The only difference in installing the 9700 is the addition of the 4 pin floppy connector located on the card the supplies the core with the needed extra power from your power supply. ATI recommends at least a 300W PSU, but IMHO if your gonna drop $400 on this card, if you have a crappy PSU in your box, then you deserve all the problems your going to have.
Front
Back
It’s nice to see that ATI didn’t end up with a monster card like the 4600 seen below. The 9700 will fit comfortably in just about any case without having any clearance problems.
Make sure you COMPLETELY UNINSTALL any previous video drivers before installing any new card if you want to save your self trouble shooting headaches. Personally I start with the control panel uninstall option, then use RegCleaner to eradicate any traces of the drivers in the registry. I have effortlessly moved from ATI to Nvidia and back without any problems. In my research for this review, I have seen many users complaining that the ATI drivers have given them horrendous problems from the get go. *Knock on Wood*, I have yet to experience any troubles with ATI’s drivers. I was kind of hoping I would have some trashin’ to do on this, but so far it’s a no go. Installation went nice and smooth.
ATI is currently producing the Catalyst series of drivers that work across most of their product line. The updates of WHQL, and leaked drivers have been a nice plus, since previously ATI’s drivers haven’t been something to jump up and down about. The control panel is easy enough to navigate through, and the sliders for OpenGL, and Direct3D give you the option of preset Performance or Quality settings or anywhere in between. You can also fine tune each option to your liking.
You can see as you run through the predefined settings that different AA, Aniso, Texture, Mipmap, V-Sync, and TruForm settings are applied as you move the slider across. You have the same function available for the Direct3D tab.
Again, you can see as you run through the predefined settings that different AA, Ansio, Texture, Mipmap, V-Sync, and TruForm settings are applied as you move the slider across. The last shot is how I normally run the card.
KEITHLEE2/home/servers/www.devhardware.com/www/zdeconfigurator/configs/INFUSIONSOFT_OVERLAY.php/home/servers/www.devhardware.com/www/zdeconfigurator/configs/ OFFLOADING INFUSIONSOFTLOADING INFUSIONSOFT 1debug:overlay status: OFF overlay not displayed overlay cookie defined: TI_CAMPAIGN_1012_D OVERLAY COOKIE set: status off
