Ati Radeon 9600.....need some advice!

[Matt22]

Well, I have decided to buy the ati radeon 9600 card....
but from who!

I dont understand that there are thousands of makes, such as PowerColor, Saphire, GeCube and others.
These are not shops I am talking about, I mean that they actually have a brand make!, but I dont see why they arent all called ATI.

I need some help, because some of them are more expensive then others! even though they all say the same ATI Radeon 9600 description.

here, look...... http://froogle.google.co.uk/froogle?q=ati+radeon+9600


and another thing, whats the difference between 128mb and 256mb?, dont tell me that 256mb means more memory coz im not stupid, Im just curious how some of these cards are the same price, even though they are 128mb and 256mb.


here are my computer specs:
Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz
1gb DDR ram
80gb hardrive
nvidia geforce 440 mx


Can anyone help me?

[SprigganX]

The 9600xt would be a good choice if you are in a budget but if you have around $200, buy a 9800 pro as they are fast and cheap at the moment.

[GamersDemon]

I have the 9700 from hercules. HL2 runs well on it. :thumbup:

[loserII]

don't worry abut the company names their all similar just choose pro or XT pretty much but a 9800 will last you forever (sorta[a long time]) :smartass:

[Matt22]

Could someone send me a link? Im in the UK and Im buying in £

But more importantly, I really need this question answered....

What is the difference with 128mb and 256mb? Why are they the same price?
And, which would be the best for me, here are my system specs:

pentium 4 2.8 Ghz
1gb ram
dvd rom
nvidia geforce 440 mx

[Hasse]

The one with 128 mb is faster but the 256 mb has 128mb+ ram so it's better. But I should buy a 9800pro and flash it to an XT. That's kinda cheap and it's a lot of performance!!

[Matt22]

Im sorry, but can anyone really help me with this?


The one with 128 mb is faster but the 256 mb has 128mb+ ram so it's better.
Are you serious? You make no sense at all.

[Psycho Pigeon]

Just because it says 128MB doesn't mean its crap, judging by the way you spam its more like your judging a card by its MB size. For all you know you could buy a card that has 256MB but its got a 64 bit interface so that would be crap. Take my card for example, it plays every game on full!. Anyway i just bought MOH PA and i'm guna play online for a few hours. Get a nvidia 6800!.

[LoneStrider]

mines a 9600XT 256 MB. its great, not perfect. excellent suggestion for a good price/quality searcher.

im sorry, i did not get to the subject.

answer:

i dunno. :rolleyes:

[Matt22]

:lol: Oh forget it.

All I asked was why a 128mb card can be only £5 (thats $10 for those illiterarte americans) less than the 256mb

Dont worry, psycho helped me out in dreamweaver class!, yes! we actually go to a dreamweaver class! unlike
all these people who are BORN with html, php, java, action scripting, flash, dreamweaver and css in thier BRAIN!

:dennis:

[BIOS]

Originally posted by Matt22@Nov 30 2004, 11:55 PM
:lol: Oh forget it.

All I asked was why a 128mb card can be only £5 (thats $10 for those illiterarte americans) less than the 256mb

Dont worry, psycho helped me out in dreamweaver class!, yes! we actually go to a dreamweaver class! unlike
all these people who are BORN with html, php, java, action scripting, flash, dreamweaver and css in thier BRAIN!

:dennis:
K buddy listen up!! just because a video card has an extra 128 mb of ram doesn't make it better or faster, what matters is the VPU.....the actual chip.............ok B)

[Psycho Pigeon]

Yeh exactly what i was saying its not just to do with the ram. Too bad matt22 doesn't grasp it. :rolleyes:

[TylersDad]

The additional memory exists simply to allow the video card to handle more textures in memory. Memory is real cheap compared to the cost of manufacturing the card so the price difference on cards with more memory can be minor. More memory doesn't necessarily mean it's a better card though you would think so. In fact a card with more memory may be cheaper than one with less depending on the manufacturer.

Some manufactures build their cards under more stringent specifications which make them better cards in general than an equivalent card using the same chipset from ATI or nVidia. There are cheap crap cards that use the chipsets from ATI or nVidia. So determining which is better is only possible via the standard testing tools that testing companies use. Or you just stick with names you know.

For example the ATI All in Wonder version of the Radeon 9600 doesn't come in a 256MB version, only 128 but the All-in-Wonder is the premier version of the ATI cards and from comparisons I've read, faster than say something from Saphire with 256 MB ram. This is all debatable of course and only testing the cards can tell you the truth of the matter.

As a general rule, pick a chipset you like such as the Radion 9600 and stick with a manufacturer you like or have read about.

[Strawberry knight]

Originally posted by Matt22@Dec 1 2004, 02:58 AM
Im sorry, but can anyone really help me with this?


The one with 128 mb is faster but the 256 mb has 128mb+ ram so it's better.
Are you serious? You make no sense at all.
Ho boy ... you haven't even read my post?! Than why did I bother spending my time helping you in the first place :nxs:

Go over this thread again, however this time READ my post http://forums.gamershell.com/index.php?act...=ST&f=48&t=9010 (http://forums.gamershell.com/index.php?act=ST&f=48&t=9010)

hu .... -_-

[CpTn_lAw]

A card with 128mb ram is fast and can give you 1024x768 but no higher or sacrificing graphic details in games. A 256mb one gives you 1280x1024 or igher but, as the price doesn't change a lot from the 128mb version, they must remove some features , such as interface (64 or 128 bit for these cards => radeon 9600 >9800) , core speed, or other specs that are special to the card. the easier way not to go wrong is that you wait a bit and buy a geforce 6 or ati X800....they're expensive but fps costs......
what's your budget matt? with that information i could help you. :)

