ATI Radeon 9x00 video output quality compared to non-ATI brands (1 Viewer)

[Max Leung]

Anyone know if the non-ATI branded Radeon cards are as good as the ATI cards in video output quality? That is, do they use the same high-quality RFI filter components as ATI?

My local store has ATI Radeon 9700 Pros for $600+ CDN, while the Sapphire Radeon 9500s are less than half that, $280. I'm hoping that the Sapphire's don't output blurrier video than the ATI cards.

It's ironic that my cheapo Geforce 2 GTS card has clearer (non-fuzzy) video output compared to my Geforce 4Ti 4400. I ripped off the relevant RFI filter components off the Geforce2, and the video output is outstanding!

 

[Scott L]

I was under the impression the Built By Ati cards were the highest quality. From personal experience TV-out quality goes like this:

1) Matrox
2) ATi
3) nVidia

But if you're looking for 3d performance Matrox is knocked off the list. :frowning: Max I have a cheapy Ti4200 with the worst T-out I've seen, can you point me in the direction of any tutorials that tell you how to remove the RFI filters to boost performance?

 

[Joe Szott]

Max,

From what I understand, most all of the cards made by ATI vendors are pretty much based right off the original reference board. Most sites I've looked at pretty much they are allt he same (within their ATI category obviously.) So if you are looking at 9500 or 9500 Pro cards, pick the best price or bundle package that suites you and enjoy it. The card inside is almost identical between all the different vendors.

Again, a 9700 is going to outperform a 9500 and 9000 obviously. And 128 MB board is better than 64 MB, but other than that they are all pretty good deals and mostly ATI vanilla. I also heard specifically that the Saphire ones are nice boards.

Hope that helps.

 

[Francois Caron]

I've heard that ATI even subcontracts Sapphire to build their retail "Built by ATI" boards. Whatever the case, I have the 64 MB Sapphire 9000 Pro myself (an almost $100 CDN saving at the time) and it works very well. I even compared it with the video quality of my motherboard's built-in graphics engine and was very surprised at the difference. The ATI card made the resident video adapter look like crap even when simply displaying the desktop!

Sapphire appears to be one of the better ATI based alternatives out there. It works very well and does exactly what it was designed to do. You can even use ATI's own video drivers and manuals straight from their Web site instead of the scaled-down drivers and manual that come with the board. It all depends on your needs.

Speaking of needs, be warned that retail boxes usually come with extra accessories such as games, DVD playback software or even a DVI-to-VGA adapter. OEM purchases usually don't include any of these accessories.