Sapphire Radeon 9500 Pro vs. ATI Radeon 9500 Pro

[fibes]

Hello,
Does anyone know the difference between these cards? I saw the Sapphire advertised for 159.00 and I know that the ATI can cost around 190.00. Is the Sapphire considered to be one of these "EZ" or "Lite" cards, where they reduce the amount of memory? I was considering the Powercolor Radeon 9600 Pro EZ, when I found out they only slightly increased the core memory over the standard Powercolor Radeon 9600. Do you think the Sapphire is the way to go, or would you recommend an ATI or Powercolor Radeon 9600 Pro? Please share your thoughts. Thanks!

 

[Schadenfroh]

just get a 9700 np for 200🙂

 

[dannylovesayumi]

Well if you can still find a ATI9500pro, go with that. i am not saying the 9600pro is not a good card but remember this, 8 pipelines on the 9500pro make a hell of a difference compare to 9600pro 4 pipelines. 9600pro is a wonderful OC card but i would recommend you not to do it all the time as i think the card's lifespan will shorten from what i have heard. go with 9500pro whether is sapphire or ati if you still can find one as ATI has stop productions on this cards. If you have extra cash, 9700pro is THE card to get as there the 9800pro is still way way to ex to get at the moment. check out this website for all agp cards! http://www.hothardware.com/reviews.shtml

Anyway PowerColor is stil a new player in the market, so they can offer a good bargain but Sapphire, Hercules and ATI is the best! I am going to change to a 9800pro as I got a great deal with a friend of mine. (less than 300 for org ATI !) Again, do not oc your card if you need not to. ATI recommendation at default settings is more reliable if you want your card to live until at least 2006. Well we know by then ATI probably has produce a new 10000 or 12000 with 0.10 microns and 1024mb????????? Maybe..............

my rig:
i850E 2.4GHz
9600 pro ati but tune back to factory settings (the best I have oc is 515/366)
1 gb samsung rdram pc800
2 X 120GB ata 133 maxtor 8mb fluid
audigy 2 6.1 platinum ex
creative 5.1 megaworks 550
win pro with sp1
direct X 9.0a
thermaltake phaseIII cooling case
sony cd-rw / dvd-rom

😎

 

[BaboonGuy]

if you ask me, there's no reason to go for a 9500 Pro if you can get a 9500 Non-Pro. why you ask? well because the Pro version is more expensive, and you can just overclock the Non-Pro (something that you can't do with a Pro) to Pro speeds. ALSO, the best part of getting a Non-Pro is the fact that you can softmod it! there's a very good chance you'll be able to do a 9500 -> 9800 mod with it as well, which would turn out to be a MUCH better performer than the 9500 Pro. i think the hot deals forum has some 9500 NPs that have the redpcb/L-shaped mem that you can attempt to softmod.