[BIOS]

Originally posted by CpTn_lAw@Dec 3 2004, 11:09 PM
A card with 128mb ram is fast and can give you 1024x768 but no higher or sacrificing graphic details in games. A 256mb one gives you 1280x1024 or igher but, as the price doesn't change a lot from the 128mb version, they must remove some features , such as interface (64 or 128 bit for these cards => radeon 9600 >9800) , core speed, or other specs that are special to the card. the easier way not to go wrong is that you wait a bit and buy a geforce 6 or ati X800....they're expensive but fps costs......
what's your budget matt? with that information i could help you. :)
64 or 128 bit for 9600 and 9800?? what the.........no the 9800 is 256 bit actually and the 9600 is 128 bit, and my 128 meg 9800 pro can run games above 1024 X 768 just fine without sacrifcing graphics detail, what are you talking about?
and for the dude that started this thread: if your looking at a 9600 $ range card, just grab yourself a 9600 XT 128 meg, its a decent card for the $, but you may want to save an extra what? 100 bucks and get a 9800 pro instead which is even better....for the time being!!

[loserII]

didn't they stop making the 9800? or just the XT version

[Matt22]

I thank you all for your help. Its christmas time and I am deciding on a good card to as santa for! lol

Do you think that this card would suit me .......
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B...6265747-5439625 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000283EI0/qid=1102977634/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/026-6265747-5439625)

And will it work for the follow games I want to play:
MOH: PA
Brothers In Arms
Half Life 2


And lastly, will this card run Direct X 9.0c (which I belive is the latest version)

[BIOS]

eeee! I would seriously try and go for the "XT" version of that card man....i've seen the 9600SE in action and its not so good....thats my advice to you! ;)

and yes it is a directX 9 card.

[Lord_Behemoth]

To put them all in the correct order, first the one that performes the worst and last the one that performes the best

9600SE, 9600, 9600 Pro, 9600XT.

the really 9600SE really isnt very good

So I agree with BIOS and try and get the XT version, a friend of mine has it and it's pretty damn good :thumbup:

[Psycho Pigeon]

Yeh i seen the SE edition in action and it wasn't as good as the 9600 . Lol, matt22 has been sending me PM's saying he knows more about computors than me.....we're only trying to help you matt22 jesus. Don't spam my inbox.

[bobhead]

Originally posted by Matt22@Dec 1 2004, 04:55 AM
(thats $10 for those illiterarte americans)
Wait, I was skimming this and saw :rolleyes: something of mild interest; were you joking when you misspelled illiterate? Because if not, thats what we Americans call irony. :smartass:

[hulabaleet]

yeah avoid SE like the plague
128mb of video ram is almost completely unrelevant to the resolution played at also, BTW.
some cards have better kinds of memory than others, and some have faster memory
for example, 128mb of 128 bit DDR(double data rate, basicly on all but higher end cards) will likely outperform the same video card chip thats housing 256mb of 64 bit ram.
the "mb" is how much information is stored on the video card, soleley for textures,which in lamens terms is the amount of details drawn on 3 dimensional objects in applications. the video cards chipset powers the "eye candy", typicaly the manufacturer of the video card will balance the memory speed, amount, type, etc with the overall performance of the chipset, so as to simulate consistency in advanced gaming options
for example
if you had a good chipset but very bad ram, say a 9600 with 128 mb 64 bit ram
you could play at a high resolution(1280x1024+) with high detailed models and shaders shadows water ETC but at the same time you would have to have low detailed textures, which looks bad

in other words
get a good balanced chipset, one negative aspect holds back the entire product
SE models from ATI products and LE models of Nvidia products are the "unbalanced" chipsets, or in some cases, therye balanced in the fact that all the aspects of are the low grade.

if all of that made any sense or not
heres a quick sumary for you

ill bunch your best bets in american dollar price ranges, u do the math from there, and i must recomend www.newegg.com for all computer parts assuming they ship to UK

50-70$range, avoid this, you expect good performance in direct X 8 or earlier games, bad performance in direct X 9 regardless of what the chipset boasts

70-120$ range
avoid nvidia altogether unless ur looking into the 200+ range
in this range look at the lower models of ati that boast no buffs such as XT or PRO models, but hold a good standard model, ati 9600 is what ur aiming for here

120-160$
this is a tricky price range, you can get highest performance possible from mid range chipsets such as the 9600XT or nvidia 5600s
the reason i call thsi price range tricky is because it has a wide range of options,
the radeon 9800 chipset is available in the non pro version and in the SE version, both of which are very good and likely outperform all the 9600;s

at retail stores these 9800s are roughly 200-300 dollars, newegg is the best investment there in any where from 50-150 dollars cheaper

the aforementioned 9800s house the peak of graphic architecture performance and efficiency of the last generation of video cards, now in the shadow of the new Xxxx ATIs and 6x00 nvidias this has caused the price to drop dramticaly on a still amazing graphic chipset

in other words, tigerdirect.com or newegg.com, look for the 128mb Radeon 9800s with the 256bit architecture , but the 128bit ones are good too and a lil cheaper
heres a great bang for your buck 9800 atlantis link, the atlantis is a great low budget consumer alternative, around the same level as the 9800SE
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-102-369&depa=1 (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-102-369&depa=1)

or if u bump up to 175 dollars this is a regular 9800 and not an SE and has twice the ram, which in this case is good because its the same kind of ram as on the atlantis, but also is a little faster here, its a saphire 9800 256mb, and is probably your best alternative
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc....-131-412&depa=1 (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-131-412&depa=1)