Radeon 9600 Pro/XT v.s. 9700 PRO

[Jaguars4r]

OK... I asked a 9600 Pro v.s. XT and how good they would be for DOOM III and HL2 a week ago. I think I finally made my decision to go w/9700pro. The price difference is like pretty much the same w/9600XT. So a Q:

1. Is the 9700Pro much better then 9600 PRO/XT?
2. Will 9700Pro be much better for demanding games like DOOM III/HL2?
3. Which do I get? The 128mb or 256mb, im guessing the 128mb

Thanks guys

 

[boyRacer]

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. 9700 Pros were only 128MB



I wouldn't pay more than $130 for a 9700 Pro.

 

[Sylvanas]

1. 9700pro will beat any 9600 based card in anything due to it having and extra 4 pixel rendering pipelines and a 256bit memory bus (better for higher res with AA and AF)
2. The 9700pro is excellent for halflife 2 and will do fine in D3
3. i wasnt aware you could get a 256mb 9700pro's, 256mb on a 9600 is a waste because it cant utilize it properly. just get the 128mb 9700pro

 

[jiffylube1024]

The 9700Pro kicks the 9600's @ss. The 9700 Pro has a 325 Mhz core with 8 pipelines, and a 310 MHz 256-bit memory clock.

The 9600 Pro has a 400 MHz core with 4 pipelines and 300 MHz memory on a 128-bit bus. The 9600 XT has a 500 MHz clock with again a 300 MHz memory clock on a 128-bit bus.

The 9700 Pro has double the pipelines (which more than makes up for the clockspeed difference) and more than double the memory bandwidth. When it's all added up, the 9700 Pro is most certainly not "twice" as fast in most cases, but it's often in the order of 40% and up.

Get a 128MB card in all cases; the extra memory is not worth it and oftentimes 256MB cards run slower memory clocks so they actually perform worse!

 

[DJQuanta]

Well, acording to the agp cards roundup at Tomshardware the 9700 pro is around 35-40% faster than the 9600 pro/xt. That's the one I was looking for when I was buying the parts for my system two weeks ago, unfortunately Newegg doesn't carry them anymore, in fact not many online retailers have them.

Where are you planning to get your 9700 pro ?, at what price ?

Anyway, I'll have another opportunity to get a new card brought from the US (I'm in south america) by the end of january, and by then I guess I'll be able to get the bigger brother of the 9xxx series (the 9800 pro) for $140-$150. I'll be selling my current 9600 by then.

Quanta

 

[meltdown75]

Definitely go with the 9700 pro - I just got this wacky card from ebay a couple days ago, and although I am happy with it because it was a big upgrade, I know now that I should have bought a 9700 pro or some sort of 9800. I ended up getting a 9600 pro "ez" or something, with 256 meg of slow memory instead of 128 meg of decent memory. The stock speeds it was set @ are 410/225. Definitely funky especially after reading up on a few guides and FAQs.

 

[Jaguars4r]

Originally posted by: DJQuanta

Where are you planning to get your 9700 pro ?, at what price ?

Anyway, I'll have another opportunity to get a new card brought from the US (I'm in south america) by the end of january, and by then I guess I'll be able to get the bigger brother of the 9xxx series (the 9800 pro) for $140-$150.

9700 Pro on either EBAY for around $110-120 or Pricewatch

You can get the 9800Pro for $140-150?

 

[Todd33]

eBay has new "buy now" 9700 pros for ~$140. You cannot get a non-used 9800 pro for much under $200.

 

[dummy2001]

Yeah, in my opinion the low prices people quote for ebay and fs/ft tend to be unlikely unless you devote A LOT of time to trying to snipe a great deal. Crucial sometimes has refurbed 9700Pro's for $130, I'm expecting mine tomorrow (woohoo!).

 

[cherrytwist]

Just a heads up, I grabbed a Powercolor 9700 pro for $130 from newegg (refurb). My 3dMark score was 4586, just a few points lower than the benchmarks posted (and for the benchmarks they were running a p4 3.2ghz, I'm running a 2200+).

I'm happy with my decision

 

[DJQuanta]

You can get the 9800Pro for $140-150?

Not right now, but I think that by the end of January 9800 pro's should be around that price. (I hope )