Just as ATI thought they had got one over nVidia by releasing their next generation chip earlier, the well documented ATI reliability seems to have struck again. The various issues which have plagued ATI in the past i.e. driver problems, have damaged the company's reputation and the latest glitch is not going to do much to change that.
According to ATI, owners of the RADEON 9700 Pro will not be able to run it at the, much hyped, 8x AGP. ATI claim that their engineers are working non-stop in order to correct the issue. But this is not the only problem reported by users, certain systems seem to experience severe driver issues under NTFS.
The complete report by ATI reads:
In certain cases, after installing the RADEON 9700 PRO 128MB in an AGP 8x capable motherboard, the system will not post, or boot up.
Not all AGP 8x motherboards are affected. Some Customer's have reported that lowering the AGP transfer speed in some instances, will allow the system to then post.
ATI Engineering has been advised of this issue and is investigating. Any updates will appear on this page when they become available.
Please provide the following information to ATI Customer Service:
* your name, address, and phone number
* make, model, and revision of the motherboard
* 102 part number from the affected RADEON 9700 PRO 128MB
* make and model of the power supply
* current AGP transfer setting
* a completed ATI Problem Report (if able to boot at a lower AGP transfer setting)