how much really faster is the 9700 pro than the 9700 NP?

[sam_fisher]

i'm ordering a new vid card...
i sold the ti 4200 tonight...
i have the choice of a 9500 pro, a 9700 NP, or nothing...lol
i just dont have the extra cash to spend on a 9700 pro right now...

i do need a card like really fast... what ever i get will be overnighted...

one more thing... i have overclocked the crap out of this ti 4200
280core and 580mem... why the heck does it suck so bad to do 2 sample AA on unreal 2 or on just about anything? the framerate drops by at least 10 or 20 as far as i can tell....geez...
i know the rest of my rig is doing its job well...the card's just not hanging in there so its time to get rid of that nasty nvidia bottleneck...

[Justintime]

got a 9700 non pro, had a pro which i sold to a mate in fast need, the difference is unnoticable and its only a core/memory speed difference at that, not architecture such as with the 9500 and 9700. was using a Ti4200 too, man that blew goats nads, luckily it developed ram errors after a while as i o'ced to 300/640. This is the result that error :

[Justintime]

the new kid on the block: Hercules 9700, does pro+ speeds at stock but keeping at default as i don't want a repeat of the ti4200

[sam_fisher]

he's running a epox board (model i dont know)
athlon 2700
512 DDR
9700 pro
windows xp pro
he scored 4300marks on 3dmark03


i ran it on my ti 4200 and got 1000 from the tests it could run..

the battle of proxycron looked amazing...never dropped under 15fps...

with my hardware...do you think i could get that close with a 9700np?
is the PowerColor brand a good brand for the 9700? i found it for 223 bucks on pricewatch...here it is

[MuFu]

I would get a non-Pro. I have the Pro and it is awesome, but obtained it through a trade. Buying new, a 9700NP makes much more sense.

Unless you get one of the versions with Infineon RAM, you can flash the Pro BIOS onto a non-Pro and ~80% of the time it will run at Pro speeds and overclock virtually as well as a 9700 Pro whether it has Samung 2.86ns or Hynix 3.6ns BGA (R300-based cards are limited by their memory interface to about 340-350MHz - the RAM shouldn't really figure until 340MHz+). The other ~20% of cards seem to hit a barrier at ~300MHz - we haven't been able to determine the cause of this yet (the Pro BIOS doesn't help), although some of the cards have a "mystery" extra capacitor on the back which is being looked into.

MuFu.

P.S. sam_fisher. I get about 4750 in 3DMark03 and 13200 in 3DMark2001SE. Doesn't really show off it's performance over a Ti4200 too well - the huge increases (like 100-200%) come when running FSAA + AF. At 1280x1024 with 4xFSAA and 16xAF in 3DMark2001SE I get about 8500.

[Marvt74]

see this is why i dont like 3dmark03
i was close to mufu`s scores in 3dmark01 with 12425
but get 3dmark03 i get 1300
damn dx9 cards