9800pro 128bit: Sapphire will replace with 256bit card !

  • Thread starter Thread starter rms
  • Start date Start date
rms said:
Anyone who's bought a 128bit card can get a 256bit one for $25:
Click to expand...

Is there an easy way of telling whether a card is 128-bit or 256-bit?

I recently (a few weeks ago) bought a Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro Atlantis, and
there's no mention at all on the box as to whether it's the 128- or 256-bit
version.
 
Adam Dawes said:
Is there an easy way of telling whether a card is 128-bit or 256-bit?

I recently (a few weeks ago) bought a Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro Atlantis, and
there's no mention at all on the box as to whether it's the 128- or 256-bit
version.
Click to expand...
Download Everest....it'll tell you. This is the rebranded AIDA32 program

http://www.lavalys.com/
 
Download Everest....it'll tell you. This is the rebranded AIDA32 program

http://www.lavalys.com/
Click to expand...
Another thank you. I bought a Sapphire Radeon Pro Atlantis a few months
ago. Performance, price paid and online vendor used had me pretty
convinced that I didn't have the 128 bit. But now I know for certain that I
have a 256-bit card!

Bus type: DDR
Bus width: 256-bit
Real clock: 338 MHZ (DDR)
Effective clock: 676
Bandwidth: 21632

This is my first ATI board, ever, after many Nvidia and prior to that,
Matrox boards. Getting "tricked" after all my research and newsgroup
lurking would have killed my ego.

Carl
 
chrisv said:
Wow. That's just not right. There goes any chance of my ever buying
a card from Sapphire.
Click to expand...

So they made a marketing mistake, exhanging the card, used or otherwise for
a replacement 256bit version for a reasonable $25 fee puts them towards the
top of my list in terms of reputable people to deal with.

Their response could have been "screw you".

Ben
 
Ah -- Memory Bus Properties / Bus Width: 256-bit. Phew.

Thanks for that, looks like a most useful program.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I just tried everest recently and it's pretty good.

Not too cluttered like some ;)
 
Another thank you. I bought a Sapphire Radeon Pro Atlantis a few months
ago. Performance, price paid and online vendor used had me pretty
convinced that I didn't have the 128 bit. But now I know for certain that I
have a 256-bit card!

Bus type: DDR
Bus width: 256-bit
Real clock: 338 MHZ (DDR)
Effective clock: 676
Bandwidth: 21632

This is my first ATI board, ever, after many Nvidia and prior to that,
Matrox boards. Getting "tricked" after all my research and newsgroup
lurking would have killed my ego.

Carl
Click to expand...

Great card not, very powerfull little card ... Farcry loves it ( and
still brings it to it's knees! :-p )
 
:>chrisv wrote:
:>>
:>>> http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20040618_063138.html
:>>
:>> Wow. That's just not right. There goes any chance of my ever buying
:>> a card from Sapphire.
:>
:>So they made a marketing mistake, exhanging the card, used or otherwise for
:>a replacement 256bit version for a reasonable $25 fee puts them towards the
:>top of my list in terms of reputable people to deal with.
:>
:>Their response could have been "screw you".
:>
:>Ben


What is interesting is that a few weeks ago a co-worker was looking to
buy a 9800 Pro. We went to Newegg's site and they had both Sapphire
cards with a price difference of more than $25.00 (around $40-$50
IIRC). The descriptions clearly stated that the cheaper card had the
128bit bus and the more expensive one had the 256bit bus. I don't
know if any other retailers had them listed that way or not but it was
very clear on Newegg's site what the reason was for the price
difference.

I told him to spend the extra bucks which is what he did. When he
received the card he noted that the GPU fan had an ATI sticker on it
instead of a Sapphire one. We compared the part number sticker with
the one on my retail ATI 9800 Pro purchased a few months ago and found
they were identical. So what he actually got was an "ATI Built" card
for the price of an "ATI Powered" card. He didn't get the fancy
retail package like I did and his driver disc said Sapphire instead of
ATI like mine did. He wasn't upset at all. :-)

BTW, the same thing happened to me a couple of years ago. I bought a
Sapphire 9700 Pro that turned out to be an "ATI Built" card. When the
card failed at about a year and half old ATI replaced it under
warranty and even shipped the replacement to me on a Friday with
Saturday overnight shipping.

Me/2
 
Anyone who's bought a 128bit card can get a 256bit one for $25:

http://www.tomshardware.com/hardnews/20040618_063138.html

rms
Click to expand...

The 128 bits version are only out for..about 2 months and thus if you bought
your card earlier it SHOULD be 256-bits..of course..checking it cannot hurt
:-)

And having a 256bits memory bus indeed does allot for the speeds, it allows
you to up the anti aliasing and alike quite much higher. ( the bottleneck
point between the 9500 Pro and the 9700 Non Pro is..basicly only the memory
bus! )
 
I think the only mistake they made was selling the 128s direct to the general public. They *all*
tend to sell cut down cards to PC builders all the time, so Dell et al can slap 'contains ATI 9800
Pro' on the advert. Yet another reason to roll your own if you want a Pc that can play games rather
than a word processor.

