewatch shows somewhat different situation in
USA). So I was leaning towards a PowerColor product untill I browsed this
newsgroup, where cards from this manufacturer are often flamed for their low
quality.

This confuses me a bit. As I have learned from numerous reviews & tests
available on the Net, the 'regular' 9800 pro card is basically always the
same: the same reference PCB design, exactly the same components, the same
standard ATI heat sink fan, in most cases even the same memory chips
(Samsung K4D26323RA-GC2A, rated 380 MHz). Comparing pictures of PC's 9800
with other brands (Saphire etc.) just confirms this.

So what is actually wrong (if anything) with PowerColor cards? Isn't PC a
main supplier of ATI cards for other 'manufacturers', who just sell them
under different brands?

If anybody had some practical experience and could give me any advice reg.
what should I look at choosing my new card - I would be gratefull.

Kevin

I've been using a Powercolor 9800 Pro for a few months now, and no problems
whatsoever!

John

 

[DrWho]

This is all completely anecdotal, but here's my experience:

I've been running a Powercolor 9700 non-pro for a year. Absolutely NO
problems whatsoever, and the quality of the image (2D and 3D) is
outstanding.

An coworker bought a Sapphire 9800pro, which caused him nothing but
grief. Constantly lockups and reboots. He returned it for a new one
which works fine.

Another coworker bought a Hercules 9700pro. The heats sinks fell of the
memory the first week he owned it.

 

[Timothy T. Doran]

Don't buy an ATI 9600XT based video controller (or anything from Power
Color) unless it is a
genuine retail ATI 9600XT, as most other "builders" that are using the ATI
9600XT chipset
have not fully followed the ATI reference design, used old PCB's that were
"in stock" to rush
product out for Christmas holiday, and have not enabled the ATI "OVERDRIVE"
feature.

I too was "duped'" by C.P.Technology Co., Ltd. aka/dba in United States as
Power Color USA Corp. in purchasing a R96A-C3T in a new system I had built
by Future Technologies International, Inc. (FTI), Great Neck, NY about two
weeks ago, who is an "authorized" distributor/reseller" Power Color
products.

The cost to me between the Power Color R96A-C3T and a genuine retail ATI
9600XT was less than five dollars, but I went ahead with the Power Color
Product since it seemed to have a better bundle. I was not aware that there
were any differences in the cards, as Future Technologies International,
Inc. (FTI) web site (as do most other resellers) still to this day state the
fact that the Power Color R96A-C3T has "OVERDRIVE", as does C.P.Technology
Co., Ltd. Main web site, only in the last week has the Power Color USA Corp.
web site quietly removed the statement about the Power Color R96A-C3T having
'OVERDRIVE" ability.

 

[John]

I've been using a Powercolor Pro 9800 card for about 6 months now and I've had
no problems whatsoever!. OC's quite well too.

John