How ATI upset Nvidia with the Radeon 9700 Pro

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[@PixelPipes]

One of the greatest and most important graphics card releases of all time. A great take on the subject!

[@dgerdi]

PixelPipes agree!

[@ironchef3500]

Had one of these. LOVED it

[@amazingamazigh6847]

True, the 8500 release was just a preview for Nvidia

[@Thunderbird848]

R300 and G80 are legends

[@siniyden]

@@Thunderbird848 I only can add 3dfx voodoo in this list. These vere really breakthrough cards

[@NightMotorcyclist]

At the time of writing, my 9700 Pro is sitting on top of my Asus A7N8X motherboard right in front of me along with 512MB of DDR400 RAM by Corsair, an AMD Athlon XP 2500+ and a Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2. There's no real reason for it other than to just look at it from time to time. I'm not planning on reassembling it.... yet. I remember when I bought mine as if it was yesterday. I was planning a totally new system after my MSI nForce 1 based system (K7N 420D) and had seen the article in PCGamer Magazine about the upcoming Doom 3 and how the demo was being powered by ATi's new card. I had to have it and worked my ass off to come up with the money but being in high school my parents had to help me out as well... as a birthday gift.

[@GeminiWoods]

Man I remember those days...

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Damn, that's a nice system. Actually pretty nice for a high-end 98 SE rig. With a nice Voodoo 5 :D But the 9700 is just as awesome to run in it. Get a cheap but decent PSU and re-enjoy the old days!

[@v1ncend]

My old 9700 pro and the leaked alpha demo E3 of Doom 3 :D

[@jamesp4521]

Hahah yep! No other card would run the leaked demo... That damn demo pushed everyone to upgrade

[@vh9network]

I remember that demo release. I was still using the GeForce 4 Ti 4600 and the could barely run that demo.

[@sl9sl9]

Don't forget the leaked HL2 alpha! Aah those were the days...

[@justinwojciechowski1073]

@AVLRECORDS Using old CRT monitors because of the refresh rate is sort of becoming a thing again. I was surprised but yes my setup was similar and this brings back sooooo many memories of gaming when I was younger. Tech has evolved to a stupid level since then but looking back makes me smile still. I used to play Blade Of Darkness tons and it was a very demanding game the 9700 helped soo much

[@zniffznake]

Exactly! My best memory as well. :)

[@amras94]

I'm so happy you have such a regular video schedule

[@wimmetje]

I remember it as yesterday when this card arrived at our shop, this was really an punch from ATI. Nvidia GF4 was just blown away against the 9700 pro performance. I didn't really own one back in the time, but i played with it a lot on my work. Great Times! 9800SE mod to 9800 pro is worth an video if you have one phil ;)

[@ApexHardcore]

I actually had a 9700 Pro as my first discrete gpu, then upgraded to an All-In-Wonder 9800 because the whole TV capture thing blew my mind and I still played a lot of console games I wanted to record at that point. I stayed on that until the 6800XT and then between that and the 7950GX2 I was firmly planted in the cult of green

[@itsaPIXELthing]

An awesome piece of hardware and a slice of video gaming history! :) Thanks for this, Phil! Cheers!

[@realitybites4224]

I upgraded my Ti 4200 to the Saphiire 9800 Pro, cost me $850 from Gamedude in Brisbane but worth every penny. Keep up the good work.

[@bazzle592]

The way you say "Castle Wolfenstein" is so perfect 😂

[@3DfxAslinger]

On 2003, I have switched from the Ti 4400 to the Hercules 3D Prophet 9800 Pro.

[@dirkk9931]

Great video and brings back great memories, thank you. Radeon 9800 SE (basically a lite version) was my first premium graphics card as a teenager, worked hard for it and it has blown me away. I was also able to unlock it to a regular Radeon 9800 Pro, good old days :-)

[@nikolakarovic5964]

9700pro reminds me of my high school days :D ....playing games go to school and training basketball than repeat.

[@mindphaserxy]

I had the 9550 and it was amazing for World of Warcraft when it first launched. Man those were the days

[@Kilen81]

That was a great OEM card! Very easy to overclock! I still play with mine :)

[@mindphaserxy]

Mine was an actual branded card. Powercolor version. Could push the core clock up a ton and get nice performance out of it.

