Sapphire Video Cards OEM

[stevek11290]

I have been looking at the Sapphire video cards to upgrade my current ATI card. With my ATI card, I got an OEM from Newegg and was not able to upgrade the drivers from ATI website since it was and OEM card.

Does anyone know if that would be the same for the Sapphire brand?? If this is the case, I will buy the retail version, although they do not have the retail version of the card that I selected but I will have to find another.

[tireman]

Not sure why it would not let you update the driver. OEM video cards from Newegg, at least the ones I have purchased, are the same as the retail minus retail packaging, extra software and such. The one in my sig was an OEM from newegg and I have updated drivers many times without a hitch.

tireman

[stevek11290]

I never did know why it would not either. Every time I would go to the ATI site and try to download, it would come up that it was an oem product and was not eligible for driver updates.

OBTW: Do you know what the differences are between the "9XXXSE", "9XXXPro" and the "9XXX(no additional designation)".

I went to several sites and nowhere do I find something that actually tells what the difference, except money of course, is.

Sorry to all that I am so dumb about this but I need to get a new card to run a radio control aircraft simulator and need to get a correct one however, all they say is the ATI 9XXX series is acceptable.

[tireman]

Originally Posted by stevek11290 OBTW: Do you know what the differences are between the "9XXXSE", "9XXXPro" and the "9XXX(no additional designation)".

Difference in GPU speed, amount of memory and memory speed, number of pipelines, etc....

What is your price range and what else do you do with your system? Using AGP or PCI?

[Hi Ho]

OBTW: Do you know what the differences are between the "9XXXSE", "9XXXPro" and the "9XXX(no additional designation)".

Stay away from the SE models. They are the slowest. Here's an example:

Slowest: 9800SE
Middle: 9800
Fastest: 9800Pro

I don't know what the problem could have been with your video card but I have never heard of that happening with video cards. It happened to me with my soundcard. There are no driver updates for the Audigy ES even though it's essentially the same as the LS for a few dollars less. I learned my lesson there.

[stevek11290]

This is the one that I am looking at right now:

SAPPHIRE ATI RADEON 9600PRO Video Card, 256MB DDR, 128-Bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP, Model "100562L" -Retail

It's about $97 bucks. Could probably use the 128 MB model without any problems to save a few bucks. Other than the radio control simulator I do some photoshop work but the ATI Radeon 7500 with 64MB is doing the job OK right now. Don't do any gaming although I might do some, not hardcore though. I'm too old (59) to keep up with the games. All I can do to keep up with my radio control helicopters and airplanes.

[glc]

Save the bucks and get the 128mb model, and you will have NO problem using the ATI Catalyst drivers with Sapphire OEM cards.