http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/radeon/r9600-2.html

A small roundup of some new Radeon 9600/pro cards from Gigabyte, Hercules and Sapphire.

The most interesting card for us is of course the passively cooled Sapphire 9600pro ultimate edition.
Seems like it offers very nice performance for it's price and seems to overclock quite nicely too, plus it looks quite good with that black PCB

It should be in stores by the end of this month if it isn't already.

Thanks! Interesting read.

Interresting. The passively cooled Sapphire card looks very good. And at less than 170$, it might just be the thing. It says that with this card, your case temperature must not exceed 60 degrees (celcius I assume). But come on... if the temperature inside your case is that high I'd say you have much bigger worries than what graphics card to get next!

So how would the 9600 perform compared to a GF4 ti4200? That's what I have now.

How does it compare to the 9500 pro?

Just a quick search and I found this test. It's in german though, and I didn't read into it. I just like looking at the colored charts

But it seems the 9600pro is on par with the 9500pro (in some cases actually a little slower). But it apparently is a nice bit faster than the ti4200, which is what I'm interrested in.

So now I just gotta wait till it hits the shelves, and hope my brother will take my GF off my hands.

Anybody got a link to other similar round-up tests, please post them.

Wow, viewing the graphs, to me it looks as if the 9500 pro is the stronger card, compared to the 9600 pro.

Yeah, the 9500 is a more powerful card than the 9600. I'm not a video guru and I'm too lazy to go look up the exact info, but if memory serves, this is because the 9500 has 8 pixel pipelines while the 9600 has had that halved to just 4.

A true video junkie will come along and clarify any errors in my statement.

The 9600pro is bunches slower than the 9500pro b/c it's pipelines have been clipped in half. I believe at normal settings a ti-4200 will come out slightly ahead of the 9600pro but when you crank up the AA/AF, the 9600pro kills the ti-4200.

I would like to see an All in Wonder 9600.

AIW 9800 is too expensive for non-gamers, and the 9000 is crippled old-tech.

Ati just announced big discounts on the old 9000 AIW's. That probably means they're clearing the warehouses to make room for a new "value" AIW card. I'll bet we'll see 9600 all-in-wonders in 3 months.

Could anyone explain to me why the 9500pro is faster AND cheaper than the 9600pro? What on earth is the reason for the 9600's existance if it's predesessor(sp?) is faster?

Here's a review and pictures of both passives: 9600 and 9800 ultimates. Note the 9800 uses the ZM80C model, the one that can have a fan bolted on top and the heatsink support struts.

Gandalf, yes the 9500pro IS cheaper and slightly faster but it is being phased out. The 9500 series was a cut down 9700 board, which meant a) the 9700 board was pricey to manufacturer for ATI and thus the 9500's profit margins were smallish and b) overclockers were eating into 9700 sales by buying 9500's and attempting to overclock/tweak them to 9700 levels. On the heat/noise side though, the 9600's are definite improvements over the 9500's.

http://www.gotapex.com/reviews.php?rev= ... index.html

I see.
I think I'll buy a 9500pro then. I'll get rid of the noise and heat without too much effort I think.
Unless of course the 9600 consumes a lot less power .. but I doubt it.

Actually a 9600pro does produce less heat and consume less power. It's built on 0.13 microns while the 9500/9700/9800 are built on 0.15 microns. 9600-series also doesn't require external power like the other cards do.

http://www.hothardware.com/hh_files/S&V ... _eds.shtml

You can see a comparison of the 9800pro and 9600pro (0.15 vs. 0.13) there, although comparing temperatures of two different level cards isn't exactly accurate, but anyway..

I don't think it's slightly faster...I think it is quite a bit faster just judging the graphs. If you notice, it's pretty much on par with the GF4 Ti4600 in all benchmarks and it absolutely beats the crap out of it when you turn on AA and AF. Matter of fact, the 9500 stays just behind the 9700 in most of those benchmarks. When the higher quality settings are turned on, the 9500 is better than all other cards except the 9700, 9800 and the most high end FX cards by nvidia.

For the price, it's a hell of a card (~$200 in US). The only reason I wouldn't jump on it is a) I find an unbeleivable deal on a 9700 pro or b) the 9600 appeals more to me because of it's performance to quietness ratio (which kind of sucks because you really don't know what that ratio is until you've bought the card and tested it out yourself).

I'd go for 9700 non-Pro, if they are still available.

