CiKoTiC
01-22-2003, 09:59 PM
After a little educating myself on ATI based cards I think I'm able to give a sudo review of this card and how to easily mod it.
I'm sure everyone that's a regular here knows I'm a diehard nVidia user. However, after seeing that ATI has apperently got a good set of drivers out, I decided to purchase a Sapphire 9500 128mb card to see if I could mod it to a 9700 using the latest Rivatuner.
After a few hours of trial and error, I was able to figure out the core and memory speeds as well as the optimum display settings. The one thing that puzzled me at first was the default memory settings... It was set to 270 as default but the specs told me it should be 540. I didn't know you had to multiply 270 x 2 to get the default. :biggrin:
After running 3dMark a few times, I was able to score in the 12K range pretty easily. Not bad considering the default core and memory clock speeds of 275/270(x2) (respectively).
So, once I had all that figured out to some certainty, I felt it was time to see if this so called "9500 to 9700" conversion would work. (To be honest, I had my reservations about it). After about a dozen re-installs of the drivers, I didn't get any results until I decided to to a manual install. Once I did that, the patch appeared to work because my display settings finally said it was a 9700. Verifing it was easy. I just ran the fill rate test in 3dMark and sure enough, I was getting above 2.2Mtexels/s. Right on par for a 9700! :)
Now I was ready to a real 3dMark test... After a few run throughs, I was scoring the 15K range pretty easily. But how would it overclock was my next question?? I set the core to 300 and the memory to 300 (x2 equals 600) and ran the tests. I consistintly scored between 16K and 16.1K. Anything above those clock settings would result in extreme tearing or a locked system.
In conclusion... I must say that the Sapphire 9500 128MB (non pro) is a fantanstic buy. With overnight priority shipping from newegg, I paid 180 bucks for it and was able to out score my g4 ti4600 which costs a heck of lot more. If you want the best bang for the buck, look no further. With the RivaTuner soft9700 mod, you can have the same performance of the 9700 without voiding your warrenty. And a 4000 point increase in 3dMark is not that bad. :nod:
As I stated before, I've always been a hardcore nVidia user so if there are any doubts about my findings being biased, you can absolutly forget it. I'm just an ordinary joe that ordered the card just like anyone else would. I put it to real world tests with no re-installing of the OS or fancy jerry-rigging to get it to work. I was an absolute ATI newbie using an ordinary system. 8)
I'm sure everyone that's a regular here knows I'm a diehard nVidia user. However, after seeing that ATI has apperently got a good set of drivers out, I decided to purchase a Sapphire 9500 128mb card to see if I could mod it to a 9700 using the latest Rivatuner.
After a few hours of trial and error, I was able to figure out the core and memory speeds as well as the optimum display settings. The one thing that puzzled me at first was the default memory settings... It was set to 270 as default but the specs told me it should be 540. I didn't know you had to multiply 270 x 2 to get the default. :biggrin:
After running 3dMark a few times, I was able to score in the 12K range pretty easily. Not bad considering the default core and memory clock speeds of 275/270(x2) (respectively).
So, once I had all that figured out to some certainty, I felt it was time to see if this so called "9500 to 9700" conversion would work. (To be honest, I had my reservations about it). After about a dozen re-installs of the drivers, I didn't get any results until I decided to to a manual install. Once I did that, the patch appeared to work because my display settings finally said it was a 9700. Verifing it was easy. I just ran the fill rate test in 3dMark and sure enough, I was getting above 2.2Mtexels/s. Right on par for a 9700! :)
Now I was ready to a real 3dMark test... After a few run throughs, I was scoring the 15K range pretty easily. But how would it overclock was my next question?? I set the core to 300 and the memory to 300 (x2 equals 600) and ran the tests. I consistintly scored between 16K and 16.1K. Anything above those clock settings would result in extreme tearing or a locked system.
In conclusion... I must say that the Sapphire 9500 128MB (non pro) is a fantanstic buy. With overnight priority shipping from newegg, I paid 180 bucks for it and was able to out score my g4 ti4600 which costs a heck of lot more. If you want the best bang for the buck, look no further. With the RivaTuner soft9700 mod, you can have the same performance of the 9700 without voiding your warrenty. And a 4000 point increase in 3dMark is not that bad. :nod:
As I stated before, I've always been a hardcore nVidia user so if there are any doubts about my findings being biased, you can absolutly forget it. I'm just an ordinary joe that ordered the card just like anyone else would. I put it to real world tests with no re-installing of the OS or fancy jerry-rigging to get it to work. I was an absolute ATI newbie using an ordinary system. 8)