Sorting thru numbers game for best 9600Pro

[JediNight]

I know that with the number of different manufacturers making 9600 cards, that there is a large difference between the different flavors. In hitting up a number of pages it seems the GigaXCube (Giga-byte) 9600 Pro Ultra cards appear to be the best out there, am I wrong? (they use Samsung memory 4/4 pipes, 400core 600mem).

My problem is www.komusa.com lists 2 different cards that appear to be identical based on listed info. The one for $170 has 256mb memory whereas the one for $180 has 128mb memory.

http://www.komusa.com/fcoatira96pr.html
http://www.komusa.com/giatira96pro3.html

I'm assuming theres some info they don't list here that makes the $180 card actually better?

Any info on the difference between these cards, a better 9600 card, or equivilent for ~$180 ($200 tops) would be appreciated.

In reading the HL2 benchmarks review on the site, they are saying that in sheer power the 9600Pro is significantly behind the 9700Pro or 9800Pro, but when you factor in real-life tests like all the shading in games like HL2, that the memory bandwidth isn't the bottleneck and it actually performs neck and neck with the 9700/9800. What are your thoughts?

 

[modedepe]

Memory Configuration
SAMSUNG 128MB of double data rate SDRAM
Memory speed =2.5 ns

That's why it's $180. That's some pretty fast ram, rated at 800mhz. Chances are the ram on the 256mb one is only clocked at 400mhz.

 

[JediNight]

So realistically I could buy this card and overclock it a fair amount with no ill affects? (Assuming adequate cooling of course)

Edit: Also, what do you think about the point that future games will be limited by raw GPU power, not by memory bandwidth. That would make this card basically perform on par with the more expensive offerings almost.

 

[Pete]

9600 Pro only guarantees you the core is clocked at 400MHz. If you find a 9600P for under $150, odds are the memory is clocked at 9600 regular speeds (200MHz DDR/400MHz effective). The 256MB Pro you see is almost guaranteed to be 400MHz core/200MHz DDR. The 128MB Ultimate Edition is probably 400MHz core/300MHz DDR--a much better card overall. Contact Komusa to get definite clock speeds, but note that if a vendor doesn't specify speeds, they're usually hiding something. $180 also seems very steep for the promise of good overclocking. Consider buying a 9600 Pro elsewhere for ~$155 provided you don't care for the GigaCube's bundled game or promise of OCable memory.

Don't bother with 256MB for any card less than $250--they're not fast enough to make use of settings where the extra memory comes into play.

And don't buy a card for future games--buy a card for the best performance in today's games. Sure, future shader-heavy titles may be GPU-bound, but current games will certainly make good use of the 128MB Pro's far faster memory.

 

[JediNight]

What are other good Radeon card manufacturers other than Giga-byte? Theres so many nowadays that I'm wary of buying some of the cheaper 9600 Pro's bc they are probably cheaper for a reason Whether its shoddy ram or something else.

 

[Blastman]

That Gigacube ?Ultimate Extreme? 9600pro is a nice find. According to this ? Russian ? news flash, that card indeed does come with 2.5ns Samsungs. Also, according to that news post it is clocked 400/365 DDR --- quite a bit faster than the normal 9600 pro?s 400/300. There is a picture of the card here.

The best 9600 pro?s up till now came with 2.8ns rated Samsung memory, like the ?

Powercolor 9600pro ? ?Bravo? ? ? 400/337 ? 2.8ns Samsung
Sapphire Radeon 9600pro ? 'Fireblade' ? ? 400/300 ? 2.8ns Samsung (guaranteed o/c to 337)

That Gigacube 256MB 9600 is clocked 400/200, and the 256MB cards I?ve seen have only 5ns memory which hardly overclocks anything past 200Mhz.

As Pete pointed out, the 256MB cards are slower (because of the slower memory) and 256MB is really a waste on a midrange card.

NOTE: The picture of the Gigacube ?Ultimate? 9600pro 128MB at the bottom of the page you listed is certainly the wrong picture. The komusa site was probably to lazy to take a new picture of the correct card.

 

[Blastman]

A few other cards ?

Gigabyte 9600pro R96P ? (R96P128D) ? ? 400/300 ? 2.8ns Samsungs ?
FIC Radeon 9600 Pro ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 400/300 ? 2.8ns Samsungs
Hercules 3D Prophet 9600 Pro ? ? ? ? ? ? 400/300 ? 2.8ns Samsungs

All the Built By ATI retail 9600pro?s used to come exclusively with 2.8ns Samsung?s but now I understand they are shipping them with the 3.3ns Samsungs. And I wouldn?t be surprised to see the 3.3 show up on some other cards that originally came with 2.8?s The 3.3ns Samsung?s seem to be overclocking better than in the past --- it?s possible they upped the voltage slightly in the BIOS. I?ve seen 345MHz out of the 3.3?s. The 2.8?s usually didn?t go much faster than that.

9600pro?s with the 3.3ns Samsungs ? include: Connect 9600pro, GigaCube, and PowerColor.

 

[GprophetB]

I want that FIC 9600 , where can i scoop one of those?

googling around a bit no luck (newegg only has the 9800 FIC)

 

[Blooz1]

I recently installed a Sapphire "9600 Pro Atlantis" purchased from AllStarShop tht is clocked at 400/297 out of the box. This card has 2.8 Etrontech chips. This is the "retail lite" package - comes in a box, has the DVD player and cable, but no games. The AllStar SKU is 310-18732L, the Sapphire p/n is- 1024-9C19-DI-SA. Price was $155.

The board is a strange, very dark purple color which almost looks black in many lights. It's got the conventional circular metal fan similar to a "Crystal Orb", that's very quiet. Performance has been excellent so far - the system does 3064 on 3DMark2003, but I haven't needed to try any overclocking yet, as all the games I've played run fine.

 

[Hanzou]

My Retail made by ATI 9600 PRO came 400mhz/300mhz. It has Samsung K4D26323RA-GC2A memory that has a max of 350Mhz. Only problem is that I can only get it up to about 335-340Mhz without artifacts. Anybody know why? If the ram is able to go to 350Mhz, what is making the artifacts.

edit: anybody know what spped in Nano seconds my memory is rated at?

 

[Blastman]

Originally posted by: Hanzou
My Retail made by ATI 9600 PRO came 400mhz/300mhz. It has Samsung K4D26323RA-GC2A memory that has a max of 350Mhz. Only problem is that I can only get it up to about 335-340Mhz without artifacts. Anybody know why? If the ram is able to go to 350Mhz, what is making the artifacts.

edit: anybody know what spped in Nano seconds my memory is rated at?

GC2A is 2.8ns. I?ve seen a lot of 9600pro?s with 2.8ns Samsungs only make it to 340mhz.

A lot of the time the memory speed can be limited by what voltage the particular card manufacturer runs the memory at. My understanding is that the memory voltage may have been slightly reduced on later 9600pro?s, and I thought I read that some people were flashing BIOS?s to get higher voltages on the memory so it would clock higher.

 

[Hanzou]

A lot of the time the memory speed can be limited by what voltage the particular card manufacturer runs the memory at. My understanding is that the memory voltage may have been slightly reduced on later 9600pro?s, and I thought I read that some people were flashing BIOS?s to get higher voltages on the memory so it would clock higher.

what version were they flashing their BIOS too?

 

[Blastman]

what version were they flashing their BIOS too?

Sorry. No idea. THought I read that someplace. You could try searching Rage3D forums ...

http://www.rage3d.com/board/

EDIT:Rage3D seems to be down right now.