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Which Card and A Couple Questions

4

49erinnc

Platinum Member
Yesterday, I ordered a retail Connect3D Radeon 9600 128MB (regular/non-SE/Pro/XT) from newegg. Today, a friend informed me that for pretty much the same price, Newegg is also selling the following refurbished cards:

EVGA FX5600 Ultra 128MB

Leadtek FX5700 (regular) 128MB

Powercolor Radeon 9600Pro 256MB

Are any/all of these cards that much better in that it would be worth it for me to cancel/RMA the 9600 I ordered and replace it with one of these? I'm not a hardcore gamer but am looking forward to playing Doom3 and others at respectable settings, while certainly not maxed out with 100% eye candy. Which card is going to give me the best results or am I fine just leaving my order as is and sticking with the regular 128MB 9600?

Thanks
 
You sure bought the wrong card, if you wanna play doom three. Rule of thumb: don't buy the card until the game you want is out.

It would be worth RMA-ing it for the 9600 Pro 256MB. I've never heard of a 256MB 9600 Pro, so make sure it is a Pro. It if is the regular one, then its all the same.
 
The three cards you listed should all be faster. However, some are only marginally faster. The fx5700 would probably be the fastest and perform best in doom3. It might also not be worth it if you have to send your card back and pay a restocking fee.

It would be worth RMA-ing it for the 9600 Pro 256MB. I've never heard of a 256MB 9600 Pro, so make sure it is a Pro. It if is the regular one, then its all the same.
Click to expand...
'
No it wouldn't be worth it. The ram on this card is clocked 400mhz instead of the usual 600mhz that is found on 128mb pro's. This is exactly the reason why getting a 256mb card is usually stupid.
 
Originally posted by: VIAN
You sure bought the wrong card, if you wanna play doom three. Rule of thumb: don't buy the card until the game you want is out.
Click to expand...

Why is it the wrong card? The regular 9600 will certainly run Doom3 but obviously not at the highest settings so it's not like I won't be able to play the game. Correct? And as Modedepe stated, the 256MB Pro is only clocked at 400Mhz so I guess I wouldn't be any better off getting that card over the 9600 I have on the way.

I just want to play Doom3 and a few other games with "good", not superb, graphics. All ATI/nVidia bias aside, which card from those amongst the ones HERE would you get assuming you could spend no more than $125? Yeah, I know that I can't expect much for under $125 but if that's all I can afford to spend at the moment, then how would you rank some of these cards?

Thanks
 
From the list I'd get a real 9600 pro (128mb, not the ez version). A 9500 pro would be nice too, though a few bucks over your budget.
 
Okay, assuming I get the 9600Pro, Newegg has two options currently within my budget:

A refurbished Powercolor 9600Pro (128MB) for $108

A retail Transcend 9600Pro (128MB) for $114

There were a couple reviews on the Transcend that didn't sound very positive but I've never heard of them before. Anyone know which would be the better buy? I'm always a little leery of getting a refurbished card but at least you know it's been tested I suppose. Thoughts on the two?

I'll probably just RMA the regular 9600 for one of these if the memory speed is going to make that much of a difference in gaming.
 
Don't be so sure the refurb is tested. You never know what you are getting. If the price difference was huge, and the vendor will RMA it, then I might try a refurb but otherwise, I would pass it by for a new one.
 
The refurb got snatched anyway before I could pick it up so it doesn't matter now.

Guess I'll just keep checking Newegg for new products and sell the regular 9600 on Ebay later on. Will end up taking a hit with costs but live and learn I guess. Starting to think I should just hold out until the 9700 Pro comes down some in price and get that for Doom3.

For those of you that can put aside ATI/nVidia bias, which side of the industry do you honestly think we'll end up running Doom3 the best or is it still too early to know? It will be based on OpenGL but does that automatically make nVidia the better card to run it?

And is there really that big of a difference in 400Mhz vs 600Mhz memory speed? To the average gamer, will a difference be noticed?
 
The preliminary benchmarks show nvidia a good deal faster in doom3 compared to ati. In other opengl games the same generally holds true, so I have no reason to doubt nvidia will be at least as fast as ati and most likely faster in d3.

As for the mem clocks, I think they would be fairly noticeable, especially when using aa/af. It's a pretty big memory bandwidth hit (9.6gb/s vs 6.4gb/s).
 
Dont go by 1 game. Look what they will do generally. Do you get a better card to run aa & af? I do. Thats why Im getting the 9800pro. I tried fx and it really sucks at aa af in games imho. If you dont use aa or af then nv or ati either.
 
