Sapphire Radeon 9700 Pro - �320.07 inc VAT @ ebuyer.com

**Arcolite** · 28th August 2002

Not sure if this should be posted here or in Biggy's cheapo corner...but anyway. Here's the new ATi GFX Card powered by the awesome r300 chip. This could be the GFX card to have this year, it's a real nVidia beater.

It's a 3rd party card built by Sapphire (who I've never heard off) but at the moment it's the only place I've seen in the UK that's selling them.

Anyway, here's the link

**Violator** · 28th August 2002

If you really want a 9700, buy the proper 'Built by ATI' cards.

And it's a 'current nVidia beater'

**Arcolite** · 28th August 2002

ATI are only supporting North America. Europe and the UK's official distro is Hercules. Japan and Asia get lumbered with Creative (HAHA!!).

The only way to get official "Built by ATI" boards is by importing from the states.

ABCMan · 29th August 2002

they all come from the same production facilities, i knew that hercules had switched sides to ati from nvida but i wasnt aware that creative had swapped to ati as well, but i can understand it, with anti aliasing turned on the 9700 outperforms the 4600 nvida card by 100% almost across the board, this isnt just the card for the rest of this year, but looks like being the card for most of next year too. looks like nintendo made the right choice when they opted to go with the ati radeon 2 chipset on the gamecube as ati seem to have got it just about right, just imagine how fast it would be if nintendo would allow them to use the gamecubes t1-sram on these 9700 boards too, they would last through to 2004 then

**Arcolite** · 29th August 2002

I'm importing one of the official ATI ones from the US, will save alot of money importing it. Can't wait to get hold of it and benchmark it. Should get quite a nice peformance boost on my AthlonXP 1800+ rig, only got a Geforce3 in there at the moment.