ATI radeon: 9500pro vs 9600pro

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dig_em

Weaksauce
Joined
Jan 22, 2004
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I always thought that the 9600pro is higher quality and overall better. But after reading:

http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1812&p=1

It says that, "Once again we see the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra and the Radeon 9600 Pro offering very similar levels of performance, but the Radeon 9500 Pro puts them both to shame."

If im buying a video card and its between these two.. which do i want? I'm a pure gamer, all this computer will be is for games. I heard that the 9500pro needs alot more cooling too.. is this true?
 
Nothing wrong with a 9600 pro, pretty fast, buddy of mine has one with a 2.6 p4. Pretty fast. The difference between the 9500 pro and 9600 pro isn't that huge. Especially now when a 9600 is so darn cheap
 
i bought my 5600 ultra when to upgrade my old celeron 1600 on a bx board, it was a good buy back then because it gave my old system a much needed performance boost. but its on my new system (see sig) and it became the bottleneck now, so im upgrading :D. i could play bf1942, c&c generals just fine on it with all the levels maxed out.
 
The 9500 Pro is a better performing card, no doubt. The 9600 Pro was designed to be its cheaper and slightly slower replacement because it costs ATi considerably less to produce. The 9500 Pro is a mildly hindered 9700 Pro with lower clocks, so it is a much more capable card. Softmods turn the 9500 into the 9700. When successful, they are great.
 
The softmods are for 9500 non pros btw. Softmod is a patch in the driver to enable 8 pipelines in the card giving it significantly more performance. They are 100%. More info on that at http://www.ocfaq.com/

They ARENT 100%.. sorry :p
 
acascianelli said:
i bought my 5600 ultra when to upgrade my old celeron 1600 on a bx board, it was a good buy back then because it gave my old system a much needed performance boost. but its on my new system (see sig) and it became the bottleneck now, so im upgrading :D. i could play bf1942, c&c generals just fine on it with all the levels maxed out.
Click to expand...
What does this have to do with the topic?
 
well.....what these guys aren't telling you is that since the Radeon 9600 Pro is based off of the .13-micron manufacturing process, it's a helluva lot cooler than the 9500's are, so even thought it's clocked really low by default, bet u guys can guess what's coming now, YOU CAN OVERCLOCK THE SHIT OUT OF IT. at stock performances, the 9500 does beat the 9600 in pretty much everything, but if you're like me and many other [H] readers, you'll overclock your hardware. the 9600 pro has a great deal of potential, check my sig.
 
I have a 9500 NP that softmodded and I love it. Blows away every 9600 I've ever seen, especially if you turn on the FSAA. The eight pipes makes a big difference there. It does overclock pretty well, check the signature. It's shown no problems at that speed either, so I plan to push it farther.
 
Well each of them have their pros and cons...

9500 PRO for better overall frame rates

9600 PRO for better picture quality (second gen directx 9 card)
 
eraser_16 said:
YOU CAN OVERCLOCK THE SHIT OUT OF IT
Click to expand...


^^^What he said. Check my sig for the o/c on the 9600xt (stock speeds are 500core/600ddr)

I can play most my games at 1280x1024 w/16xaf & 4T2aa now (thank you Cat 4.7's! made a HUGE difference with the Temporal AA) with decent framerates. That res is all I really care for with aa enabled anyway(I used to play at 1024x768). I'm not a hi-res ultimate framerate junkie like some.

but yes, an overclocked 9500pro will still beat a 9600xt clocked like mine due to the extra 4 pipes.
 
pinoy87 said:
Well each of them have their pros and cons...

9500 PRO for better overall frame rates

9600 PRO for better picture quality (second gen directx 9 card)
Click to expand...

Not noticeably though...

If you want to get a 9500, get a 9500 np and make sure it has the L-shaped memory and softmod it to a 9700 to enable the extra pipelines. (The Lshaped are 256 bit right?)
 
yeah red pcb with the L shaped memory

i have one and it does softmod plus it oc's to 9700pro speeds... which is even better :D
 
The 9500 Pro is no slouch in the overclocking business. Once I flashed the card, I have easily reached 9700 Pro levels, and I could go higher but at the moment I have little reason to.

Bottom line, both cards are good.. but I'd recommend going for a 9800 Pro. They are the new mainstream card.
 
How much do the 9500 pros cost these days anyways? My 9700pro is going for around $150 I believe.
 
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