Crush? How do 620 points from 3dmark no less equal a crush? Anyway, I'll post it again as it might have gotten lost in the posts:
I thought I would just throw this into the mix. It's fun to compare benchmarks and all that but what it boils down to is the games. A couple of days before I got this deal I exchanged my 9800 NP for an Xbox. My thought process was basically after it was said and done spending $250 on a video card is, how should I say it, less than settling to me. It's not that I cannot afford it, it's just the principal of it. The moral of the story is some would have you believe that there is a day and night difference between the 9600PRO and the 9800NP/whatever, it's simply not true, twice the cost does not equal twice the performance. Point and case Unreal Tournament 2003 and the Halo demo. Playing U2K3 at 1600x1200 is not as silky smooth on the 9600pro as it was on the 9800 but at 1280x1024 there is really no discernable difference and quite frankly the difference in resolution is not that appreciable either. On the Halo demo the 9800 was choppy, granted not as choppy as the 9600pro but then again not enough to really tell. BTW I only mention these two because those are the ones that I could actually tell a difference on, every other game in my library played as good as the 9800.
Anyway I looked at it like this: $250 buys me a great video card with longer legs. For $60 more I still get a great video card upgrade but with an xbox too! To each his own, just thought I would share.
I can understand being frustrated at going to the effort of purchasing the card, installing it and not seeing a significant improvement but don't think anyone here said the 9600 was better than the 9500 (might want to blame ATI's marketing on this one).
I thought I would just throw this into the mix. It's fun to compare benchmarks and all that but what it boils down to is the games. A couple of days before I got this deal I exchanged my 9800 NP for an Xbox. My thought process was basically after it was said and done spending $250 on a video card is, how should I say it, less than settling to me. It's not that I cannot afford it, it's just the principal of it. The moral of the story is some would have you believe that there is a day and night difference between the 9600PRO and the 9800NP/whatever, it's simply not true, twice the cost does not equal twice the performance. Point and case Unreal Tournament 2003 and the Halo demo. Playing U2K3 at 1600x1200 is not as silky smooth on the 9600pro as it was on the 9800 but at 1280x1024 there is really no discernable difference and quite frankly the difference in resolution is not that appreciable either. On the Halo demo the 9800 was choppy, granted not as choppy as the 9600pro but then again not enough to really tell. BTW I only mention these two because those are the ones that I could actually tell a difference on, every other game in my library played as good as the 9800.
Anyway I looked at it like this: $250 buys me a great video card with longer legs. For $60 more I still get a great video card upgrade but with an xbox too! To each his own, just thought I would share.
I can understand being frustrated at going to the effort of purchasing the card, installing it and not seeing a significant improvement but don't think anyone here said the 9600 was better than the 9500 (might want to blame ATI's marketing on this one).
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