Jan

True. Pretend I didn't say slightly

I've spent a few hours looking for the 9500pro power consumption now but I've been unable to find anything.
I'm not sure whether it has an extra power connector though .. I don't think it does. If it does it's so small I can't see it on the pictures .

Picture from Viper's Lair (first hit I got from google)



The power connector is the 4 pin connector at the top of the card, slightly to the left of center. Looks like the same power connector for floppy drives.



Picture from Tech Report, showing close-up of the memory and power connector.

I'm not able to find power consumption for 9500Pro vs. 9600Pro either.

BTW many sites reported good overclocking results with the 9600Pro. Might be something to consider.

Here's a link to 9600 pro overclocking results:
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NDY0LDE=

It approaches 9700 pro levels! However, keep in mind that ATi probably sent a sweet-ass card to hardocp to review, knowing what they'd do to it (ie OC) but impressive none the less.

Yes, it is a floppy power connector. (I've got a 9500 in my system right now) As far as I know Ati has never released power consumption figures for its cards. (Neither does Nvidia for that matter)

I suppose someone with a clamp-on anmeter could figure it out though, just combine the measurements from the power connector with the max voltage possible though the AGP.

Also realise that the lower power consumption (and thus heat production) of the .13 process is counteracted by the increase in clock speeds. I consider the fact that Ati mounts what looks like the same HSF combo on each as a sign that the heat output is pretty close to identical

As an interesting side note, my mildly overclocked, HP-80A cooled, 9500 non-Pro (with cracked drivers) outscores the 9500Pro and the 9600Pro in every 3DMark test that [H]OCP posted.

Here's a breakdown of the [H]OCP 9500Pro, 9600Pro, 9600Pro OC'd to 567/358, and my 9500 non-Pro (OC'd to 300/290)

The percents in ( ) are the difference between my card and the [H] card's test results.

3Dmark03 Tests:

Game Test 2:
9500Pro (277/270): 21.0 ( 40 %)
9600Pro (400/300): 20.1 ( 47 %)
9600Pro (567/358): 26.7 ( 10 %)

My 9500 (300/290, cracked drivers): 29.5



Game Test 4:
9500Pro (277/270): 22.9 ( 13 %)
9600Pro (400/300): 19.4 ( 34%)
9600Pro (567/358): 26.8 ( -3%)

My 9500 (300/290, cracked drivers): 25.9



Vertex Shader:
9500Pro (277/270): 13.1 ( 6%)
9600Pro (400/300): 10.4 ( 34%)
9600Pro (567/358): 14.7 ( -6%)

My 9500 (300/290, cracked drivers): 13.9



Pixel Shader 2.0:
9500Pro (277/270): 32.6 ( 29%)
9600Pro (400/300): 28.1 ( 49%)
9600Pro (567/358): 36.3 ( 16 %)

My 9500 (300/290, cracked drivers): 42.0



Fill Rate, Single Texture:
9500Pro (277/270): 802.3 ( 77%)
9600Pro (400/300): 901.6 ( 57%)
9600Pro (567/358): 1106 ( 28%)

My 9500 (300/290, cracked drivers): 1416.5



Fill Rate, Multi Texture:
9500Pro (277/270): 1781.4 ( 19%)
9600Pro (400/300): 1541.8 ( 38%)
9600Pro (567/358): 2127.3 ( -1%)

My 9500 (300/290, cracked drivers): 2123.7


Not bad for a 6 month old silent card that I paid less than $150 for.

I wonder whether the 9500pro can reach that performance with those drivers ..

Nope. One of the secrets is that a 9500 has the same chip as a 9700. (or a 9800 for that matter). They both have 8 pipelines and a 256bit memory interface.

On a 9500 4 of the pipelines are disabled via the PCI Device ID. But a 9500pro or a 9600's chip is fundamentally different, it only has the 4 pipelines, physically.

The crack to the drivers basically tricks the card into ignoring the fact that it's not a 9800Pro. According to Windows, my card "is" a 9800Pro. Although 9500's won't overclock to 9800Pro speeds (thanks to lower grade chips and cheaper RAM) if you correct the benchmarks mathmatically for the difference in speeds it scores exactly the same.

And all the "features" of the 9800Pro work too. Like the pixel shaders used for 3DMark03 Game 4. A 9500 shouldn't be able to run that game at all, but mine does just fine.

I don't want to take over this whole thread, there's lots of information out there on this, and there are some catches to it too. Do a google for "9500 softmod" if you want to know more. Or if you have a 9500 you can just PM me and I'll talk you through the process of unlocking it.