ATI 9700 Pro Driver Support (OEM) ???

[Cowboy X]

ATI did something that was unexpected ( at least to me ) and has allowed their partners to make apparently full speed R300 cards instead of 300 or 275 MHz boards . This is definately different to the 8500 LE days where only a few makers like Hercules and Gigabyte were offered full speed parts and rather late in the game at a point when the 8500 was no longer the top card .

Current boards by the usual suspects and others like Power colour and Sapphire appear to perform well but i have a few questions :

1/ Will regular "made by ATI " catalyst drivers work with these boards ?

2/ How do Sapphire and Power Colour boards oc .

3/ What about extra features in the drivers eg the control panels , will they work on these partners' cards ?

If anyone can answer these questions favourably then I'll get a sapphire from Newegg but to this point I haven't found these answers .

Does anyone know ??

 

[Default]

wait for reviews of these cards. It's your best bet.

 

[Cowboy X]

According to this thread every single ATI 9700 PRO is made by ATI at present so there should be no difference right now between them and powercolour or sapphires (for now ) .

But 'ATI made' cards will soon not be available except via the ATI website !!!

Link : http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=33633896

 

[PreservedSwine]

But 'ATI made' cards will soon not be available except via the ATI website !!!

So now only ATI will sell made by ATI to consumers, instead of consumers AND retailers....

I guess 3rd part manufactures didn't like being in competion with their GPU manufacturer

OK, cool

 

[Cowboy X]

Or vice versa . one guy who posted said ATI plans to eventually only design the GPUs ................ oops VPUs and let UMC make them . Then sell to the board makers , the ' made by ATI ' cards may well be manufactured by Asus in the near future . ( may be smoke and mirrors )