[@MrKillswitch88]

More so than just the card, I really do miss world of warcraft. The server I used to play on along with the community doesn't exist anymore. :(

[@alexanderbashlaev4729]

David Alan clocked 9550 128-bit =9600 pro

[@HeyImGaminOverHere]

I went with a 5200 Ultra which turned out to be garbage. Returned it and got a 5600 Ultra which was faster but not worth the price. In the end I went with a 9600 XT which I still have today and works great.

[@raresmacovei8382]

ATI X600 Pro 128 MB (a renamed 9600 XT) was the first GPU I ever had when I got my 1st PC in 2005.

[@Adam-rt7lp]

@PhilsComputerLab Dude! I was just watching videos of radeon 9700 and 9800 and this popped up. :-) Keep up the great videos. Have u reviewed the FX 5950?

[@kynrek]

I have a 5950 ultra and 9800 pro, planning to do a shootout once my Pentium 3 motherboard and processor arrive.

[@philscomputerlab]

No not yet, it might be a while :D

[@mtunayucer]

kynrek if you will publish a video about them let us know

[@kynrek]

Tuna Yücer OK :) maybe I will do a Phil Spoof video XD

[@WaybackTECH]

Yours probably still works because of the ram sinks. I've seen a lot of these unfortunately die of memory failure along with gpu failure due to the BGA solder joints breaking, more typical than not back then for a lot of cards and motherboards, still is to some extent. These cards will probably continue to increase in value because of the scarceness due to high failure rates over the years. Don't think I've ever seen a Hercules card that wasn't blue so that's kind of a cool thing, I like that orange look to the card instead of the usual ATI red these cards typically came in.

[@snp1200]

I got a 9800 PRO w/o ram heatsinks few months ago. Unfortunately it boots straight with artifacts, tried to oven and underclock it, but no luck.

[@massos2745]

oven is not enough flux is most important in repair

[@rallyscoot]

I got e few 9800 XT`s here.

[@NightMotorcyclist]

I have the orignal ATi Radeon 9700 Pro all factory stock and it still works well despite my 9 HR+ daily gaming back when I first got it and was quite the workhorse when I handed it down to my parents when I built them a PC to use only to get it back when I built them another system using a Socket 939. I've always wanted the Hercules card for its blue PCB and pretty cool looking Orb cooler but it was quite a bit more money.

[@kaitlyn__L]

and the ram sinks look pretty sweet too! :D

[@kynrek]

Hi Phil! Another great video. I love the benchmarks and details on which effects to turn on! RTCW did look amazing with the lighting! How does the 9700 pro compare to the 9800 pro and the 9600XT? I bought the 9600 XT back in the day and got really mad because they were supposed to send me a copy of half life 2 for buying the card and never did, I never bought another ATI card (until now, I just got a 9800 pro i haven't tried yet)

[@philscomputerlab]

I haven't tested the 9800 Pro, but it's a tweaked version basically, with all clocks a bit higher. The 9600 XT is slower, the one I have is not a "real" 9600 XT, slightly down-clocked. I do remember the craze with HL2 and 9800 Pro owners :D

[@pijussimkevicius6149]

Omg i bought random ati card for 2 euros and it was Radeon 9700 pro lol

[@GiSWiG]

I bought a 9700 pro and a 9800 pro for $8 USD each at a local reuse shop a few months ago. I've tested them but I have yet to give them a go. I think I'm gonna have to check out the 9800 Pro soon

[@halfniak]

nice!

[@nick524]

I got mine for free

[@kdmmovies361]

@@nick524 same

[@magreger]

My first video card was a Voodoo 4, then a Geforce 2 GTS, followed by a Geforce 4 and then a Radeon 9800 Pro. The 9800 knocked my socks off! Never had I experienced such a jump in performance. That this was unstoppable! I Remained Ati/Radeon until the Geforce 1060 6Gb which is a wonderful card. The 1060 gave me similar feelings as the 9800. It just ran everything o had so well completely maxed out.

[@JohnAmanar]

Around that era I have switched from the GeForce 4200 AGP8x to Radeon 9600 Atlantis 256MB. Was a great step. :D Great video!! :) :)

[@philscomputerlab]

Thanks!

[@brei2670]

I had this thing! (thanks for helping me remember... I was trying to remember what card I had in 2005)

[@RediscoveringRetro]

Jeez I was so excited when I bought mine back in the day. I actually bought a Crucial one.

