for its price point, and the 1gb of ddr5 means plenty of texture cache and resolution flexibility, and overall compatibility and future proofing.always use the latest ati catalyst drivers.
other thoughts: ditched the packaged drivers and went with the latest catalysts from ati's website.the card runs cool in my case.
other thoughts: i'm not sure if it's the vga drivers or the monitor, but if i update the radeon/catalyst drivers online (to the most recent versions) the image becomes under sized on the screen
but the presentation is good!) cons: ati overdrive isn't active in the catalyst control center.
fits fine in my case though.- catalyst drivers from ati are...less than perfect.- watch out for the 2 6 pin power connections needed!
didnt bother with drivers that came with it, just downloaded 8.10 catalyst drivers and away it went.
whahhhh....you must manually set up and activate a new profile within the provided ati catalyst control center software in order to lower initial install temperature from 80+ celsius to an acceptable
the card does run hot, this can be fixed by downloading the latest catalyst control center software and adjusting your fan speed based on what you are doing.
the card was recognized by the catalyst software and all i had to do from there was tune the cards together.
you can crank the fan speed with catalyst control center and keep it cool during stressful gaming sessions.
catalyst has plenty of options.
the ati catalyst control center was easy to maneuver around to adjust the overclocking settings.
i did notice that the catalyst drivers that the cd comes with are a bit out of date, so i just downloaded the newest to avoid any problems with older driver versions.
other thoughts: installing the newest drivers / catalyst control center (9.4) was a huge pain with windows 7 build 7077 but once i got the newest drivers installed, boy did this thing fly.
the latest drivers (catalyst 9.3 i believe) don't work well.
this card is magnificent, with the new catalyst drivers thus baby runs any new generation game with ease, paired with my new core i7 920 it is more than enough to run crysis at max settings.
i've only used catalystcc to oc it.comes with xfire connector, vga-dvi connector, some cables but not dvi-dvi cable.
other thoughts: ati catalyst suite thing is trash.
make sure you install the catalyst control center software so you can tweak your settings and also control your fan speed.
the catalyst software makes my 42 inch plasma look fabulous when watching movies, etc.
ati's catalysts overclocking utility works a whole lot bettor without eating up the resources asus' utilities use.
be sure to download the hdmi fix with the ati hdmi drivers if you plan to use the catalyst drivers from ati's website.
all these also work fine with ccc active, even (and perhaps especially) with the 'catalyst a.i.' feature left in the default 'advanced' state.
other thoughts: if running an xp system (or even if not), suggest you go into the catalyst software and adjust something called 'catalyst a.i.' instead of blaming either asus or ati.
get yourself a nice case and put a fan on it (through side panel if you got one) and use the ati catalyst to crank up the fan speed to 50% and all is good.
catalyst control center offers great functionality as well, just tune up the fan speed to 90% if it gets too hot for a quick cool down.
catalyst control center software is surprisingly user-friendly and doesn't feel like "bloat-ware." sapphire reputation and warranty.
catalyst works great.
i set the fan manually at 40% with catalyst controller(not that loud but not silent!).
catalyst control center is a bit clumsy, but it does not inhibit core functionality (pretty and fast gfx and sound) other thoughts: the card is a bit louder than my previous 7900gs.
will be greatly satisfied with the easy installation of the card as well as the ati catalyst drivers.best to download from asus rather than using the privided ones that come with the card.
the games would load but after about 5 min of game play would kick me out and i would get a windows error about ati catalyst had a problem.
i didn't use the included drivers but went with the most recent catalyst 9.2 drivers and everything works great.
do yourself a favor and download the newest catalyst drivers first.
with the catalyst controller i set the fan speed at 40% during idle and it stays cold!
don't even think of putting this in a small case.card runs hot at default fan speed, but the newest catalyst drivers have built-in fan speed adjustment.
other thoughts: idles at 54c, the fan doesn't really kick in (reads 0% in the catalyst control center) until it hits 70c.
catalyst control center seems to be better and less buggy since i last used it (like 3 years ago..
with the new ati catalyst update you can control the fan manually without getting rv tuner.
me to do it) until i get a new cooling setup in place.catalyst drivers have been hit and miss for me but the 9.3's are working good.if it weren't for the heat and noise i'd give this card five eggs.
be sure to disable to catalyst ai before playing any games if you use ccc+the display driver version 8.9 or higher as it tends to cause bsod's in dx10 games and vertex locks in source games.
