Radeon 9800 Questions and Concerns

[True_Orb]

I plan to replace the fan with another VGA cooler.

First of all, which brand card do you recommend?
I myself am looking only at Sapphire and the true ATI at the moment, but other suggestions welcome.

Secondly, I now see that the only ATI brand is an All-In-Wonder, and I have heard a few bad things about AIW cards. Should I be concerned, is there another non-AIW card I can buy from ATI?

Third, I heard one review of the above card saying it cuts out the Line-In for the Audigy 2 ZS PCI sound card, can someone confirm or deny this?

BTW unless you have some empirical data stating why to buy Nvidia, don't bother!
I like my Chaintech GeForce 3 but I plan to try out ATI now!

 

[Leonidas]

well, if you plan to buy a 9800 and put on an aftermarket heatsink/fan then look at the 6600GT AGP on newegg after you add up all your purchases the prices wont be too far off at all if any... and secondly the 6600GT beats the hell out of the 9800 in every benchmark ive seen but 2, and thats because the 9800 in the benchmarks used 256 megs of RAM and that helps in 1600x1200 resolution... so yes data does back it up, check toms hardware... and the price is near equal so look into the 6600GT

 

[True_Orb]

You've got a point, but not to that extent.

Overall, of the 9 games tested, the 6600GT AGP outperformed in 5 against the 9800 Pro.
However the 3DMark 2005 did show like a 600 point increase in the 6600GT AGP. (Radeon was 2372, GeForce was 2964).

 

[slvrstang]

You've got a point, but not to that extent.

Overall, of the 9 games tested, the 6600GT AGP outperformed in 5 against the 9800 Pro.
However the 3DMark 2005 did show like a 600 point increase in the 6600GT AGP. (Radeon was 2372, GeForce was 2964).

Since when does a 9800 pro only get 2372? My XT which isn't much better than a pro gets over 3k...

 

[True_Orb]

Since the tests performed by tomshardware.com.

Don't kill the messenger.