Ok first thing's first, never listen to VIAN, other people in the video forums will tell you the same thing. For your hard-earned money, I would reccomend RMA'ng for a 5900 non ultra off of newegg, you can get one for a sub 200 price tag, don't spend $125 dollars for a card that you know you won't be happy with, if you need to wait awhile, do so, because it is worth it, and that card should BREEZE through Doom III. I don't know where VIAN is getting his information from, he just wants you to get a 256 mb card (he made a post about why 256 mb cards are "better" the other day, and that's just not always true) , an nVidia card will run an open GL game such as DoomIII better than an ATI hands down ( John Carmack at IDsoftware has already said this, and hes one of the lead programmers). A general rule of thumb, ATI has better DX9 performance, and nVidia has shown that their cards are better with Open GL, and that's what Doom III will be running on. Now just to rule out one of your options right out of the gate, any 5600 series card = NONO, if you must get an ATI card for under $125, I would reccomend you look around for a 9500 pro, that card has 8 pipelines, the 9600 series only has 4, if you can find an early 9500 pro board, get it, they are basiclly 9700's clocked down, you will get everything you want in that card 😀 I hope you find a card that suits you well, because yea, Doom III looks pretty awesome.
 
actually Carmack said that ati and nvidia's offering were pretty close in doom3, with a slight pefromace edge to nvidia and a slight quality one to ati. also ati's opengl support in general is far from lacking, they recently took the lead in glexess.
 
Originally posted by: VIAN
You sure bought the wrong card, if you wanna play doom three. Rule of thumb: don't buy the card until the game you want is out.

It would be worth RMA-ing it for the 9600 Pro 256MB. I've never heard of a 256MB 9600 Pro, so make sure it is a Pro. It if is the regular one, then its all the same.
Click to expand...

oh god....not the 256 meg bullshit again.


 
Interesting read, but are you sure that that goes for ALL instances, I dont want to change my views because of a blanket statement.
 
No it wouldn't be worth it. The ram on this card is clocked 400mhz instead of the usual 600mhz that is found on 128mb pro's.
Click to expand...
Didn't know that. Then it would be a bad choice to get the 256MB version of the Pro.

Why is it the wrong card? The regular 9600 will certainly run Doom3 but obviously not at the highest settings so it's not like I won't be able to play the game. Correct? And as Modedepe stated, the 256MB Pro is only clocked at 400Mhz so I guess I wouldn't be any better off getting that card over the 9600 I have on the way.

I just want to play Doom3 and a few other games with "good", not superb, graphics. All ATI/nVidia bias aside, which card from those amongst the ones HERE would you get assuming you could spend no more than $125? Yeah, I know that I can't expect much for under $125 but if that's all I can afford to spend at the moment, then how would you rank some of these cards?
Click to expand...
It's a really slow card. It might be lucky to run Doom III on low settings. I would have gotten the 9600 Pro.

Guess I'll just keep checking Newegg for new products and sell the regular 9600 on Ebay later on. Will end up taking a hit with costs but live and learn I guess. Starting to think I should just hold out until the 9700 Pro comes down some in price and get that for Doom3.

For those of you that can put aside ATI/nVidia bias, which side of the industry do you honestly think we'll end up running Doom3 the best or is it still too early to know? It will be based on OpenGL but does that automatically make nVidia the better card to run it?

And is there really that big of a difference in 400Mhz vs 600Mhz memory speed? To the average gamer, will a difference be noticed?
Click to expand...
I would go with the 9700 Pro or the 5900. But, usually Nvidia performs better in OpenGL. There is a big difference between 200MHz VRAM speed.

I don't know where VIAN is getting his information from, he just wants you to get a 256 mb card (he made a post about why 256 mb cards are "better" the other day, and that's just not always true)
Click to expand...
This guy doesn't read, therefore, he doesn't know what he is talking about. I never said it was ok to get 256MB VRAM card under the highest end. Only 9800 Pro and 5900 Ultra, it is worth it. I don't even recommend buying a card for gaming that is below the 9600 XT or FX 5700 Ultra. I just thought that the 9600 Pro he was talking about didn't have that memory speed drop, and for a cheaper price, It wouldn't hurt.

Quote
Originally posted by: VIAN
You sure bought the wrong card, if you wanna play doom three. Rule of thumb: don't buy the card until the game you want is out.

It would be worth RMA-ing it for the 9600 Pro 256MB. I've never heard of a 256MB 9600 Pro, so make sure it is a Pro. It if is the regular one, then its all the same.



oh god....not the 256 meg bullshit again.
Click to expand...
This guy doesn't read either. He is just assuming.

I'll try the GLexcess on my system.
 
Well, here's my issue:

I'm not only upgrading the video card, but the mobo, CPU and memory as well. Currently, I'm running an old mobo that has onboard video. It's pretty crappy but when my new motherboard arrives, I will be without a video card all together. So, I can't really wait until the release of Doom3 before I get a video card. So, I'm left with the dilemma of (a) buy a really crappy card for under $50 just to carry me through to Doom3 and then upgrade OR (b) go ahead and get a midrange card now and stick with it through Doom3 if possible.

