Radeon 9700 Pro - worth it?

[auzzie1]

I'm at a really unpleasant debate right now as of whether the Radeon 9700 Pro will do me any good with my system or should I be better off with a GF4 Ti4600...

HIS Excalibur Radeon 9700 Pro - $750
Leadtek GF4 Ti4600 MyVIVO - $555

Could someone give me a piece of advice on it, please?

Sys specs in the tagline.

Thanks in advance

[sonyfier]

There's no doubt the Radeon 9700 is the better card of the two but whether you wan't to spend that much money is a difficult choice only you can make.

That said I wouldn't under any circumstances buy the HIS branded card.

The card you see in my sig is a HIS made Radeon that was resold in AUS and rebadged as Auriga. I have some issues with it that I have never been able to solve and both the companies I have mentioned have ignored several support email requests.
If you buy the HIS card and you have problems then expect no support.

My advice is if you wan't the Radeon then choose a genuine one maded by ATI or buy either a Hecules or Gigabyte branded one.
The Gigabyte card is getting some good feedback on forums and would be my choice based on price.
:)

[auzzie1]

Could you point out where I can find a Hercules Radeon 9700 Pro? The only ones I could find were genuine and HIS, and genuine costs around $870 mark, while HIS is only $750.

Btw, looking a the Tom's Hardware review of the Gigabyte card, it's not the best around, - noisy and doesn't overclock very well, compared to the genuine ATI.

[sonyfier]

I don't know of anyone that stocks the Hercules card but if you can find someone it would be a good choice as in the past Hercules has frequently just re boxed genuine ATI cards rather than make their own. And the company is reputable and long lasting.

I believe Creative might be marketing a 9700 as well.

As for the Gigabyte I'm only mentioning what I've read elsewhere by people who've bought the Gigabyte card.

As for anything THG writes as being accurate or to be taken seriously it is up to you. His biased reviews and $$ for comments are well discussed lately.

Your choice what you settle on based on what you read but I personally wouldn't buy HIS. :)

[auzzie1]

Alright, thanks for the info.

Hmm, you've given me even more questions to think about then answers, hehe...:p

The thing is that I already ordered the HIS card from GameDude, but haven't transferred the money yet. Do you think it's still not too late?

Btw, I think I was wrong about Tom's Hardware, it was Anandtech's review that bashed Gigabyte's loud fan and bad performance. The genuine ATI card outperformed the Gigabyte's even at lower clock, heh. But it was only a pre-release sample from Gigabyte, and I haven't seen any reviews of the final product yet. Hmm, maybe it is worth going Gigabyte after all...

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1686&p=1