9550 or 9600SE ?

[NightCrawler]

Card 1: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-164-019&depa=0

Card 2: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-164-006&depa=0

Strange number system, so which card for a budget machine.

 

[SneakyStuff]

9550, it has a 128 bit memory bus

 

[jpeyton]

Card 3: http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-134-108&depa=0

It's a better budget card. But the 9550 is faster than the 9600SE, because they are based on the same core architecture, but the 9550 has a 128-bit bus. Even the ECS 9200 is faster than any 9600SE.

 

[NightCrawler]

Originally posted by: SneakyStuff
9550, it has a 128 bit memory bus

It's 250 Mhz though and only OpenGL 1.5 support. Can it be overclock and is OpenGL 2.0 that important ???

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: NightCrawler

Originally posted by: SneakyStuff
9550, it has a 128 bit memory bus

It's 250 Mhz though and only OpenGL 1.5 support. Can it be overclock and is OpenGL 2.0 that important ???

Even if the clock is slower, it's faster overall. Don't know about overclocking. I don't think OpenGL 2.0 support is critical, especially for a budget machine.

 

[imported_theEman]

Let's remember that anything SE means that it is a crippled card. I'd go for the Radeon 9550. And by the way, you can get a Ti4200 which is way better than any of these cards here for around $70 used.

 

[Silkwormsgnr]

No, the 9200 is slower than the 9600SE.

Here: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/mainstream-roundup.html. The 9600SE wins easily.

 

[SneakyStuff]

Look, the 9550 is the best choice here, or if you can, get a used TI 4200

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: Silkwormsgnr
No, the 9200 is slower than the 9600SE.

Here: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/mainstream-roundup.html. The 9600SE wins easily.

Actually, the 9200 IS faster.

In Call Of Duty, Far Cry, and Unreal 2, the 9200 beats the 9600SE.

I have a reputation to protect, y'know.

 

[Silkwormsgnr]

The 9200 may be a tad faster in a few games (like you'll see in the xbitlabs article I linked) because sometimes DirectX 8 shaders are used instead of DirectX 9. But you'll often see games that don't work at all on it.

 

[Johnbear007]

wow... so since a 128mb 8500 is better than a 9200 even the 8500 is better than the 9600se

lol

 

[Silkwormsgnr]

I'm sorry for not replying to the original message, completely forgot about it

The 9550 is much better than the 9200 and 9600SE, and not that much more expensive. Just make sure you're getting a card with at least 200MHz (400DDR) memory. The chip runs very cool and is easily overclockable to 9600 Non-PRO speeds, costing about $30 less.

Some benchmarks: http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/tul9550/