Recent ATI Owners. Good Experience or Bad?

[BF_TEXMASTER]

I've been a loyal fan of Nvidia for a long time.

But I've been entertaining turning my geforce 4600 in for a Radeon 9700.

What has been the experience of ATI owners?

Has the drivers issue improved?

Thanks.

 

[OC Noob]

The 9700 pro is my first ATI card.

I downloaded the Catylist 2.3 drivers first and have had no problems...that weren't my fault

Sometimes when I first load games they run like s$#t, but after updating the game everything goes well. Better then well actually.

 

[cwb27]

I've owned 2 All In Wonders (128 PRO PCI and 8500DV) In my opinion the driver issues have improved a little... I don't run into as many problems as I used to... Random freezes during installation of drivers, poor performance, drivers messing other things up, atc... All in All, I'm pretty happy with my cards.

 

[cursor]

I have an ATI Radeon 8500. I wish I had paid the extra $ and gotten a GF4 4200. Drivers for 8500 are still lousy.

 

[CaptBill]

Have to older one in my older computer, but it has been trouble free and great.

 

[funnyperson1]

my Ati has been just as or even less temperamental than my Geforce2 Pro....never had problems installing drivers...just lagging issues in GTA3 which didnt occur as badly on my old computer

 

[nunez1980]

"reply"

I change fron r8500 to r9700 and couldn't be happier, the drivers are great, and the performance with all eye candy on is just awesome , If you want the best then r9700, if you are a nvidia fan then go with them, cause if you do go with an r9700 an anything happens, hard drive, mobo, ect, you will definely blame it to the r9700,

drivers: excellent
performance: best

Most of the time, users are the problem

 

[PhobMX]

i also was a loyal nvidiot until i fried m gf3 (still dunno why ) so on the tigt budget i got this r8500LE 64mb and oced to the speeds on my sig, man i believe i can hit 10k 3d marks with this setup if i get a better memory tooc the cpu a little more. The drivers are well right now, catalyst 2.2 where a bit slow, but 2.3 ones suck up the best of r8500/9700, so i think things are even in the vid card market right now, just get whatever you can afford, either ati or nvidia. BTW, i love my r8500, its graphic quality is better than a geforce4, not that fast though but its worth it

 

[Deathknight]

So far so good. Had a few bumps in the road with my 9700 (such as lockups in battlefield 1942) but those have been addressed by a patch to the driver.

 

[Maxvla]

why would you go from ti4600 to 9700?

one top of the line to the other. not like there's that much difference. ti4600 will play anything you throw at it.

the nv30 is just around the corner since you have a top card i'd wait and see what pans out. its not like you are being kept from playing games.

 

[hellrazrblade]

ive had really good luck with 8500's
i have used two myself and my friend has one.
but yeah, theres no reason to get a 9700 if you have a 4600

 

[PreservedSwine]

Just got an R8500- Best card I've ever owned.

Frequent driver updates, both official and beta's.

Every game I'ver ever tried has run flawlessly, all driver updates go w/out a hitch.

The anisotropic quality and performance is unparrelled. And the performance of FSAA is excellenet, and the performance quite nice at lower FSAA levels on my 1.4 T-bird.

 

[TranceBear]

I am a convert to ATI when I found out they are the best bang for the buck. They were the 1st to hit over 10,000 in 3D mark.

 

[Malakai]

Re: "reply"

I change fron r8500 to r9700 and couldn't be happier, the drivers are great, and the performance with all eye candy on is just awesome , If you want the best then r9700, if you are a nvidia fan then go with them, cause if you do go with an r9700 an anything happens, hard drive, mobo, ect, you will definely blame it to the r9700,

drivers: excellent
performance: best

Most of the time, users are the problem

fanboy?

i had an 8500 back when they were new, and it sucked. the drivers were horrid. and dont even think about tellong me it was user error.

the 9700 looks nice, and if the 9500pro is as good as Kyle at [H]OCP says its gonna be, than it will be a definate contender for myu next card. but since i can get a Ti4400 for the same price and have garunteed stable drivers, probably not.

Nvidia has earned my trust, while ATi sold a card with blatantly broken drivers. they will have to work to get any of my money, like some serious proce/performance + solid drivers

 

[Malakai]

I am a convert to ATI when I found out they are the best bang for the buck. They were the 1st to hit over 10,000 in 3D mark.

but they were usually slower than the Ti500 in almost every other benchy. and for almost a year major selling point features didnt work.

the r8500 ordeal really ****ed me off. I LOVED my original Radeon 32mb DDR, the 8500 was a serious shock to me thats gonna be hard to get over.

 

[Cisco Kid]

love my 8500LE , it is my 4th ATI card, I have not had any issues that I did not create myself. PLan to go with a 9500 Pro next time, to me their cards are the best bang for the $$ imho

cisco kid

 

[Cowboy X]

I have been blessed with my first ATI ........ the 9700 Pro . Since getting it last month I can happily say I've had only 2 lockups .

One in warcraft 3 when i was running F@H at the same time and the other when I decided to try NFS HS2 demo with the driver set said not to work . Of course i got a black screen which was remedied when I put in the new stuff .

I am a very happy camper .

 

[Stumpjumper5200]

This is my first ATI card too (9700 Pro)

Before this, I had a Gf3Ti500 which was pretty nice. I was wary of ATI though, since I had heard how bad they were with drivers. Thankfully, they must have turned over a new leaf, going the nVidia way with the Catalyst drivers (kinda like Detonator)......drivers for everything in just one download.

BTW: the 9700 is kinda expensive, but if you're really into gaming there's nothing that can come close (until nVidia finally decides to put out the nv30, then we'll see)

should be an interesting match

 

[KiKaL]

I have the 9700 Pro and The Radeon 32mb. I love them both. I currently have both of them running and my geforce 4 mx out collecting dust. Of course those 2 card are in separate comps.

 

[Rav]

I just got a 9700 Pro. Let me tell you its a good feeling to pop in a new card and triple your 3dmarks. I'm running resolutions I've never previously dreamt of. AA and AF are standard in my games now. I haven't had a single problem except for the NFS2 demo. I previously had a original Radeon 64MB, which ran great without problems since I received it from preorder.

-Rav