S
 
Dark Avenger said:
[email protected] wrote in <[email protected]>:

Sapphire builds most ATI cards....

And most compagny's are only re-labelers.... :-)
Click to expand...

You are absolutely correct....I am presently sitting here with a Sapphire
128 MB 9800 pro and a 'made by ATI' 9800 pro...the only difference (after
examing them with a magnifying glass no less) is a tiny ATI sticker affixed
to the backside. Everything else appears to be 100% identical.
 
Dark Avenger said:
@newssvr16.news.prodigy.com>:


The 128 bits version are only out for..about 2 months and thus if you bought
your card earlier it SHOULD be 256-bits..of course..checking it cannot
Click to expand...
hurt

I had the opportunity to see one of the Sapphire, fraudulently labeled, 9800
pro cards last night. About 2 months ago I was briefly in possession of a
Sapphire 9800 SE card. These cards would appear to be one and the same. The
pcb is the same, with the straight line memory layout, and the heatsink/fan
was identical. It is pretty clear to me that some marketing moron decided
the 9800 SE models would sell much better if they were renamed '9800 pro'.
 
I had the opportunity to see one of the Sapphire, fraudulently labeled, 9800
pro cards last night. About 2 months ago I was briefly in possession of a
Sapphire 9800 SE card. These cards would appear to be one and the same. The
pcb is the same, with the straight line memory layout, and the heatsink/fan
was identical. It is pretty clear to me that some marketing moron decided
the 9800 SE models would sell much better if they were renamed '9800 pro'.
Click to expand...

Not a moron as such, most, but not all 9800SE were ' softmoddable ' to
9800Pro, if you have one mode it here :

http://www.ocfaq.com/softmod/
BoroLad
 
Sham B said:
I think the only mistake they made was selling the 128s direct to the general public. They *all*
tend to sell cut down cards to PC builders all the time, so Dell et al can slap 'contains ATI 9800
Pro' on the advert. Yet another reason to roll your own if you want a Pc that can play games rather
than a word processor.
Click to expand...

Well, yes..sapphire should call their 9800 Pro chip on 128bits memory
pad different, calling it 9800 Atlantis still doesn't serve its right
...because the 9800 NP has a 256bits memory bus.

And yes, if you want a good pc... build it yourself. I bougth this pc,
knowing every piece and what to expect.... and replaced parts of it
once in a while... a dream to work with..
 
Not a moron as such, most, but not all 9800SE were ' softmoddable ' to
9800Pro, if you have one mode it here :
Click to expand...

You are a very forgiving soul...I thought 'moron' was an apt, while still
polite, description. Maybe you'd feel differently if you had purchased one
of these renamed cards. While *some* 9800SE cards could be improved by soft
modding...that remains an iffy solution at best. If you are happy with that
approach, then good for you. When someone, or some company, decides to take
a product that specs out one way...(and THAT THEY HAVE BEEN SELLING that
way)....and they then decide to give this very item a different name, to
make people think they are buying a superior model...then those people are
'morons'...Wait!...you might be right when you say that person is "not a
moron as such...". That person is a thief, a cheat, a fraud artist...much
more appropriate terms! Thanks for showing me the error of my ways...what
could I have been thinking?
 
You are a very forgiving soul...I thought 'moron' was an apt, while still
polite, description. Maybe you'd feel differently if you had purchased one
of these renamed cards. While *some* 9800SE cards could be improved by soft
modding...that remains an iffy solution at best. If you are happy with that
approach, then good for you. When someone, or some company, decides to take
a product that specs out one way...(and THAT THEY HAVE BEEN SELLING that
way)....and they then decide to give this very item a different name, to
make people think they are buying a superior model...then those people are
'morons'...Wait!...you might be right when you say that person is "not a
moron as such...". That person is a thief, a cheat, a fraud artist...much
more appropriate terms! Thanks for showing me the error of my ways...what
could I have been thinking?
Click to expand...

Maybe I misunderstood, did you pay SE price for an SE masquerading as
a 9800pro or the full whack [ non SE full 9800pro ] price ; or;

Was the card a re-marked chipset ?
BoroLad
 
<[email protected]> wrote in message
Click to expand...


Maybe I misunderstood, did you pay SE price for an SE masquerading as
a 9800pro or the full whack [ non SE full 9800pro ] price ; or;

Was the card a re-marked chipset ?
BoroLad
Click to expand...

What Sapphire have been doing is taking their 9800SE cards...labelling them
as 9800 Pro cards...and selling them for about 25 dollars (US) less than the
genuine 9800 Pro. Since I saw one of their 9800SE cards about 2 months
ago...and saw one of these same 9800SE cards, sold to a customer as a 9800
Pro card, last night...I know these cards are one and the same. I saw this
at a computer parts shop...and until yesterday the guys at this shop did
not know they were unwittingly cheating their customers. They ordered 9800
Pro cards and received this mislabeled crap. They are VERY concerned,
because they have sold about 100 of these over the last month or so...

HTH to clarify the situation..

M
 
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