9500pro 9600pro or FX5600 ultra?

[Guest MECX]

ok im in the mood for a new graphics card!

options are

Radeon 9500 pro (herc approx £150)

Radeon 9600 pro (saphire/gigabyte approx £145)

Geforce 5600 ultra (dabsvalue £145 (i think))

ive heard the 9500 is better (double the texture pipelines etc) but the 9600 has better memory bandwidth. when stock the 9500 beats the 9600 in most tests (pisses all over it in some) but when both cards are overclocked the performance is very close.

They also dont make the 9500 anymore so its pritty hard to get hold of.

The geforce has lower performance but Nvidia are good at squeezeing more out of there cards with driver updates--also nvida have more stable drivers and better support.

does anybody have any opinions to add, anything ive missed??

im leaning towards the 9600 but only because they have discontinued the 9500.

cheers

[Guest siu99spj]

Personally I'd recommend you try you damnedest to get a Radeon 9500Pro. With the 9600 Pro its a pretty much even, but with some tweaking you can get you 9500 emulating a 9700. Instantaneous performance extras! But, as you said, its nigh on impossible to get now.

And although nVidia have the stablest drivers bar none (Though I always get error messages stating they're not XP certified :? ) ATi have made some incredible leaps with their Catalyst driver. Just a shame they can't bundle absolutely EVERYTHING into a single driver, rather than separate file and DVD players, with the relevant add-on for your card.

[Guest Immortalmindz]

Even tho i have an Nvidia as far as im aware its ATI that are running things.

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

I managed to pick up one of the last Herc 9500Pro's last week. It is ~sweet~. I still need to have a little play to break 10k 3DMark Points. As you've said the 9500Pro walks all over the 9600Pro, only until the higher clockspeed on the 9600 kicks in (so just overclock the 9500 ;p).

[Guest MECX]

DAMN mono you must have got the last one--cant find one anywhere.

looks like ill have to get a 9600 pro instead---or wait till the 9700 comes down in price.

9600 is still a danm good card tho its performance is much nearer the Geforce 5600 ultra---which makes me think---DRIVERS

the only thing stopping me from getting the geforce now is that i read some where it has a fan the size of a hoover and gives off 50W of heat at peak running--hardly what i would call efficient----the ATI 9600 doesnt even need to be seperatly powered.

bugger im stuck :roll: ---any opinions would be welcome at the minute im sticking with my Geforce 2 GTS and £150 in my back pocket :? :?

[Guest SirGaz]

the only thing stopping me from getting the geforce now is that i read some where it has a fan the size of a hoover

And it sounds like a hoover as well. The noise is amazing. Stick with the ATIs if I were you.

[Guest Monolithix [MVP]]

Yep, you'll need to Sacrafice a PCI slot to the side too. Are you sure the 9600pro doesn't need seperate power? My 9500Pro has to be powered directly from the PSU via a floppy drive socket...

[Guest Shuflie]

No seperate power supply required, and it has a small, quiet fan. Mine can overclock to 536core/344 memory without any modification or extra cooling. I hit about 13000 3Dmark01 and 4127 3Dmark03. Having a fast processor helps too. (AthlonXP 2400+ @2112MHz (FSB176))

[Guest MECX]

yeh the 9600 pro is more modern using the 0.13 manufactuing process (instead of the 0.15 on the 9500 pro) so it requires less power gives off less heat and runs at higher clock frequencys.

9500 still kills it on fill rate with its 8 pipes tho

im just opening my CPU to make sure i have a 300W power supply--otherwise ill need a new one for the Geforce (dont think the 9600/9500 need this???)