[@winj3r]

I bought a Radeon 9700 a few months after it launched and it was amazing. I remember playing FarCry 1 over and over again with this card. Such great memories. This was my first ATI card. Before the 9700, I only had nVidia cards. But alas, the card died on me in late 2004 and then I bought a Geforce 6800 GT. Phill, could you do the duel with the Radeon 9700 Pro Vs GeForce 5800 Ultra. Back in the day, it was an epic fight.

[@thecaptain2281]

I was an ATI-guy from the Rage3D days, so buying the 9700Pro was the natural upgrade path for me. Buy I had a bunch of friends who did switch. ATI lost me when the Geforce 7950 hit stores.

[@Laykun9000]

This was the card I always lusted after while on my fx 5600 xt (xt were the cheap versions for Nvidia). I almost bought it's successor, the 9800 when suddenly the geforce 6800nu came out. Unlocked all the pixel and vertex pipelines and was a very happy chappy for a long time after that. It was so amazing seeing a card easily crush all the games I use to have such a hard time running not too long before hand. I think you're absolutely right, it was an incredibly exciting time for gpus back then, the transition to pixel shaders got my really interested in gpu programming, and now it's my job.

[@ChannelSho]

This was a card I really wanted back in the day, but I had to make do with a pidly FX 5600. Then again I was on a budget.

[@Bullittphotography]

I had a 8500 that went bad. Dealer could not tell me when I could get a replacement. Then I was offered to get an 9700 PRO. I just had to pay the price difference. Glad I did.

[@KuntalGhosh]

Wow almost 30k subs when i subed to you it was 10k subs!

[@philscomputerlab]

Great to see you're still here!

[@CougarCat21]

What a classic card! yes I did changed to a Radeon 9800 Pro back in the day and I still have that card now sitting in an AGP motherboard.

[@Nevakonaza.]

Id love for you to do a review and benchmark on the Club3D 9600 Pro 256mb card,so many good memories on this card from back in the day.

[@lazyfatferalcatchubby4996]

I was 19 and building my first comp in the winter of 2002, I wanted the best parts of the time which is why I chose this graphics card. I thought the price was ridiculous at the time, I bought it for 375 but compared to today's MSRP 1080 and 1080 ti, 375 wasn't so bad then. I eventually broke it by touching it while my comp was on which shorted it. This card ran world of Warcraft beta like a dream.

[@airmicrobe]

Same here haha I shorted cpu like that with boars and burnt the gpu while I just removed the fan and its was not attached correctly btw the computer was powered on. ; p

[@wakesake]

i have been waiting for this ...

[@JamesSmith-sw3nk]

When I had a job in northern Canada at a mine (in late 2007/ early 2008) I cobbled a computer together from free junk pieces to play games on my days off, it was a p4 1.6ghz, 2gb of ram , 80gb hard drive and it originally had a 9550 in it, I then got a 9700 pro (these were all free "junk" parts"), I played HL2 and COD4 etc, (COD4 was just playable at 25 fps on the 9550 and all the settings on low). I took the computer with me when I left and used it at my parent's place when I visited for 3yrs after before it finally died. Not bad for a junk computer!

[@EweToobUsername]

I remember running Halo side by side with my wife's laptop against my BIL's Alienware laptop with a GeForce 5500. To make his defeat even worse, her laptop at the time was a PowerBook G4 from 2003 with a Radeon 9700. Her laptop averaged 35fps, his only managed 29. Those were great times for ATI.

[@FusionC6]

I remember when I saved up all summer at a crummy job back in 2003-2004 to buy a 9800 Pro 128MB. Best day of my life when it arrived. xD I had a 2.8Ghz P4 and 1GB of RAM to help fuel that beast.

[@kidman2505]

I had a 9800 PRO and distinctly remember changing out to aftermarket cooling just because of thermal concerns.

[@sburns015]

Still have my 9700 pro! Still works too, used heavily until the x800 series was released

[@3dfxvoodoocards6]

There was another very interesting 9xxx card from ati, 9550 an overclocking MONSTER. The gpu was set at 250 mhz but you could overclock it to 450-500 mhz.

[@pauls4522]

Sure was! 130$ radeon 9550 lasted me from 2005 to 2008 where within the last year I could feel the card become obsolete, but then I discovered ati tool and overclocked it to 9600pro speeds and the card was given new life for the last year of ownership.

