9600 pro Ultra or 9500 pro???

[tony_j15]

These are my 2 choices. It seems nvidia doesnt have as good cards for my price range(150-200). So which is better? Some people have hacked the 9500 into a 9700. But the 9600 has a .13 micron GPU, some have gotten 150mhz OC with standard hsf. I'm leaning towards the 9600. Thanks in advance again!

[Omardeth]

from what i have read , i don't own a radaeon so can say first hand , is that the 9500 pro is a better card than the 9600

[rastorize]

IMO, both cards are good, but I'd go with the older, 9500pro. It's architecturally the same as the 9700 pro, just with a clocked down core/memory and a 128 bit wide memory bus instead of 256 bit.

The 9600 pro is a completely new architecture and, rather than being a clocked down 9800 pro, it's a true value card. It has half the physical rendering pipelines of the 9500 pro, but the card runs faster to make up the difference. It's a good card, and in some benchmarks, the 9500 pro and 9600 pro are similar in performance, although the 9500 pro is still the overall better performer.

The 9500 pro can be modded to a 9700 pro (albeit with a 128 bit memory bus) using the Warp 11 bios mod which enables all 8 rendering pipelines in the 9500 pro, and unlocks the bios so the card can be overclocked...which really isn't overclocking at all since the memory and core were intended to run faster...ATI just clocked it down and then locked it to be able to sell it as a middle of the road card. But in reality, it's capable of much more.

The 9500 pro should also be cheaper...which is always good.

I've got one...I've modded it...the system sees it as a 9700 pro. It's a great card, visual quality is excellent, and framerates are very good as well. No problems with drivers. And, it should do well with D3 and HL2.

[tony_j15]

Well, the 9500 cost 19x and the 9600 cost 18x at newegg. Rastorize, what is your 3d2k3 score with it? 9600 will get 3700. They didnt call the 9600 "the 9600" for no reason. It should be better. And can you really say no to a 150mhz gpu OC?

[rastorize]

My 3DMark 2003 score was 3877 on a P4 1.4GHz, 768 GB RDRAM. My 3DMark 2001 on the same machine was 10225.

They didn't call the 9600 for no reason is right, 9500 and 9700 were already taken.

Just because it's newer doesn't mean it's better. Read some reviews on the net that compare the 2 cards...here's one:

At the same time, it costs less to produce than the older 9500 PRO model. From the consumer's perspective, the newcomer is a step backwards, though, considering the better overall performance of the "old" 9500 PRO.

They quickly brought the 9500 pro to the market to compete with nVidia. Rather than create a new core, they just used the 9700 pro and handicapped it with a 128 bit memory bus, disabled 4 of the rendering pipelines, and clocked down the core and memory.

Either card you choose, the 9600 or the 9500, both are good cards...just don't be swayed by the 'newer is better' part.

[camaro]

Get a 9700NP. It's very close in price to 9600Pro. And it's much faster.