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looking for advice about selecting the correct AIW card!

K

killedradiostar

Member
hey all,

i'm looking to put together a system within the next few weeks. with the announcement of the AIW 9600 pro for a release right around when i'm looking to order, i've found myself in a bit of a pickle.

what does everyone think about the graphical power and money tradeoff between a 9600 AIW pro and 9700 AIW pro? i really like the dual monitor support and lower price of the AIW 9600 pro, but i'm hesitant to sacrifice the graphical power, since i'm looking to have this computer run HL2 and games with similar demands.

in the benchmarks i've seen for the menagerie of radeon products, it appears that the 9600 pro is often the redheaded stepchild, whereas the 9700 pro does a fantastic job. then again, the 9600 AIW pro is supposed to run at a higher clock speed, so um, argh. i need advice!
 
😉 I'd say the Rad9700 is really anywhere near worth the asking price and the 9600proAIW does allow dual display too which is a great bonus (about time). 9600PRO has had a bit of an unfair press because it is slower and inferior to the Rad9500PRO it replaced, but even so it is still a very good card, easily on par with a GF-FX5600ultra. I'd say go for the 9600proAIW now and you should find it devalues slowly (so you can sell it on if you need more power) unlike the 9700AIW which to many is already sounding 'old'.
 
😉 Certainly should do, the 9600PRO is simply a slower (128bit RAM & 4 pipes) Rad9800 and AFAIK it only lacks the full Z-buffer and T-buffer which have a small impact on efficiency. The 9600proAIW's real advantage is that you get a card way faster and more future proof than the 9000AIW and not too far off 9800 pace when you consider the price diff.
 
The Videoshader thing still confuses me a bit. The 9700 and 9800 seem to be the only ones advertising this feature so far. I get the impression that Videoshader (whatever that refers to from a programming/hardware standpoint) could be necessary to leverage certain aspects of VMR9's hardware-based video scaling though.
 
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