9600XT or Ti4680?

[Vanquish502]

I have a choice between 2 cards...

The Albatron Ti4680P(website) and the Sapphire 9600XT(website).

Now I know the ti4680 is older but its almost 100$ cheaper(its used).

Which one does everyone think I should buy?

or would it be best to stay away from used video cards?

 

[Malak]

Personally I wouldn't get used, but a lot of others do. I would pick the 9600XT, it's dx9.

 

[MadEye2]

I reckon the Ti4680P, it may only be DX8 but most, if not all, of the current PC games have DX8 modes and some have patches to make certain effects look good - such as the DX9 style water effect on Half Life 2

 

[Vanquish502]

Do you guys think the Ti4680 would run HL2 half decently?

 

[Jeffyboy]

get the 9600XT for sure. the Ti series is old or discontinued or close to it ;-)

 

[LTC8K6]

If I were buying a 9600 card, I would get the 9600pro because I don't think the XT justifies it's price difference. I'd get a true 9600pro with 400 core and 600 memory speeds.

 

[Vanquish502]

Ill look into that one

 

[2Xtreme21]

Spend $20 more and buy a 9700pro off ebay (buy it now). Best buy you'll ever make.

 

[Vanquish502]

Lol I thought of that about an hour ago but paypal seems to take forever with the 2 deposits to my bank account

 

[LTC8K6]

Oh yeah. a 9700Pro or even a 9500pro would be much better choices since they have 8 pipelines. 9700non pro or 9800 non pro too.

 

[dguy6789]

9500 pro is not considered a better choice then a 9600 pro or xt because it may be 8 pipes, but it is still around 5% faster in the absolute best case scenario. Try to get a 9700, if not, get a 9600 pro.

 

[MadEye2]

Yes! I hate PayPal, they are incredibly slow, it took them nearly 3 weeks to do the security deposite routine and buy the time it was done I had given up and paid for everything by cheque. Even transfering money from my account when I did buy something with it took a while too. Why can't eBay (spit) have their own payment system like Amazon?

Apparently the ti4200 will run HL2 pretty well, so I don't think you'd have a problem with the ti4680. They may be old cards but they still fair very well with DX8 and low end DX9 cards. Having said that have a look at the 9700pros like 2xtreme said, they generally perform better than the ti4xxx with antialiasing and anisotropic filtering on many games.

 

[LTC8K6]

I think you need a 9600XT to come close to a 9500Pro. The 9500Pro is generally far superior to the 9600Pro, and sometimes clearly beats the XT even when running with AA and AF. Only in a couple instances do the 9600's pull a bit ahead of the 9500pro.

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: LTC8K6
I think you need a 9600XT to come close to a 9500Pro. The 9500Pro is generally far superior to the 9600Pro, and sometimes clearly beats the XT even when running with AA and AF. Only in a couple instances do the 9600's pull a bit ahead of the 9500pro.

Show me a bench where the 9500 pro is far superior to a 9600 pro. I really dont consider 5% far better in any scenario.

 

[LTC8K6]

Text

 

[dguy6789]

10 more fps when they are already in the 90s is not really relevant. The difference is even smaller on the other benches.

 

[LTC8K6]

It's 12% and 18% faster respectively in the 2 benches I provided by my rough math.

In the first Doom3 bench it's actually 20% faster I believe, even though it is on the low end of playable. It's 22% faster on the first Far Cry bench as well. 18% faster in the first Joint Ops bench.

Besides, if you factor in overclocking, it's better to be overclocking an 8 pipe card isn't it?

Of course it also depends on the prices of the cards. If the 9500Pro is cheaper than the 9600pro/XT, then it's no contest in my mind. No reason to buy the 9600 unless you don't want a used card.

 

[Paratus]

Originally posted by: LTC8K6
It's 12% and 18% faster respectively in the 2 benches I provided by my rough math.

In the first Doom3 bench it's actually 20% faster I believe, even though it is on the low end of playable. It's 22% faster on the first Far Cry bench as well. 18% faster in the first Joint Ops bench.

Besides, if you factor in overclocking, it's better to be overclocking an 8 pipe card isn't it?

