Personally, I have always had problems with ATI. To the point where I wouldn't buy another ATI product if my life depended on it.
Imagine, buying an ATI and when I open the shrinkwrapped box and pull out the card, 2 resistors fall off the card. hmmm, not a good sign. Take it back to the store, and they graciously exchange it. it installed fine, about a month after the install, my computer would not boot. (I would only get 3 beeps from my PC speaker) hmmm, open up the case and look around,.. guess what. two resistors are sitting on the bottom of my case. (yup, from the ATI card) this time the store would not exchange it because of the amount of time that passes. I try to contact ATI support, and bark at the wind. The very idea that ATI has customer support is laughable. Since they had an office not far from where I live. I get a friend to drive me over. From the time I entered the building it took 2 hours of being given the runnarround before they finally agreed to fix (not replace) my ATI card. I signed a paper and left the card with them. They would send it to me by post. Not happy (but having little choice) I leave. I wait, I wait, 1 week, 2 weeks, (I call, but as usual no reply at the support line.) 4 weeks. I get my friend to drive me over again,.. They say they have no record of my card ever being left with them, and say something to the effect that 'they are not a repair service and it would be highly unlikely that they would accept a card for repair.' they say that they would refer me to the nearest repair shop. Ha! I pulled out my copy of the paper I signed when I left the card with them, they look at it and say just a moment,.. another man comes out and says that the person who signed this paper no longer works for ATI and they have no record of this transaction. Grrrrr, I ask "so what about my card? are you going to give me a replacement?" "Sorry we do not have stock here, this is just a sales office. All our orders are processed at the main office in Toronto." They basically say I should contact the head office, they give me a business card with the name and number of the person I should talk to. Guess what? Yup, no answer at that number either. $329 +tax down the drain.
Buy an ATI? Not if they had the only graphics card available the PC. I would at that point switch to Macintosh as my platform of choice.
But I hear they have changed, they are much better now. (btw this story took place 10 months ago.) When I was forced to buy a GForce 2 MX 400 to keep my computer running. nVidia is fantatsic. In the long run, I must thank ATI for letting me discover nVidia. I only paid $139 for my GForce (the GForce4 was the main seller at that time. and it was all I could afford at the time after loosing $329 to ATI)
So, Mac. Which Card do you think I'll recommend? LOL
Nuf said, Cheers!
P.S. the ATI card was a Raedom 9600 or something to that effect. (suposidly the best graphics card available at the time I spent the money.)
[ June 05, 2004, 11:26: Message edited by: David E. Gervais ]