9.2 catalysts work perfect for me and is very stable, no crashing or bsods whatsoever.
installed catalyst 9.3 - as far as the nvidia gtx 295 - that was my 2nd choice only!
no issues once or ever with dual (24') monitors under vista ultimate 64bit with catalyst 9.1.
the 4870 is near silent (just manually set the fan speeds to 20% in the catalyst control panel) and it outperforms my older 3870 at higher resolutions no problem.
the fan can be loud when running past 70% in catalyst control center.
no more catalyst problems either, and this thing just eats up my games.
catalyst control center(ccc) is a great utility for managing your gpu, manages all monitor functions, fanspeed control as well as overclocking utility and update manager.
download the latest ati catalysts as well.
it idles at 45 c and can get up to 60 c under load-stock fan starts to get noticeably louder than my antec 900 fans on low once it gets above 60% in catalyst control center other thoughts:
i didn't like that much so i just manually set it to 100% with the ati catalyst software; i still get the message but it's no biggie, probably just my outdated motherboard.
also you can oc this card and control the fan speed via catalyst drivers.
i keep my catalyst settings at 4xaa and 8xaf.
cons: catalyst has an over clock feature that is very unstable.
very quiet - i downloaded the latest catalyst drivers and manually set the fan to 60% and still can't hear it.
the card overclocks well with the ati catalyst control panel.
but the catalyst drivers allow you change that.
my fan is currently set to 50 percent on manual in catalyst and the temperature is chillin at 48'c.
the last one form this card was ***hardware malfuntion***call your' hardware vendor for support***the system has halted*** all in very bright red backgroundfor some reason the advanced catalyst
better than the original software worked on xp.everything works perfect with stock ati catalyst 9.4 in windows 7.packaging is nice, but who cares once you get the card out of the box.
cons: catalyst 9.5 shows the card as "radeon hd 4800 series".
cons: the included smart doctor does not work with catalyst 9.4 and appears to cause various crashes when a game video is set on high or ultra settings.
used ati catalyst to over clock(slightly) and card never gets above 52c under load(cod-wow) cons: not really a con but, core clock and memory clock don't match what the description states.
there were some issues with the catalyst v9.3 drivers, so avoid those and use either the 9.2 or the newer 9.4 versions.
pros: -easy install in new rig-great picture quality-ati catalyst software is easy to use cons: none other thoughts: this card has been running great on windows 7 rc1 x64.
@ 1920x1080 resolutiondon't expect more aa on titles like crysis though; however, it did handle high level graphics settings without much of a head-ache.fallout 3, obvlion, nwn2, soase, it eats for
amazing graphics, even on a last generation system, card maxxes out the vista benchmarks, and the catalyst control center also owns nvidias control center in my honest opinion.came with a ton of
using the catalyst control center, it overclocked to gpu:770 mem:1080 from the standard settings of gpu:750 mem:900, and has been stable.
other thoughts: it may not be the same for everyone, but; when i set the catalyst ai on advanced, ccc optimizes the drivers for the games and it looks extra good.
no problems cons: i dont have 2 other thoughts: catalyst overdrive is sweet.
my dual 24' monitors were a breeze to set up and work great with the catalyst.
the fan was silent and barely moving (~12% duty cycle as reported by catalyst control center).
also love the ati catalyst program it comes with, makes setting the settings for this card a breeze.
replaced existing card with this one and installed ati catalyst drivers for windows 7.
catalyst drivers worked fine out of the box with vista 64-bit.
cons: the rest of the time, all i recieved during games were "vpu recovery" messages from catalyst control center, and today, it just stopped outputting video altogether other thoughts: i am
pros: nice video card good resolution and the ati catalyst control is the best cons: i have windows vista ultimate when i install this video card i had some problems, the software have a
other thoughts: for some reason this card does not like any catalyst drivers newer than 9.5 when running windows 7.
other thoughts: first the latest drivers need to be downloaded including catalystcontrol center will auto tune to 690 x 1188.
pros: excellent performance on a c2d e8400 @ 3.6 ghz + 4gb ddr2, w/ catalyst 9.6 drivers.
pros: price (ar)=$74.49 total, temperatures = 39c idle to 57c max, very stable oc with catalyst control center of 690 mhz gpu clock/1188 mhz memory clock, game l4d all settings max w/4xaa and 4xas
but this is due to the fan speed set on the catalyst control center at 50% and the temperature of the card is about 53 degrees celcius.
however, if you enable manual fan speed through the catalyst cc it has a very annoying high-pitched whine.
- update to the new catalyst 9.4 and the newest driver from ati's web site.
other thoughts: currently running stable on windows 7 rc1 (64-bit) with latest catalyst drivers.
catalyst ati overdrive utility works great!
overclocks very well and stays cool, quiet fan relative to my cpu fan even at max speed (not that you need to run it at max speeds) the ccc (catalyst control center) is a pleasure to use.
the temperature doesn't seem to get extremely hot, and the catalyst software is pretty easy to use.
overclocking gpu and memory using the catalyst drivers is incredibly easy, i have my gpu set to 700 mhz and my memory at around 1150 mhz.
idles around 45 loads to about 60 cons: catalyst driver is a little choppy when changing settings other thoughts: i bought the open box for about 100 bucks....can't go wrong
i tried various version of drivers and catalyst software but with the same result.
beware, it will run at around 80f out of the box because the catalyst software it comes with only runs the video card fan at about 17%.
it is easy to control the gpu temp through the catalyst control center and the manual fan fix described below.
the ati catalyst drivers have a fan speed option so you don't have to run it at 100% all the time.
one suggestion though, don'twaste your time with the driver cd.go to ati's site and get the latest (as of this post) 9.1 catalyst drivers and enable overdrive, set the fan speed to 40% and she runs
the catalyst control center now comes with a fan-speed tool though, so i was able to boost it up to 35% without any significant sound difference, and it brought the temperature down considerably.not
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