How much further will the price of the 9800 pro drop?

That's a pretty standard OEM shipping method, I get 'em that way a lot.

Could you walk us thru exactly how you went about changing cards? Mebbe there was a mistake made we can fix?

 

What's your chipsets on your board ? You might need a Chipsets drivers upgrade before installing the card since ATI cards are designed to run on Intel chipsets only and other chipsets have to simulate the Intel chipsets to works properly.

RainZ

 

Where the hell does this come from?

 

in the ATI Book .. 8) No joke ..

RainZ

 

Woah .. it was nearly impossible for me to run my ATI 9800 Pro stable on my second comp ( VIA KT400A) the lastest bios helped ya .. but wasnt enough ... and with my new board ( VIA K8T800 ) it's perfect .. old VIA chipsets are really a problem with the ATI .. i was about to return the card me too..

Good luck and be 200% sure to use the lastest bios for your motherboard and lastest VIA Hyperion unified chipsets drivers from VIA Arena. (4.51)

http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=2

RainZ

 

Hey, as long as it works it's all good!

(I had the 9700 pro "cold boot" problem with one mobo. On a cold boot there would be absolutely no monitor signal, if'n I hit the reset button it'd boot up just peachy. Weird and I'm glad it's gone!)

 

You can get a 9800 Pro 128MB for $169.99 on Pricewatch now.

That's a $40 price drop in about a month. Nice.

 

Is that really what the ATI reviewer guides say? Wow...

I was more under the impression that ATI chips are primarily tested and qualified on Intel boards, which is why AGP 8x worked fine on those boards when the 9700p first came out and lots of via kt400 chips had issues.

 

Meh! Not only are those $170 "9800Ps" 128-bit cards, they're only clocked at 9800 speeds (325/290)! AVOID. Either buy a 9600XT for <$150, or just pony up >$205 for a full 9800P.

I think the $225 9800P @ Allstarshop is a pretty good deal, as it includes a HL2 voucher. Say what you will about Valve's scheduling, but I'd pay $20 now rather than $40+ for HL2, especially since we're virtually guaranteed a game this year (I'm betting on no later than November).

 

Just found my book for you .. MrBond and Joe

Official ATI Radeon book ( made by ATI )

1st page there's the Welcome .. blabla

DO THIS FIRST

To ensure a successful installation of you ATI Graphics Accelerator card you MUST do the following BEFORE replacing your current graphics card with your new ATI card:

Install new AGP Drivers for NON-Intel Chipset Based Motherboards. Several AGP motherboard manufacturers use NON-Intel AGP Chipsets ( Chipsets drivers ). Chipsets include those made by Acer Laboratories (ALI). Silicon Integrated Systems (SIS), and VIA Technologies, Inc. Each NON-Intel chipset requires the installation of a custom Virtual GART ( AGP ) driver. This driver is required by your new ATI card to function correctly with your motherboard. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT that the correct AGP driver be installed before installing an AGP video card in your non-Intel System.

An incorrect or missing GART driver can result in AGP memory not being detected or a black when Windows loads.

And they explain this at some other places in the book too .. but i think that's enough just the warning at the start.

RainZ

 

I just remember the absolute damn-near-wet-me-pants panic I felt the first time I tried booting up my engineering sample 9700 pro that Terry Makedon had gave me.

I'm not trying to brag with the card reference, just trying to put it in perspective of how much I was shitting bricks figuring I'd toasted me damned preeeeeeessscious before ever even getting to play with it!

Them's the good memories looking back, provided there was a fix found shortly there after.

Far Cry is a bit better, eh?

 

Not a bios, but a AGP/Gart. Not because they are made for intel, but because all the other Chipset makers/for AMD have many more upgrades, and they tend to suck if biz machines. This is REAL OLD install rules for ALL vidcards, though XP helps with there builtin chipset drivers. Not a big deal. And its not so much the chipset as it is the MB manufactures voltage usage. When you go to the molex to juice your card sucky MBs will sux.

 

If it's not the version you paid for, return it.

<edit> it should be fairly obvious from looking at it. I believe the 128 bit versions have tsop ram on them