A gamer's dream come true
Written: Feb 28 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: FAST,good flexibility with displays,nice bundle of games,software
Cons: Was sent a bad card at first, RAM is not covered with heatsink underneath.
The Bottom Line: A card for the serious gamer, awesome dvd and tv out possibilities, will keep you powered for a long time to come.
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| joshman20's Full Review: Gigabyte GV R9700 PRO MAYA II, (128 MB) AGP Video ... |
OK so I like to have the fastest and best of whats out there. I went from a PNY Geforce Ti5600 to the Gigabyte bad boy R9700 Pro. My first card was a screw up to be sure, but it could have just been one of the first models made and a freak accident. After about a month of normal gaming and no overclocking to speak of, the card started showing the ram squares that most cards do when they are overheating. I sent the card back to New Egg and received a replacement promptly. This card had no trouble compared to the first. It will tear almost any game that you throw at it to pieces. Unreal Tournament 2003 at the highest settings is very playable. Runs smoothly on all games I've played so far and is awesome at playing dvd's.
The software that comes with the bundle consists of the games RUNE, Serious Sam, Heavy Metal FAKK II, PowerDVD, Driver bundle with a nice overclocking program, and some worthless Lite versions of games you never heard of. On the whole its not too bad a bundle, I found that RUNE was really the best game in there, Serious Sam and Heavy Metal just were not my style. The games aren't the newest and best things out there but they are a nice compliment to the card. You definately want to download ATI's newest drivers once you install the card. The gigabyte drivers do not have near the fixes and performance of the ATI drivers.
You might want to consider buying a cooling kit for the card if you are going to be overclocking it. It seems that the one thing gigabyte forgot for the card was heatsinks for the underside of the ram. These will get hot FAST if you overclock at all, causing the sqares and patches to appear onscreen.
Another plus of the card is that it has outputs for a CRT monitor, digital flat panel, and S-video out. ATI even has an adapter for a HDTV hookup which you can purchase on their website.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 375
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Epinions.com ID:
joshman20
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Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
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