Advice please!

[Milo Malhame]

Having been an NVidia fan for many years (10) I have finally seen the light
and am switching to the ATI series of video cards. I have decided to
upgrade from an MSI FX 5600 128 meg card (very disappointing card) slower
than my former Ti 4200, to a Sapphire 9800 non pro 128 meg. The Sapphire in
my area sells for $356.00 CAD while the least expensive "pro" card sells for
over $500.00.
Do you Pro owners highly recommend the pro series over the non pro? Is it
worth the price difference? Bench marks show the pro series about 10% faster
while the cost is about 40% higher. Is it difficult to overclock the 9800 to
pro speeds?
Are Ati cards as compatible with as many games as NVidia? We mostly play MS
Flight Sim 2004 and Most EA Sports titles. I have ordered my card from NCIX
in Vancouver BC and will be picking it up this Friday.
Real users opinions would be helpful.
Regards
Milo

 

[JAD]

I bought a 9700 AIW pro before I took a look at the 9600 pro(NonAIW) I think right now ,,,for the money.... this is the card for the
new ATI person... MO 370-500 just seems to be a awful lot for a vid card, heck I can play Call of duty(demo) halo, Americas army,
UT2003, etc on my 7500 AIW yet....I don't do the benchmark thing so long as I can play multiplayer and not get fragged to death and
everything looks as it should, I'm happy.

 

[Ben Pope]

Having been an NVidia fan for many years (10) I have finally seen the
light and am switching to the ATI series of video cards. I have
decided to upgrade from an MSI FX 5600 128 meg card (very
disappointing card) slower than my former Ti 4200, to a Sapphire
9800 non pro 128 meg. The Sapphire in my area sells for $356.00 CAD
while the least expensive "pro" card sells for over $500.00.
Do you Pro owners highly recommend the pro series over the non pro?

Never used a non-pro, but the architecture seems pretty good.

Is it worth the price difference?

Only you can answer that depending on where on the price/performance vurve
you like to sit

Bench marks show the pro series
about 10% faster while the cost is about 40% higher. Is it difficult
to overclock the 9800 to pro speeds?

The Sapphire non-pros use 3.3ns RAM, good for 300MHz, whilst all Pros use
2.86ns RAM, good for 350MHz. However, I'm under the impression that the
non-pros clock pretty well. You should get the core to Pro speeds no
trouble, and the RAM pretty close.

Are Ati cards as compatible with as many games as NVidia? We mostly
play MS Flight Sim 2004 and Most EA Sports titles. I have ordered my
card from NCIX in Vancouver BC and will be picking it up this Friday.
Real users opinions would be helpful.

Not played that many games, but it's fine here.

Ben

 

[Juan Alvarez]

I'll go for the Pro
it's not only performance, fps, but also the excellent
image quality with 6xFSAA and 16xAF all details high
in e.g. UT2003, Unreal 2, ST Elite Force 2, Colin Mcrae 3,
AquaNox 2 and so on...

 

[Skid]

I have decided to
upgrade from an MSI FX 5600 128 meg card (very disappointing card) slower
than my former Ti 4200, to a Sapphire 9800 non pro 128 meg. The Sapphire in
my area sells for $356.00 CAD while the least expensive "pro" card sells for
over $500.00.
Do you Pro owners highly recommend the pro series over the non pro?

Many 9800 non-pros can easily overclock to Pro levels, giving you cheap and
fast in the same card. (Avoid the crippled SE version, though.) Check the
tweaking forum at www.rage3d.com