AMD Radeon X700 Pro Video Card

All comments below are with...

Strengths: Low price < $200 USD. Stock 400MHz RAMDAC places this card in contention with the higher end video cards. Excellent mainstream 256Mb PCIe card.

Weakness: Not a true gamers card. If you need high performance, you will have to look elsewhere because the X700 PRO is not a high performance game card, even though it is based on the X800 series cards.

All comments below are with respect to the RETAIL ATI X700 PRO VERSION: It seems that there are a lot of Dell owners complaining about ATI cards in general and it is difficult to render the legitimate complaints from the poor installation or lack of (user/technician)understanding complaints. Bottom line is that I installed the ATI X700 PRO into my Dell Dimension 8400 MCE without any major glitch...
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All comments below are with respect to the RETAIL ATI X700 PRO VERSION:

It seems that there are a lot of Dell owners complaining about ATI cards in general and it is difficult to render the legitimate complaints from the poor installation or lack of (user/technician)understanding complaints.

Bottom line is that I installed the ATI X700 PRO into my Dell Dimension 8400 MCE without any major glitch or problem. When the computer was unpacked from the shipping carton, I added 1Gb additional RAM, removed the generic ATI X300 SE video card and put the X700 PRO in that slot. I also added another SATA drive.

When the computer booted for the first time it ironically did not recognize the X700 PRO card. I was somewhat amazed since the computer was pre-configured for the X300 ATI card. I loaded the driver from the supplied retail version driver disk and all went smooth as silk.

I can understand why there is no Dell resolution for the number of ATI card customer complaints, because I had zero. If Dell has tried to duplicate the most common problem, they very likely could not, so there is no resolution to a problem they can not replicate.

I have the original O/S installed on drive C which is Microsoft XP MCE 2005. That was the O/S I booted into the first time. On the second SATA drive I loaded Microsoft XP PRO. Neither O/S have a problem with the X700 PRO video card, booting or running.

If anybody should have had an installation problem with the X700 PRO card, I should have, because my Dell 8400 MCE is a Dell refurbished unit, not hot off the assembly line, it was about 45 days old when I got it.

I do graphics work on my comuter and the X700 PRO card suits my needs very well. I do play some games but I am not into the high end games. If I were, I would get a better (faster) video card. To overclock the X700 PRO just to play games does not make good sense to me. That is just my opinion, and just like toes, everybody has at least one.

By HDWJunkie - Apr 24, 2005

x700 Pro is built on the same...

Strengths: Good Mainstream Video Card. I get better 10 FPS more than the Radeon 9800 Pro in Half Life 2.

Weakness: It's a mainstream video card, so you can't expect the best.

x700 Pro is built on the same technology as x800 minus 4 pipelines and a slightly lower VPU clock and memory speed. It's a pretty good mainstream card and I would probably recommend it to anyone that doesn't have all the money in the world. Also I agree it's better than the x700 XT because of 256 MB of Video RAM appose to 128 in XT. Most applications or games these days are memory dependent...
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x700 Pro is built on the same technology as x800 minus 4 pipelines and a slightly lower VPU clock and memory speed. It's a pretty good mainstream card and I would probably recommend it to anyone that doesn't have all the money in the world. Also I agree it's better than the x700 XT because of 256 MB of Video RAM appose to 128 in XT. Most applications or games these days are memory dependent rather than the processing speed.

By $Ci0n_tC - Dec 16, 2004

I decided to go with ATI because...

Strengths: PCI-Ex and 256 MB DDR3 is quite fast.

Weakness: Makes a slight but strange noise sometimes when processing. Whith the case closed it is not audible.

I decided to go with ATI because of positive past experience. Yet again I has not disapointed. This card runs all my high end games at acceptable res. and frame rates. In a year i'll be getting the latest ATI card out there.

By wjcjac2000 - Mar 2, 2005

Good price for a PCI express card....

Strengths: High 3D Performance for the Class PCI Express

Weakness: None

Good price for a PCI express card.
At the end of the day I do like the X700 Pro – it’s a decent card that we feel will represent a better value than the XT version does as it has twice the amount of RAM and can easily hit the same Core and Memory speeds. Games like Doom3 really want the extra RAM and we’re sure future games will keep that demand going.

By Rickytr23 - Dec 12, 2004

I would recommend this card to...

Strengths: High quality 3d and lifelike images.

Weakness: shadder is low so refreash rate is sometimes noticable.

I would recommend this card to anyone who is looking at the $200 price range. it is better than the geforce 6600 by a long shot but the 6600 gt is a far cry better than the x700 for a little bit more money.

By chrisfandrey - Nov 21, 2004