And I don't want Doom3 to be my sole reason for the video card so despite the game running on OpenGL, I don't want to rule out all ATI cards in case I get into some other games. Bottom line is that I'm just broke because of all the upgrades and I just want the most bang for my buck with the video card. I pretty much just want the best card out there in the $100-$130 price range for all games and not just Doom3. As I've said, I know I can't expect much for that price range but if that's all I have to work with, it's all I have.

So, based on all of that, if you had a $135 gift card to Newegg (or somewhere else) and had to get the best video card you could get for all games, what would you go with? I'll go with the majority on this one because the more I'm reading, the less I'm liking the Radeon 9600 (non pro) that I already ordered.
 
I see what situation you're in, a 9600 pro would be a fine solution, it'll serve you well enough, long enough, thats fo-sho 😉
 
If you can *only* spend $135, and have to buy RIGHT NOW, look for a 128MB 9600Pro, unless you can find a refurbed card of a better variety (9600XT, 9700, 9700Pro, 9800, 5900, 5700Ultra). Newegg doesn't test its refurb cards (although if the user RMAed it because it was broken, they'll have them fixed and then sell them as refurbs), but they offer a 10 or 14-day warranty on them so you can try it out and see how it works. In my experience, they're generally fine -- they're often returned by people who are unhappy with a card's performance or overclockability, or who have problems getting it to work right. If the card was totally broken, Newegg would have sent it back to the manufacturer for repair (their "refurbs" are sometimes cards that were sent back for repair and then returned to newegg once fixed).

If you can save up another $50, definitely spring for a 5900SE/5900XT (especially if you want a card for Doom3). It may be worse than a 9800Pro, but it's faster than a 9600Pro. WAY faster.

If you can wait a few months, wait. It'll take some time, but the new cards coming out in March/April will *eventually* bring the prices on today's cards down. That may not happen until Q2-Q3, though (depending on when ATI and NVIDIA's parts ship, and how much they cost, how widely available they are, etc...)

You can also look for used cards on Ebay, or on the forums here. You could definitely get a used Ti4600128MB for $100 or so, which would probably beat the 9600NP and be around the 9600Pro in some games without AA/AF.
 
Thanks for all the input guys...VERY helpful. Seems like everywhere you go, it's the ATI against the nVidia guys and you can never just get an honest answer.

Seems like for the time being, the 9600 Pro or 5700Ultra (if I can find one cheap) may be my best bets. However, the one 9600 Pro that is on Newegg is by "Transcend" and I've never heard of them. The handful of reviews that card got were really bad as well so I'm worried about getting that card. Anyone know anything about Transcend and how they stack up against some of the other, more known manufacturers?

Also, in their refurbished section, Newegg currently as a GeXCube 9600XT for $119 and an ATI Radeon 9600 Pro for $126. Which would be the best bet, the XT?

Sorry for all the questions but I'm trying to learn as much as I can about video cards and it's easier to "talk" to people on forums than read a bunch of articles in my opinion.
 
Well, I got impatient and went ahead and ordered the Transcend 9600Pro. Was going to get the refurbished XT but I just felt better about buying a brand new retail card even if I'm not familiar with Transcend. Hopefully the 9600Pro will meet my expectations and at least I can overclock it whereas I read that the regular 9600 lacked in the overclocking department.

Now I'm just looking forward to installing the new mobo, PCU, memory and video card. Wonder what the chances of Windows2000 firing right up with no problems after all that upgrading are?....lol Using the same family of chipsets so maybe I'll get lucky.

 
Originally posted by: TheSnowman
actually Carmack said that ati and nvidia's offering were pretty close in doom3, with a slight pefromace edge to nvidia and a slight quality one to ati. also ati's opengl support in general is far from lacking, they recently took the lead in glexess.
Click to expand...

It looks like a very interesting benchie. I wasn't even aware of its existence.
Do you know if I will need the patch to be installed with the 1.2v fullversion?
 
First of all, the VIAN bashing in this thread is uncalled for. His advice was sound.

Secondly, from your first list of four alternatives, the 5700 would have been the fastest and best choice. nVidia's current FX architecture will probably be faster than ATi's at Doom 3 mainly because nV took Doom 3's requirements into account when designing the FX (double stencil ops per clock, FP64).

I can't believe you can buy a full-speed (400/600) 128MB 9600 Pro for only $115, though. The Transcend you bought was probably your best bet, although I don't know about the bad reviews you referred to. NewEgg has good customer service, so if you have trouble with the card, you shouldn't have trouble getting it taken care of with NewEgg.

As for your MB upgrade, be aware that you generally must reinstall Windows when installing a new MB. I say generally, because Hat Monster posted a very nice, very useful guide at Ars Technica on how to avoid a Windows reinstall with a MB swap. Good luck, and maybe shoot H@ an email thanking him if you find his post useful.
 
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