Radeon 9500 vs 9600 pro?

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Dioz_ako

n00b
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Apr 6, 2004
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Hello all, 2 questions.

First wich would be better for gaming? ATM i have a 9600 pro. but I could trade my friend for his 9500 pro. would that be a good trade / upgrade? He dosnt really care since hes getting a 9800 pro soon.


Secon, I recently bought a new system 3.0 intel 4 HT 800fsb - 1gb ddr ram 3200 - mis board. Well since i didnt have enough for the 9800 pro id thought id try to OC my 9600 pro. so i did, not too much since I dont know much about it. But anyhow some times i freeze while playing games. For 1 or 2 secons.. Would this be because of the OC / video or should i look some where else?


It just drops down to 2 fps.. and 2 secs later it goes back up to my max. It mainly happens while playing WC3 Frozen throne, Has not really happened while playing other FPS games, execpt for once during Enemy Territory....


Sorry for the long post. and any replys would be appriciated -

p.s sorry for bad english.
 
If you're not really gonna be OC'ing, then the 9500 Pro will be better than the 9600 Pro, because the 9500 Pro is about on par with a 9600 XT. You could OC the 9600 Pro like a bat outta hell, and get to near XT speeds also.
 
Hmmm....depends.

Most the time, yeah, 9500 Pro > 9600 Pro. 9600 Pro is 4-pipe/128-bit vs the 8-pipe/128-bit of the 9500 Pro. Half as many rendering pipelines means that the core must run twice as fast to do the same amount of work.

As you can tell, the 9600 Pro core clock is NOT twice the 9500 Pro's core clock (really, really close - but not quite).

It's worth pointing out, though, that the 9500 Pro is based on ATI's first-generation DX9 core, the R300. The 9600 Pro is based on the second-generation DX9 core from ATI, the rv350. The rv350 boasts improved shader performance over the r300 (clock for clock) and it fixes a number of bugs in the original core - one of which is a problem that prevents ATI's HyperZ capability from working when stencil shaders are in use. HyperZ is one of ATI's BIG performance boosters, and Doom3 will make EXTENSIVE use of stencil shaders.

Anyway, taking a look at the last couple roundups that showcased both cards, they tend to tie a lot. The 9600 Pro tends to win shader-heavy tests on the latest DX9 titles and demos, whereas the 9500 Pro tends to win...well, everything else. Especially one post-filtering (like FSAA and Aniso filtering) are applied does the 9500 Pro really start distancing itself.

Overall....I'd say it's mostly a wash. You have a 9600 Pro now? Benchmark your favorite games. If it's a friend, see if he'll let you borrow his card for a bit to test with. You won't need to reinstall drivers or anything (both cards use the same drivers), just pop it in and play around some.

The only way to know - in a case as close as this - which card is right for you is to try both of them doing what you do on PCs, and see which does it better for you.
 
Actually I hear the 9500 series has some bugs in their code that causes worst performance... OC your 9600 to XT+ speeds and be happy with your gfx card.

~Adam
 
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