Of course it also depends on the prices of the cards. If the 9500Pro is cheaper than the 9600pro/XT, then it's no contest in my mind. No reason to buy the 9600 unless you don't want a used card.

Actually though the 9600XT is a great card to overclock. If you like volt modding folks have hit core speeds near 800mhz.


BTW

My 9600xt (526/648) can play HL2 pretty well at 1280x1024 with no AA.

Obviously though if you can find a 9500 to mod into a 9700 it'll win hands down.

 

[LTC8K6]

Well you can't mod a 9500pro into a 9700 due to the 128bit memory.

Personally, I would not get less than a 9800pro class card or better these days.

 

[Insomniak]

Originally posted by: Vanquish502
Do you guys think the Ti4680 would run HL2 half decently?

I have a GeForce 4 Ti 4400 (roughly the same) and I run HL2 at 1024x768x32, all effects on Medium (shaders on high), and 2xAA and it's smooth. No worries.

 

[housecat]

Originally posted by: LTC8K6
I think you need a 9600XT to come close to a 9500Pro. The 9500Pro is generally far superior to the 9600Pro, and sometimes clearly beats the XT even when running with AA and AF. Only in a couple instances do the 9600's pull a bit ahead of the 9500pro.

agreed, if you can find one, and for a decent price.

OP, I'd get the 9600XT if you could get the seller to match the Geforce's price.
If they are not equal price, go with the Geforce.. hands down.

you probably wont be able to find the 9500pro/9600xt for the price of a GF4. They are still great bargains.

I use a leadtek 128MB AGP8X TI4200 and play HL2/Doom3 just fine@960x600 at whatever the default display quality settings are.
im not too picky though, and am upgrading soon to a much more powerful card.

if you have the cash, i'd suggest a 6600/GT or 6800/gt geforce. otherwise, the Geforce4s are holding up well in price/performance.

For your situation, considering the curent market, I'd get either: one of the Geforce 4TIs or 9600Pro (not the EZ version or another slower model, make sure the memory bandwidth, core and memory speed at least match what is listed for the 9600pro on ATI's website).

I was between a GF4 and 9600 Pro myself a year ago and went with the GF4 personally, Nvidia drivers have been very reliable across a broad selection of games (both OGL/D3D) and worked well with my systems for years.
So I gave up DX9 support for Nvidia drivers.. worth it in my book. The whole system just runs much more "streamlined", even in the Luna GUI over my ATI cards.

 

[Blastman]

9600XT is a much better all-around card than the 4600. Problem with Ti?s is that they run like a one-legged-dog with AF. The 9600XT is ? 2x as fast or more ? as the 4600 if you are running 8AF. This is besides the XT having decent DX9 support. I can?t see buying a old DX8 card and having blurry textures because you can ?t run with AF at decent speeds.

In HL2 the 9600XT runs the DX9 path (better IQ) faster than a 4600 runs DX8. If the 9600XT is running DX8 in HL2 it?s substantially faster than the 4600 ?


HL2

4600 ? ? 66.3
9600XT ? 89.4 (dx8) ? ? 74.6 (dx9) ?

http://www.anandtech.com/video...oc.aspx?i=2281&p=6

Basically ? , 9600XT = 9500pro. They each win their fair share of benches depending on the review and settings.

 

[cubeless]

u can get a 9600xt on the ati tradup pgm (u need a junk vid card to send in and a code for 10% off) for $102... search on the hotdeals forum... and although my oc'd 4200's are ok, there's no doubt that my 9500 hacked and oc'd almost to 9700pro kicks the doo-doo out of them... go with a dx9 card...

 

[Paratus]

Originally posted by: LTC8K6
Well you can't mod a 9500pro into a 9700 due to the 128bit memory.

Personally, I would not get less than a 9800pro class card or better these days.

If I remember correctly there were several brands of 9500 PROs which were really just 9700 with 128bits turned off. It was one of the best cards to get for modding. Looks like cubeless got one.

I do agree with you that if you've got $200 and want to game don't get anything less than a 9800 PRO

 

[CraigRT]

9600XT.. will support more games