[@brian_the_brain]

This card looks advanced for it's time!Better than my GPU...

[@CommodoreFan64]

Honestly around this time I had mostly gotten out of PC gaming since I was working some crazy hours traveling for a site prep construction company, and so when I had a bit of downtime in my motel room I was either playing my GBA, and later on a GameCube as it was just easier to pack those into my work truck when we traveled as almost every motel room had at least a tube TV with an RF input.

[@kanopus06]

I'd love to see a 9800XT or X800XT retro review from you. I owned both and were amazing GPUs when they were released.

[@philscomputerlab]

Yea but it might be a while. I do want to mix it up, so I will do some older stuff again, and it also depends what parts I can aquire. But I do hope I get those cards at some point :)

[@kanopus06]

I hope so, I love your retro reviews, they bring me lots of computer memories.

[@CrazyMonkeyTM]

Hi Phil, what capture method do you used to do your videos? I have a fair amount of old machines that I want to share but could not decide on what to use for capturing their video...

[@gmodderr]

I had a Dell Dimension 8250 back in the day, a top spec one, with: *Radeon 9700 Pro* 512MB of 800Mhz RDRAM Pentium 4 @2.66Ghz 200GB IDE HDD 1200x1600 Dell Trinitron CRT That sucker cost 3k with the monitor, beast of a PC though.

[@arcticfox04]

I remember buying this card brand new at the time. Huge jump over the Radeon SDR.

[@NightSprinter]

I was let down from the one I bought right as the 9800 series came out. Out of the box, I had severe artifacting even on POST and the BIOS screens. Had to return it to Best Buy, then a friend and I had to scour the entirety of the Greater Orlando Area to get a 128MB 9800 Pro. That journey is a story in and of itself..

[@OzzFan1000]

I was a die-hard ATi fan, having used many of their cards since my original Graphics Xpression Mach64 2MB ISA card for my 486. I exclusively used ATi all the way up until their last competitive flagship card, the Radeon HD7970. The last several generations of cards have not been able to compete, so I jumped ship to an RTX 2070 last year. I would love to switch back if they can come up with something impressive.

[@Bigtymer781]

I was a huge fan too, up until the HD 5970 (worlds fastest card in 2010). Then I think AMD ran them into the ground.

[@GeppyZ]

I went from a GeForce 2 MX to a ATI Radeon 9600XT. Beast of a card.

[@jonchapman6821]

What a jump. I bet that was something to experience.

[@Blahde]

Mine disappeared.....Somewhere..Back in the day I think I gave it too ..someone... Great card! AGP, 128 MB Ram? I remember replacing it for the Radeon 6850, which I still have btw. ;-)

[@airmicrobe]

Same story I give my gforce 7600gs to someone. Sparkling 7600gs which has fan cooler on it. I got it because I applied RMA form to replace the original having a passive cooler. ;p

[@xxdizannyxx]

9800 pro was the most iconic video card imo.

[@Whiteshell204]

*2002....where’s my life gone :/*

[@maverickbna]

Could you cover the NVIDIA Quadro4 980 XGL? I had that card when I had an Athlon XP 2200+ based system. Thanks for all your content on these graphics cards.

[@piecaruso97]

Can you continue this series of videos using the top of geforce 4 and geforce fx lineups and comparing with radeons? and also I'd like to see also x850 series, I have a lot of cards from this period, so I'd like see how was the gpu market in that period

[@philscomputerlab]

Just a matter of time :D

[@Shmazeturuz]

My Voodoo 5 5500 also needed an external power connector back in the days.

[@justinwojciechowski1073]

This was 1 of my first major graphics card I put into a home build. I loved it for the day the 9700 Pro was a monster

[@jamesp4521]

I even remember my motherboard from back then... ABIT A7MAX 2! That build was LEGENDARY!

[@AIM9XSW]

The R300, R350 and R360 series GPUs are fantastic for retro gaming, especially for dual-boot setups for Windows 98 and Windows XP (Windows XP for games up to, and including Half Life 2, Far Cry, and SW Battlefront 2 classic from GOG). Collectors looking for these video cards should be aware of the possibility of picking up a fake 9800XT GPU from eBay. The one I picked up had a genuine ATI R360 core, but its clock was cut down from 412 MHz to 304 MHz. Its memory chips were rectangular (not square) and looked more like those that you'd find on a PC3200 DDR SDRAM module. Memory frequencies of only half of that of a real 9800XT (182.5 MHz instead of 365 MHz). While I was aware of the fake modern GPUs from China, I never knew about the existence of a "fake 9800XT." There are two videos on KZbin that illustrate this. With this fake 9800XT, a Pentium 4 520 (Prescott) and 1 GB of RAM on an ASRock 775i65G, I got a 3DMark 2003 score of 3184, which, in my experience, is less than that of a Radeon 9600 Pro.

