ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB

[Les Therrien]

Does anyone have one of these? If so, how good is it??

[Roger Evans]

I'm surprised no answers to this Les ~

If it helps I used to have 9700 ~ my only complaint was cooling fan noise ~ I now use 9600 256 which is a lot quieter ~ and I don't see much difference with Revit (I don't play games so can't say about performance difference)

If I were to buy 9800 (or any other Nvidea equivalent) I would go for an uprated cooling system to reduce noise.

[Damo]

Does anyone have one of these? If so, how good is it?? I have the Radeon 9800 XT with 256MB. Use it to power two 17" LCD monitors (one digital and the other analogue).

Graphics are good, I've had no problems with it. I do hear the fan stepping up any time I start pushing the system. When the PC is doing just normal work then the system is relatively quiet, but once the PC starts working I am aware of the fan, but I think this is normal with most systems now.

Bottom line, the graphics card is stable, and I’m sure you know to get the latest drivers.

[Les Therrien]

thanks Damian!

would you say there's a noticable increase of performance over say a 128MB card?

[mlgatzke]

I use an nVidia Quadra 3000FX 256MB to drive 2-20" flat panels with DVI and I absolutely LOVE it. The performance is awsome in every application I try. However, it has glitches in Revit when trying to use the OpenGL performance option. So, I just leave the OpenGL option turned off. It still works GREAT anyway.

[hand471037]

There's a 9600 in my laptop. I love it, it's great. At first I was worried about the ATI, for I liked Nvidia cards more, but so far it's been great. However I'm just driving one monitor, can't say anything about duals (which I miss).

[Wes Macaulay]

Given the fact that you can Revit on a 64Mb video card, I suspect that one of these heavy hitters isn't going to get you much more performance.

[Damo]

At first I was worried about the ATI, for I liked Nvidia cards more, but so far it's been great. Like yourself, all my previous cards were nVidia and I was unfamiliar with ATI Radeon.

However, I would suggest that Les has a look at Tom’s Hardware here http://www20.graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040216/index.html Apparently ATI handles the dual monitor set-up better then NVidia

[Roger Evans]

I use Dual CRT with 9600 256
No problems with the system as far as I know ~ its very useful and would be more so if Revit supported Dual Monitors.

The monitors are not identical (I know not the best move but still) ~ the cheaper one ~ an Iiyama 455 conked out last week and was swapped out yesterday ~ Have to say I missed the dual option for that short while but everythings fine again now.

Anyone have any ideas on the monitor going phut?

[Les Therrien]

I just installed an ATI Radeon 9000 rv.250 128 mb card about 7-8 months ago.

The Radeon 9800 was available at the time but was more than double the price.
It was about $1000.00 CND. I am guessing the price has come down some since.
The reason I am considering this card again is only because every little nano-second adds up very quickly! If I can gain an hour a week then it's heaven!!

[Les Therrien]

Anyone have any experience with these yet?

[Damo]

There is a magazine in the UK called Personal Computer World (or PCW). The current edition, November 2004, page 104, discusses how to upgrade your firmware BIOS on the Radeon 9800 PRO that will be give you the "much more expensive Fire GL X2". The Fire GL cards are based on the same chip technology, but have additional functions for accelerated display of raster images.

Article suggests looking at www.mvktech.net or http://sofmod.ocfaq.com

I haven't checked the magazines web site, but there might be some info on the article at http://www.pcw.co.uk/