Originally posted by: Hott Nikkels
is the radeon 9500 pro / 9700 the same as a 9700... i cant tell if this card is a 9500 pro, a 9700, or a 9700 pro
it just lists as a radeon 9500 pro / 9700
If they are listing it as a 9500pro / 9700 then it's really a 9500pro.
9500 pro has 8 pipelines (like the 9700) but 128bit memory (9700 has 256 bit memory). the GPU will likely overclock to 9700 pro speeds, but the memory will never come close. However most recent games are more dependent on shaders, and thus GPU speed than memory speed, somewhat reversing the trend a couple years ago where memory speed was so important. You can see this in the Tom's hardware benchmarks by comparing the 9500, 9500 pro and 9700 because they all use the same core and clock speeds:
9500 = 4 pipelines / 256 bit memory
9500 pro = 8 pipelines / 128 bit memory
9700 = 8 pipelines / 256 bit memory
So the 9500 is a 9700 with half the pixel and shader performance
and a 9500 pro is a 9700 with half the memory bandwidth
Some 9500pro cards would not overclock with the stock BIOS, and needed to be flashed with a 9700 BIOS (same default clock speeds) in order to be able to overclock the card. This is probably why it is listed as a 9500 pro / 9700. With the 9700 BIOS it may show up as a 9700 in detection programs like SiSoft, but in actuality it only has 128bit memory, making it a 9500 pro.
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