[@xan1242]

You keep reminding me I need to make a NFS benchmark tool. I'll get to it once I get the AI driver to behave similarly every iteration.

[@parastie]

I bought that card! I had it paired with an AMD chip of the time that I overclocked (I can't remember which one, but I remember buying the copper ship so I wouldn't crush the die) and I remember I used a motherboard with an nForce 2 chipset! I believe it was the first chipset to use dual channel memory. Those were amazing times. I had the fastest computer at lan parties.

[@cgrant26]

I switched from a Ti500 to the 9800 Pro. From there it was an X800 Pro flashed to an X800XT/PE. That card took care of me for a long time until I ended up with an HD 5870 Eyefinity 6 card. Finally moved back to Nvidia with the GTX970. Went from that to a 1080Ti and now I'm running a GTX 3080Ti

[@fu4ien]

The history of my cards shortly: Radeon 7200 (my first gaming computer after 286dx), FX5200 I won it in some competition, 6600GT AGP (bought with my own money) it was a real monster, I still remember seeing HDR for the first time in NFS Most Wanted

[@KurisuDE]

The commercials for the 9700 Pro were the reason I switched to ATI (actually the 9800 Pro a while later). My first graphics card ever was a geforce 2 mx.

[@greyfox37]

I was using the gts2 pro still for a bit and when thief 3 came out, I got an fx5200 for the time being just so I could play it before I went to the fx5900 ultra. A friend of mine had the 9800 pro and it was outstanding.

[@leonredd]

I remember when i purchase this card for $300 when it first came out and the first game i played it with was Unreal Tournament 2003 amazing times

[@JanMachovec]

You can use this card on Windows 11. The official Vista 64bit drivers works when you install them manually through Device manager just fine. The die shrink (RV370) of this on PCIe (X600) runs even on my modern AM5 PC with CSM enabled, connected to my LG 4K OLED TV through DVItoHDMI adapter. Yes, it DOES RUN CRYSIS. Revolutionary chip indeed. It's such a nostalgic feeling to have this working on my main PC, playing the classic games I had on my first PC that I got on my 10th birthday.

[@hubzcaps]

Had 9600 and 9800. Best time learning i ever had. My system was as follows. 9800 on ECS Elite group K7S5A606. Ics PLL oh man fun times indeed

[@Obie327]

I loved my 9600xt and later got a 9800 pro. Love these cards! Playing Diablo Lord of destruction looked so good with the ATI card.

[@KrunchyTheClown78]

My first true gaming video card was the radeon 9800 pro. Fond memories of that thing. Then I got an X800XT. then when I found out what a horrible mess the HD 2900 XT was I bought an 8800GTX. I have owned mostly Radeon cards. But am currently rocking a GTX 1080.

[@vtheofilis]

I still remember reading about this card in the Greek edition of PC Magazine back in the day. Not only it was lauded in PC Magazine's review (and practically every review), but from then on, ATi cards started getting a lot more coverage. It was a turning point for me too: I stopped considering Nvidia the prime choice for graphics cards.

[@xiardark]

Stayed with nvidia at that time. Though my poor self afforded a 5200fx (which I still have and still works). It was a nice step up from the GeForce 4 440mx with 256mb of ram (not sure if its ever used all of it in a game, as that was debatable back then). Knowing what I know now from your benchmarks, ATI was the way to go on some of the nvidia/ati releases.

[@download7165]

Hi there Phil! I've a question i'm just to Buy an ATI radeon 9700pro 256mb but it's generic? Can you teach me about these cards that are generic is there something bad with them? I have a generic gf 2mx and it works wonderfully. And finally in the vga output it says qc passed 06, is that the year which it was produced? Thanks philscomputerlab and sorry for being noob at this.

