why so many 9800 Pro refurbs?

[guppie]

I currently have a 128MB 9600 Pro that I've had for about a year. Truthfully, I don't play games as much as I used to and I plan on playing Doom3 when my friend gets bored with it in about 4 more months... Right now, all I play is Joint Ops, ever since Ubi abandoned Raven Shield.

Why are there so many 128MB 9800 Pro "refurbs" available at NewEgg? Can someone please tell me what makes them all different? And which ones to avoid? Is it even worth upgrading at this point or should I wait a few more months until I'm going to play Doom3? (I figure the 256MB 9800 Pro cards will drop to sub $170 by then...)

[Oni]

Pro'lly overclocking returns. People buy them, they don't overclock as much as they'd like, so they send them back for a new card. It's kinda crooked in a way.

[HousERaT]

Why are there so many 128MB 9800 Pro "refurbs" available at NewEgg? Can someone please tell me what makes them all different? And which ones to avoid? Is it even worth upgrading at this point or should I wait a few more months until I'm going to play Doom3? (I figure the 256MB 9800 Pro cards will drop to sub $170 by then...)

That's a loaded question. I agree with oni, many are probably fine working cards that just don't overclock real well. Also, people seem to be real serious about finding a 9800pro card with an xt core. Finding the r360 core (originally for xt cards) is one step in being able to flash the pro card into a pure xt card. If someone gets a card with the original pro core (r350) they might feel like somehow they've gotten cheated becaue many 9800pro cards are made with the r360 (xt) cores now.

The only cards that seem to give people headaches especially if they want to mount a vga silencer is the msi 9800pros. I don't have one myself so I can't confirm this, but it seems to be a complaint just the same. I'd say you're safe to wait unless companies start fazing out the 9800pro for some other card like the x600. I have a sapphire 9800pro 128mb card and I was able to flash it to a real xt. So in some cases it would be luck of the draw. I hear that most if not all 9800pro 256mb cards will flash to xt with the right bios. I have seen virtually no difference in performance between the 128 vs 256mb versions of the card. Hope this helps.