9600 Pro or "New" 5600 Ultra?

[digitallagasse]

I am looking to replace my Ti4400 with a new card. I am selling it and a game controller for $150. I found a 9600 Pro at newegg for $168. My whole goal is to try and not spend any money. All the cards I found for $150 or less are not worth replacing my Ti4400 with. I can see spending a little extra, like $20, if needed to get a good card. I can always sell something else I have that I don't need to make up that $20. What I was wondering is the "New" 5600 Ultra a better choice? It would need to be in my price range which at this point I am not sure it will be. The normal 5600s are and several are even bellow $150. The only 5600 Ultra I can find is a Leadtek one that has VIVO, which I don't need, and costs $215. I have heard news about the higher clocked second gen 5600 Ultras but nothing about what they can do or how much they will cost. I have maybe a month at most to do this or I will loose the buyer of my card.

BTW I mainly play games at 1024x768 with 2X AA or 4X AA, depending on the game, and 8X AF. 30 FPS is the minium in most games for me. FPS style games I prefer 60 FPS. The two main games I play are Morrowind and UT2K3. I am also looking to get Doom III when it comes out too. I am also interested in getting Aqua Nox 2, Pro Race Driver and NFS Underground and maybe a game like Everquest 2 or another such game. I want to make sure that either card would do alright with those games.

 

[SickBeast]

9600 pro is my vote, but I personally prefer ATi cards. You would probably be happy with either card. Price should be your main concern.

Actually, if I were you I would splurge and get a 9700 non pro.

 

[whitetiger]

or you can go for 9600 pro ultra, you can find it on www.pricewatch.com

 

[digitallagasse]

The 9700np is more than I want or have to spend. I thought about it but I just don't have the money to spend on it. I could but it wouldn't be a good idea.

 

[digitallagasse]

What is a 9600 Pro Ultra? Sounds like a cross between an Ati and Nvidia card.

 

[Pete]

It's a Pro with slightly faster memory, 330-340MHz instead of 300MHz, to compete with the new (faster) 5600U. Sapphire sells their version, the "Fireblade," supposedly for the same price as the regular Pro, but it's a limited edition.

 

[digitallagasse]

Will the 30 to 40 MHz increase even make that much of a differance? Where can I find that card?

 

[capodeloscapos]

Without looking at the other posts, I say 9600 Pro al the way... but if you can find a 9500 Pro it would be better.

 

[digitallagasse]

I did find a 9500 Pro but it was priced too high.

 

[digitallagasse]

I wonder if Anandtech will be doing a review on the new 5600 Ultra some time soon. I really want to see how it compares to a wide range of cards. I want to see a review with a Ti4600, Ti4200, 9600 Pro, 9600, 5600, 5600 Ultra, New 5600 Ultra with a P4 2.4C in either the IS7 or P4P800 board. That is the setup I want to run. I wonder if Anandtech can start benchmarking Morrowind too.

 

[Corporate Thug]

9600 pro

 

[Blastman]

The Sapphire 9600pro Fireblade actually comes with the same 2.8ns memory as the normal 9600pro, except they ? ?guarantee? ? it will overclock the memory to 330mhz. I?m pretty sure all the 9600pro?s come with 2.8ns memory so they all pretty well should get to the 340-350mhz range. Fireblade review

I don?t know if the new 5600U 400/400 have hit the shelves yet. All the current 5600U?s on the market I?ve seen are the old ones 350/350 like the LeadTek A310Ultra if you can find them, and even those are quite a bit more expensive than the 9600pro. A sampling of prices at a shop (atic.ca in BC/Canada) turns up the following ?

ATI 9600pro ? ? ? ? ? ?$250 ?(CAD)
LeadTek A310Ultra 350/350 ?$310
ASUS V9560 5600 325/300 ? $280

The regular 5600?s 325/275 generally run a little less $ than the 9600pro. I think the new 5600U will probably be over $200US because of the 2.2ns (expensive) memory they come with and actually be competing with the 9700np.

Hardware France ? has a review of the new 5600U (400/400). It was very close in performance to the 9600pro running the standard scripted benchmarks --- but I don?t trust those benches because of NV?s cheating. Once they ran some other racing benches the 5600U was way behind the 9600pro.