[@Gertz]

I had a 9500 nonpro modded to 9700... and many more of that kind... 9500pro to 9700pro... where one of the pixelpipelines had a little failure... red dots on my monitor... sometimes im missing it... and yes. i switched to AMD... and never got back to NV... had a x800xt, x1950 aiw, HD2900 (loved that card!), after that came a 4870, 7870, 480 and now a vega56. :)

[@psycho0815]

I was on a LAN party next to a guy with one of these and a P4 back in the day. I had a RivaTNT and a PIII500 my brother had a GF2MX and the original Athlon at the time. We were just drooling over that ridiculous frame rate the guy got....

[@raresmacovei8382]

The bear at 8:00 looks both great and extremely visually dated at the same time, lmao. But the fact a version of fur could run on Pixel Shader 2.0 is amazing

[@IvanBoskovic808]

For Return To Castle Wolfenstein 91 FPS cap use this command : seta com_maxfps "999" in cfg file ...

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

ahhh, good old id Tech 3. The same commands still works in the Source engine btw.

[@MegaSmouke]

@@HappyBeezerStudios Because Half-Life 1 engine was modified id Tech 2. And Source Engine probably has its roots from Half-Life 1 engine or id Tech 2 engine.

[@BoomBox02]

I am surprised ati used those small crappy heat sink and fan on their high end card back then. You can buy similar heat sink/fan on ebay for a few dollars and i only use them on old geforce 2 cards or earlier as they really are no good for anything else. One question if i may. Where can i download the ati tech demos from??

[@arranmc182]

I was to poor for the Radeon 9700 pro so I got a Radeon 9600 pro as it was cheaper at the time, I remember playing half-life 2 on that puppy, but ultimatly every one wanted a 9800 range card when they announced that but you had to spend a lot to get that kind of power

[@sgtjarhead99]

Probably my favorite ATI card of all time. Primarily because it was the first ATI product to make me turn away from nVidia (I had a Geforce4 4600ti at the time).

[@Synthematix]

Could you do some tests with the 6800gt on different AMD cpus like socket A, 754, 939?

[@bsquadroni]

I had a ti4200 and upgraded to a 9700 (non-pro). The image quality was massively better on the ATI card, with sharper images and vibrant colors. That card was awesome for Unreal Tournament 2003/2004

[@delmonti]

I remember getting this card when it came out, it was a game changer (pun intended). Brilliant card.

[@nunyabusiness4651]

So true, Very few card changed the landscape like this one.

[@mustasheolll2020]

Probably my favorite graphics card, as it is the first to support Windows Aero

[@Ozziw162]

Geez, running Halo in 720p on a card from 2002 with framerates between 35 and upwards and beyond 100 (rarely under 40)? That card was an absolute beast!

[@cesteres]

I had this card. Nostalgia.

[@JustForFun-dn1gi]

I switched to 9700 pro and Ati in general from that point on until 2009 if i remember correct . Had a Geforce 4200 TI before .

[@philscomputerlab]

Nice. What was your next GPU after the 9700?

[@kanopus06]

Same here, upgraded from a 128MB Geforce 4 ti4200 to a Radeon 9700, and later to a 256MB 9800XT and finally a 256MB X800XT (last AGP GPU I used).

[@JustForFun-dn1gi]

9800 pro :)

[@TheJuggtron]

why would you have not bought ATI/AMD in 2009? - the 5000 series were great cards

[@ZeroHourProductions407]

Could you try out Kotor 1 or 2 on the radeon? I had just undending agony trying to get that game to run at all on any radeon I could get my hands on in the day; all the wag up to an HD 3650, I was having problems.

[@GAMMAXII]

I tried Kotor 2 on my 9700 Pro/ Prescott P4 3.0ghz rig and I couldn't even get character models to load. Kotor's engine (besides the 2015 update that replaced the broken Opengl renderer for Kotor 2) fucking just hates anything none nVidia in general.

[@theexile4694]

I remember wanting one of these back in the day. I played Planetside and this card was top of the line from ATI and it gave you the advantage to see cloakers in Planetside. It was an issue that was never fixed, so if you had that ATI card you had a massive advantage. Plus the GeForce 5800 series from Nvidia was absolute trash on DX9 in comparison. Some games would force dx8 if you used that GeForce card just to get acceptable performance.

[@nathanward1978]

I remember getting this card just as it came out and putting a huge blower style cooler on it and overclocking the stink out of it.

