Nvidia GF3 or ATI 9600 *NON*pro?

[Workin']

Which has better performance?

I have a GF3 Ti200 right now but the fan noise is driving me crazy....

The ATI 9600 non-pro has passive cooling. Ahhh, quiet...

But which has better performance and how big is the difference?

Thanks!

 

[Zap]

The 9600 would perform better. If you just want to quiet the Ti200, replace the fan with a Thermaltake Blue Orb and do a 7V mod on the fan using the included adaptor. Should work great.

 

[squidman]

yup. gf3 is getting obsolete, whereas the 9600 has pixel shaders etc on hw level

 

[Blastman]

I think the 9600 would be at least a 10-15% performance jump over a GF3 Ti200 without the eye candy turned on. In new games that start using the new shader technology the 9600?s performance advantage over the Ti200 will likely be even a lot more than that. Turn on AF to improve image quality and the 9600 performance difference in favor of the 9600 will jump again.

 

[Corporate Thug]

9600

 

[Pete]

You could probably get away with either just disabling the fan on your Ti200, or replacing the HSF with a decent heatsink (sans fan).

If you want to upgrade to a silent card, try buying a $137 Sapphire 9500 128MB and $32 Zalman ZM80A-HP at Allstarshop. That should get you better performance than a $145 9600 for only a bit more, though it'll require more power and space. Plus, you may get lucky with the 9500 and be able to unlock it into a 9500P or 9700.

A tempting gamble, IMO.

 

[yhelothar]

performance is very small.. if any...

i went up from a geforce3 to a radeon 9500 non pro.. and the 9500non pro was not any faster at all.. only if you use AA/AF.. but it can't run AA/AF unless i use 800x600 resolution or 1024x768, which looks like crap on my 21" monitor...

so i wouldn't get it...

you can get a bigger cooler for your geforce3 for $5...

however.. if you have a small monitor, and you prefer to use low resolutions with AA... then get the radeon 9600... otherwise, you won't see a performance difference..

and who cares about the DX9 crap.. DX8 is FAR FAR FAR from obsolete.. you're crazy if you say DX8 is getting obsolete...
geforce3 is NO WAY obsolete yet...
hell dx7 is hardly obsolete yet!! like how many games really use pixel shaders? mostly only used for water reflection effects.. not many games..

 

[bluemax]

good thing he said 9600 not 9500! Whew...
The only difference between 9600 pro and non-pro is clockspeed, unlike the 9500 NP where they sliced it in two with a bread knife.

You'd do very well with a 9600 NP, especially is it's both nice and cheap, and passively cooled!

 

[Workin']

Thanks for the info so far.

I can't add a bigger hsf to the GF3 I have, because the card is in a Shuttle SS51G small-form-factor case.

I'm still confused a little bit, is the 9600 non-pro faster than my GF3? I normally run my desktop at 1600x1200 @ 85Hz in 32-bit color. I play games like Half-Life, RTCW, and UT at 1024x768, and the GF3 is perfectly adequate for me so far. Although I haven't tried it with any of the fancy graphics stuff like AA or whatever....

 

[Zap]

I can't add a bigger hsf to the GF3 I have, because the card is in a Shuttle SS51G small-form-factor case.

You don't have to add a BIGGER HSF, just an aftermarket one that does a better job at cooling and which you can low volt.

 

[prometheusxls]

never rplace the stock HSF on any card, it voids the warranty. If you dont like the noise unplug it and rubberband an 80MM L1A blowing down over the whole thing. It cools better than any 50mm GPU fan and it blows on ram as well. Who uses all the PCI slots anyway?

 

[Pete]

How's the signal quality on that GF3 at 16x12? Odds are the 9600NP will have better signal quality and better TV out. Performance should be at least even, but I'd imagine a bit faster. Not sure if that's worth $170 - ~$50 (sell old Ti200) = ~$120.

 

[Workin']

The image quality of the GF3 at 16x12 is great, no complaints at all about that. I don't use the TV-out, so I don't know if it's good or bad.

I just thought that if I can get a performance boost and less noise then that might be a good deal. But it doesn't sound like there's a noticeable performance difference, especially not $150 worth...

 

[bluemax]

I don't know if it's actually been said or not, but the 9600 NP should be about double the performance of your current GF3, at least! That and fanless, I'd say you're good to go - especially with DX9 features and much less performance with with AF. AA still has a fair hit but you'd still get away with 4x in most cases.

 

[Workin']

Originally posted by: bluemax
I don't know if it's actually been said or not, but the 9600 NP should be about double the performance of your current GF3, at least! That and fanless, I'd say you're good to go - especially with DX9 features and much less performance with with AF. AA still has a fair hit but you'd still get away with 4x in most cases.

Thanks, no one has said anything about the performance. Well, one person said the 2 cards would be essentially the same

I haven't been able to find any decent benchmarks for the 9600 NP, guess I'll have to keep looking a little harder.

 

[bluemax]

Find benchmarks for the 9600 pro and knock 'em down 10-20% or so. You should be able to overclock it close to 9600 Pro stock speeds.....

 

[JZilla]

9600NP review at Rage3D

Edit: The original 9600Pro review at beyond3d features a few lines and benchmarks on the 9600NP. Read