I would go 9600pro hands down over the 5600U.

 

[digitallagasse]

Well if that is how much they will cost then the 9600 Pro is the only choice. I do like the 9600 Pro but it would be nice to at least have another option.

 

[jdogg707]

I vote 9600 Pro, seems as if you can overclock the crap out of it and you'll be enjoying a very fast chip...I believe firingaquad.com did a review of overclocking the 9600 Pro and 9500 Pro...

 

[digitallagasse]

Overclocking the card isn't important to me. I will be running it at stock speed.

 

[solofly]

Originally posted by: digitallagasse
I am looking to replace my Ti4400 with a new card. I am selling it and a game controller for $150. I found a 9600 Pro at newegg for $168. My whole goal is to try and not spend any money. All the cards I found for $150 or less are not worth replacing my Ti4400 with. I can see spending a little extra, like $20, if needed to get a good card. I can always sell something else I have that I don't need to make up that $20. What I was wondering is the "New" 5600 Ultra a better choice? It would need to be in my price range which at this point I am not sure it will be. The normal 5600s are and several are even bellow $150. The only 5600 Ultra I can find is a Leadtek one that has VIVO, which I don't need, and costs $215. I have heard news about the higher clocked second gen 5600 Ultras but nothing about what they can do or how much they will cost. I have maybe a month at most to do this or I will loose the buyer of my card.

BTW I mainly play games at 1024x768 with 2X AA or 4X AA, depending on the game, and 8X AF. 30 FPS is the minium in most games for me. FPS style games I prefer 60 FPS. The two main games I play are Morrowind and UT2K3. I am also looking to get Doom III when it comes out too. I am also interested in getting Aqua Nox 2, Pro Race Driver and NFS Underground and maybe a game like Everquest 2 or another such game. I want to make sure that either card would do alright with those games.

"So as we saw on the previous page, both cards are evenly matched in the midrange. They exhibit similar performance for a similar price and that's what we like to see. The clock increase on this newer revision FX5600 Ultra definitely hasn't hurt anything, infact it gives NVIDIA the midrange crown back in terms of raw performance, it definitely is faster overall than 9600 Pro."

http://www.hexus.net/review.php?review=570

 

[railer]

I would've kept the 4400 myself. If you look at anand's review of the 9600 pro, as you scroll down through the benches you see one card kicking the crap out of the all the other cards, and that card is the GF4 4600. The only diff between the 4600 and 4400 is clock speed, so the 4400 would be #2 on all of those charts. Crank up the AA and AF and the Radeons pull ahead, but as far as I'm concerned that crap is only good for burning off excess GPU power. I'm not a big fan of AA/AF as you can tell. I do run them when there's not a big performance hit...but honestly don't notice much of a difference.

 

[hans007]

if i didnt have a decent vid card and gamed (i currently use nforce2 igp and dont play games)

i'd get the 5600 ultra. its faster, and nvidia has better drivers. then again my main gripe with ATI drivers is they dont have a very wide range of 2d resolutions to run at (such as all the widescreen resolutions)

 

[otispunkmeyer]

 

[otispunkmeyer]

erm i would have said go for the ATI 9600 pro. the 9500pro is a very capable card and has DX9. in anand's reviews the 9600pro out pefromed the 9500pro in some cases.
the 9500 is about on the same level as your ti4400 and can beat a 4600 too sometimes.

but for your budget i dont think you would be getting anything that is remarkably better than what you got. your 4400 can comfortably keep up with a 9500pro and 9600pro. the only difference being DX9 compatibility, and so far there are few if any games that fully use it. (matrix, colin mcrae use it tho) even doom 3 is DX 8.1

one point is that drivers wise Nvidia are the kings ATI just cant make drivers. your from the USA so i dont know if you can buy from this company but Connect 3D make ATI cards and more notably they are much cheaper than companies like ASUS, but bear in mind that all you get is the Card with stock ATI Heat sink and fan, and a couple of leads, no games no extra software apart from a set of drivers.

i bought a 9500pro from connect 3D and it cost me £130. which aint bad for a card that can keep up with the 4400 and 4600 and still offer DX9.

my advice would be either stick with what you got for now, and build up some cash to get something really kick ass, or go for an ATI card.

also check out www.connect3d.com