Buying a Radeon 9800 Pro

[Makkarah]

Which one is a good card?

I've got a couple to pick from, but I'll wait after christmas in hope of price drops.

Hercules 3D Prophet 9800 Pro
Excalibur Platinum Radeon 9800 Pro IceQ
Excalibur Radeon 9800 Pro
Connect3D Radeon 9800 Pro
Club-3D Radeon 9800 Pro

These all are 128 meg cards. 256 meg cards cost way too much here, and I cannot afford an XT either, so it has to be one of these.
Now I heard that Excalibur cards are nice, and that Pro IceQ doesn't look bad either. Any opinions? I'm kinda wondering about that Connect3D cause I just bought 9800 SE from them and wasn't really impressed about it's performance...

 

[Matthias99]

Well, it'd be tough to be impressed by *any* 9800SE's performance.

Generally speaking, most 9800Pro 128MB cards have nearly identical peformance. With the exception of the cheaper Sapphire 9800Pro (which is built on a 9700Pro PCB), all the OEM versions simply follow the ATI reference design to a T, using the exact same board and memory (2.8ns Samsung). Hercules, I believe, adds some extra cooling, which may help your overclock. There's also the Sapphire Ultimate Edition, which comes pre-equipped with a Zalman ZM-80C silent heatpipe cooler. Other than that, performance and overclockability should be identical.

 

[Makkarah]

Well I just placed order on Excalibur Platinum Radeon 9800 Pro IceQ. Hopefully I'll get it before christmas.

 

[Makkarah]

Just got it.
Only 1 thing to say about that card... It's a monster!

Exceeded my expectations in 3dmark03, got almost 6000 points.

 

[Steven4563]

whats your system specs ?? and also could u run 3dmark2001SE i wanna see how it does

thanks

 

[Makkarah]

System specs are in my profile.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=1750164 for 03 compare.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=7345879 for 01 compare.

 

[crimedog]

please overclock that! if i'm scoring higher than you, something's wrong

 

[Makkarah]

please overclock that! if i'm scoring higher than you, something's wrong

Yep, just did that.

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k3=1752159