GhettoCard advice/opinions requested

[MercenaryForHire]

Only on Anandtech would these cards be considered Ghetto ...

But anyhow.

geForce FX5600XT (128bit) ~CDN$125
Radeon 9600SE ~CDN$150
Radeon 9600 ~CDN$180

Discuss. Target user has a slight preference/slant for nVidia, as prior ATI encounters have sucked heartily. Is lower performance acceptable given price? (Also, in non-shader situations the FX will triumph.)

- M4H

 

[Viper96720]

Any Geforce FX cards in the ~CDN$180 range?

 

[modedepe]

*gags* those are horrible

Cross of the 9600se just cause 64 bit busses suck. I'd probably take the 9600, though I'm not sure it's worth $55 more than an fx5600xt.

P.S. Why does nvidia have to start using "xt" in their card names like ati?

 

[Blastman]

I know, what type of marketing nonsense is NV trying here? Maybe they are trying to give the letters ?XT? a bad name so people won?t buy the ATI?s ?XT?s ? and they are testing the waters with a real lousy card to see how it goes.

Agree, probably want to cross 9600SE off list. I have a 64bit 9100 and that 64bit bus just chokes things. The one upside to my 9100 is that when I run in 16bit color I can get a substantial boost in performance. In SOF II my fps went from ~ 30 to 45 (using FRAPS) just by switching to 16bit color. Laggy to very smooth. He would have to run the 9600SE in 16bit color to extract any good performance out of it..


5600 ?325/275
5600XT ? 235/200
9600 ?325/200

I like to assume that raising both memory and GPU 1% should get about a 1% overall performance improvement. The 5600 has ~ 38% faster memory & GPU than the XT, so it should be about 38% faster.

digilife has all 3 of those cards in their November digest. In RTCW, UT3, Unreal, SS2, Splinter Cell the 9600 comes out a little ahead overall against the 5600 so the 9600 would be a pretty significant jump in performance over the 5600XT. This would be especially true if you started adding some DX9 games in the mix.

The 9600 costs 44% more and he would be getting at least that much more performance (edit ..over the 5600XT).

 

[Keysplayr]

Not a very P.C. thread title is it...

 

[VIAN]

XT is used by the manufacter just like some manufacters for ATI use in the midrange section Pro Ultra for boosted performance. I would get a 5700 Ultra by the way, don't even bother looking at those cards.

make sure clock speed on ultra is 475 for core and 900 for memory.

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Not a very P.C. thread title is it...

You clicked, didn't you?

*scratches out 9600SE*

Leaning towards the 5600XT just from buyer feedback. Remember, dislikes ATI, so convincing him to pay 50% more (after taxes) requires some horsepower.

- M4H

 

[Blastman]

I can get Sapphire 128MB 9100?s for $130 at local hardware shops where I live in Canada.

Here?s a review with all the budget cards?5600XT, 9100 etc?.

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/value-2003/index.html

9100 is a lot faster than 5600XT, I would say almost on par with a 9600.