I have a Radeon 9600 TX which is also an OEM card (oddly clocked higher than your 9700 TX). I really like it, and I hope the lower clock speed (vs the 9700 Pro) will help it live longer.

I think the important thing about your 9700 TX is it has the full R300 core unlike the Radeon 9500 and Radeon 9500 Pro. Although, some Radeon 9500s can get the full R300 core unlocked.

I would caution against overclocking your card to 9700 Pro clocks. The shim surrounding the die has a tendency to warp causing uneven cooler contact with the die at high temperatures. It will lead to the death of the die eventually. You might need to mod the card's cooling if you think you'll push the temperature.

Can't these OEM Radeon 9700 TXs use BIOSes from other R300 based videocards like 9700 or 9700 Pro?

Yes they can. I have a standard 9700 non-Pro bios on my card and it works fine.

I really would like to clock the card at Pro clocks though.
I have read that the 3.3ns memory is rated at 300MHz but I cannot get anywhere near that with my card.

How much faster was the 9700 Pro? Does anyone have both cards to do some comparison benchmarks?

What is the general opinion of the Radeon 9700 series among retro enthusiasts?
I never had one back in the day but I believe they were great cards that really gave Nvidia a headache.

From experience (TX, non-PRO, PRO and FireGL X1-128): do not clock VRAM on non-PRO cards because it's not needed. 256-bit bus is wide enough to handle a bit slower VRAM. Just clock the core. Infineon memory runs very cool, unlike 2.8ns Samsung chips on PRO (burning hot).
There's no need to flash or edit BIOSes, just use AtiTrayTools for clocking. Radlinker and ATITool are also ok, but ATT has most options. It can even replace infamous Catalyst Control Center.

FireGL X1-128 has same specs as 9700 PRO, so you might look into that. It needs Catalyst driver patching for OpenGL to work properly (RivaTuner scripts, up to Catalyst 4.12). You could probably still find "new old stock" cards.

If you want working card, TX and non-PRO are usually best bets. They survived because they didn't cook themselves. For daily use keep them cool (Zalman VF700 or VF900). Factory TIM and cooler are not your friends.

What is the general opinion of the Radeon 9700 series among retro enthusiasts?

Best card of the era (until geforce 6 series), if you take into account that 9800 series was incremental/minor improvement on same architecture.
DX9 games (HL2 or first FarCry) looked great and were released well after the card was first available (late 2002.).

byte_76 wrote on 2025-02-13, 06:47:

Yes they can. I have a standard 9700 non-Pro bios on my card and it works fine. […]
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Yes they can. I have a standard 9700 non-Pro bios on my card and it works fine.

I really would like to clock the card at Pro clocks though.
I have read that the 3.3ns memory is rated at 300MHz but I cannot get anywhere near that with my card.

How much faster was the 9700 Pro? Does anyone have both cards to do some comparison benchmarks?

What is the general opinion of the Radeon 9700 series among retro enthusiasts?
I never had one back in the day but I believe they were great cards that really gave Nvidia a headache.

I dug back through some old files and found one such comparison on my Asus P3V4x motherboard, unfortunately there is not a lot of notes with it but I assume I was testing 9700 TX vs my pro and Fire GL X1-128. I do have a standard non pro now but might not have at the time of the test. Nothing scientific I would just do a game and nature tests and then write down what came out, I know there is always variances run to run and being a Via chipset probably some shenanigans there as well.

I 100% agree with Stef80's post above mine.

Of my currently working 9500s, 9700s, and 9800s I have yet to see an artifacting card with infineon memory but all of my artifacting cards have samsung memory but I do have working non artifacting cards with samsung memory just not many.

stef80 wrote on 2025-02-13, 09:18:

For daily use keep them cool (Zalman VF700 or VF900). Factory TIM and cooler are not your friends.

Word of caution, one of my 9700 Pros when removing the stock cooler the yellow factory TIM was so hardened that it pulled a smd off of the gpu pcb, I saved it and the card still works but under the microscope another smd on the substrate is cracked in half as well, I'm guess from the hardened TIM as well.

See here: ATI 9700 Pro missing smds needed?

I have removed all the coolers on my 9x00 cards and that was the only one that did that.

Had same situation with one of FireGLs X-128. SMD component was stuck on cooler side TIM. Card works fine, I'm not repairing it.
Factory TIM degrades with heat cycles. Got one card that was "new old stock", TIM was waxy and easily removed, like 100% removed.
Also, never pull original cooler with force. Remove fan and preheat heatsink with hair dryer. Use gloves or tissue to move it.

Is there a way to definitively identify a true Radeon 9700 Pro from a sale listing where you only have photos of the card but cannot see the core and memory clocks?

Yes, you should look at memory chips. Infineon chips are main indication of non-PRO card.
Pro came with 2.8ns chips, most of them Samsung. Some had Etrontech (FIC, Sapphire).

I think the important thing about your 9700 TX is it has the full R300 core unlike the Radeon 9500 and Radeon 9500 Pro. Although, some Radeon 9500s can get the full R300 core unlocked.

9500 PRO has full R300, but PCB has different memory configuration (128-bit).
Some 9500 non-PRO can be successfully soft-modded to full configuration (all 8 pipelines without visual artefacts). For some reason 9500 non-PRO came with 256-bit PCB, so in theory you could get full 9700.