[@Synthematix]

Did the 1920x1080 display resolution exist in the days of win98se? i really cant remember if any agp card could push 1920x1080

[@philscomputerlab]

Not really, but it does work when you use newer drivers and components :)

[@Oversoulse7en]

Of Couse! I still have mine! :)

[@reinhold-svenpawlowitz6728]

Back in the days I couldn't afford a 9700 so I went with its little sister the 9500Pro (the 128-bit-version) and I was happy with it for quite some time until I upgraded to an HD3870.

[@roderickroderick7216]

My 9700 Pro died when I attached the floppy power connector inside down. It released the factory installed smoke...

[@sammymorini9748]

inside down? hmm...

[@roderickroderick7216]

Upside down..

[@nick524]

Wow, same thing happened to me last year... I actually managed to repair it! It was just a burnt trace near the agp connector. Luckily the vrm was fine

[@detonator620]

Hey Phil could you test GeForce 7950 GT(or 7900 GS) AGP8x version someday(if you could get one)? I've never seen any video or good reviews with those cards despite the fact that 7900GS and 7950 GT were the most powerfull graphic cards on AGP8x.

[@philscomputerlab]

I don't have any of those cards.

[@detonator620]

Maybe in the future...

[@jflow1348]

I was a poor freshman in high school at the time. I had saved only enough to buy a Radeon 9100 128mb from CompUSA, which was a rebranded 8500. Good times.

[@AndyRetroGamer]

In 2012 or so i did buy old PC for around $20-30 (don't remember exactly) just for fun with Athlon XP 1700+/ATI Radeon 9700 Pro/Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 and it's still work great!

[@jamesbond-yk1mb]

Remember these days..ati 9700pro, 9500pro and later models,9800pro, 9800xt and 9600xt just swept floor with nvidia. For the first time in history(and only time, how much I can remember now from head)..had a gf4 4200ti which was released earlier, always wanted 9800xt but gf4 served me very well till farcry era..wish that competition happen again..ati>amd

[@pauls4522]

I use to have a printed picture of this card on my wall as a kid with scribbles of how far I was to affording it. Then 2.5 years later I ended up with a radeon 9550.

[@Carstuff111]

I had a Sapphire Atlantis 9800 Pro card.... that was overclocked nearly 100 MHz on the GPU by my roommate and the memory was already overclocked above stock when the card was bought new.... I used that 9800 Pro for a very long time, and only upgraded to a Sapphire Radeon X850 XT (also overclocked) when I finally bought a game that needed newer architecture to work.... I honestly feel that the biggest changes in the GPU world came from the ATi 9000 series cards of this era. The bump in performance going from a bios modded Nvidia GeForce 4 4400 (it was bios modded to a higher end card) to the 9800 Pro was such a huge jump, I am still blown away all these years later by what ATi did with these cards.....and all the while, not letting picture quality slip.....like Nvidia did with the FX series..... I should add, the reason that the 9800 Pro gave me no issues for many years, and still works to this day with its nearly 100MHz overclock, is because my roommate modded a better cooler and better thermal paste on the GPU and got rid of the stupid shim, as well as adding RAM heat sinks. Same with the overclocked X850 XT, the cooler that was modded on to it... well, it got only 10 degrees C hotter than ambient temperature on the most demanding loads... versus getting nearly 30 degrees C hotter than ambient with the crappy stock cooler.

[@maxfactor4209]

I had the exact same card. Hercules and Powercolor and Gigabyte were the best. Asus and EVGA were unheard-of in the Graphics card.

[@tHeWasTeDYouTh]

didn't the Matrox Parnhelia come out a few months before this and the Radeon 9700 Pro completely killed it........I miss Matrox so much, they should have released the Parnhelia 2 to beat the 9700 Pro

[@dabombinablemi6188]

Wish I'd known how good the 9700 pro was before I got my FX5500 256MB. That card tanks as soon as I switch to 32bit colours (just like a TNT2 Vanta-except with a 128bit memory bus), though the 6200A (64bit bus with 512MB DDR2 1066) which I bought soon after was far better (it actually manages to gain performance at times with 32bit colour enabled).

[@EweToobUsername]

The 6200 wasn't a bad card, and was actually faster for me than the 5500 was in DX9 and OGL2.x titles.

[@alexanderbashlaev4729]

EweToobUsername but older 9700 agp 128mb less better