Ok. this is cheap, thoughts?

Wanting to buy a r9800

First of all

http://www.ncix.com/forums/index.ph...d=337603&forum=101&product_id=10043#msg337603

When i baught my replacment radoen 8500le, i baught the built by ati as my roomate had very bad luck with his sapphire version. same card, but his is clocked a LOT lower and has 5 ns ram *my bba has 3.3*

Im in the market again for a new card an dhave been reading review after review. finally, I figure the best place to come is in fact the oc forums which i used to spend so much time in.

I am still running the same system pretty much. xp 1600+ with 768 megs of pc 2700. i have never had reason to upgrade, and i dont really plan to now that i can oc the bejesus out of it this winter thanks to the super cooled calgary air XD.

now. this price and this card. it looks pretty cheap and i know that i can probably flash this to pro spec. could somone with experience in the sapphire arena possibly give me a heads up? should i pick this up or look elsewhere?

im kinda thinking of getting a r9500 pro or a 9600xt. but if i can get this, pay a little more and mod it, im all for that XD.

*edit* I just found the same thing from memoryexpress, a local wholesaler. they sell what looks to be the same thing for $367.
Is this card supposed to be clocked 325/290?

so you're looking at a sapphire 9800np right? Excellent card, and most of them have samsung ram, which can do 350 or more in most cases, I have the same card, it runs @ 400/350. I'm pretty sure the stock speeds are 325/290 as you asked. I flashed mine with a pro bios, (i think most folks do) and the new stock clocks are 380/340. It's a dreamy card .


J.

Wicked. just what i wanted to hear. i have to pass some moeny around i think. i will try to sell my 8500 if i can and pick this bad boy up. it comes to like, $395 which is pretty good. if it goes well and this card is as good as the people say, then ill have some 3dmark scores all today XD. I probably wont flash it immediatly though. im a little too paranoid for that just yet

Alright. i have ordered it. let the games begin XD

ooo... I hope you get the one with Samsung RAM. Non Pro cards with Samsung RAM can be flashed to Pro and overclocked a lot. If you get Infineon RAM, it will still overclock nicely, but the Pro bios won't do anything for you.

Congrats, You will Looooove it .


J.

P.S. Check ya PM eh? thanx

J, again.

All the Sapphire 9800np cards come with the Samsung ram (don't they?). 3.3ns if I'm not mistaken. At least the cards that were being sold on newegg.com all had Samsung memory.

If benchmark scores are really important to you, then try to flash it with a pro bios. However, it'll probably only be worth a couple hundred 3dmark03 points at best, since most of the time the pro bios only allows you to overclock the memory a little higher. I'd just stick with stock bios for a while overclock it to the max. You will not be disappointed with your purchase. I have two 9800np cards and have a hard time recommending anything else. I believe they are the best high performance card for the $$$ spent.

yes, the sapphire 9800 np uses 3.3 ns samsung... I recommend this instead of the BBA cards, since right now they're being sold with 3.0 infineon which isn't nearly as good... unless you can get a BBA with 2.8 samsung, the Saph card is better.

This is not entirely true. I was looking for advice on which 9800 non pro to buy a while back, and I found out that although the large proportion of owners of Sapphire 9800 NP cards had Samsung 3.3ns memory, there were several reported cases of Sapphire 9800 NP using Infineon RAM. I wouldn't be saying so if I was not so sure. This was on another forum though.

I even emailed one manufacturer Connect3D, and the manufacturer's reply was that memory is dependent on supply, so you can end up with either sort of RAM.

of course, Sapphire is much better than BBA, as with ATI, you're almost sure you'll end up with Infineon.

but I think your chances of getting Samsung RAM is pretty good with Sapphire.

just saw an article on rage3d and yes, it seems that there's another version of saph 9800np with infineon ram (don't know what ns).... though I never heard of it before, never seen a bios for it from the bios lists I've looked at, and never seen one sold at any online sites (they all said samsung ram)... probably a rare kind so I wouldn't worry.

edit: lol, seems like none of us actually read the posts under the card, in that link... people are saying they're getting infineon 3.0.. but it oc's pretty well... weird. there must be something diff between the BBA and Saph, more than just the cooling.... cause I can't oc my BBA with infineon 3.0 at all. see this http://www.ncix.com/forums/index.ph...d=341015&forum=101&product_id=10043#msg341015

I need to get my hands on some higher end games to throw at this. I think I want to compose a quicky article about how my bios mod goes with this. the winter is coming up very shortly as well which will allow me to achieve super cooling for $15.

I want to do a few tests with my existing 8500 *which is still very good* and this 9800 np/p. I think it will be good because all of the major hardware sites do their benches based on the latest and greatest systems. might be nice to get some insight as to how they perform in a system that is a little older and in some cases more average. ill pit m y8500 straight against it in both stock and oc settings. this winter will be good for this as i can cool my pc with -40 air. i just need to find somone who can unlock my pali so i can clock higher. the limit i have is mainly my ram. it dies at 173 mhz. perhaps i can acheive 2000 mhz core by settting the multi to xp 1800 settings. if anyone in the calgary area has cpu unlocking experience, i would love you forever. we can get some beer XD