Radeon 9600 XT vs Radeon 9700 Pro

[cow123]

my 9800 np came with samsung 3.3ns ram. went to 340(680)mhz on np bios. after flashing to 9800 PRO bios..... 384(768)mhz... from 3.3ns ram

because of the flash to 9800 PRO, i can now hit 466gpu/768ram ALL STOCK (except bios)

 

[sp80]

Im just wondering, why would ATI name it the 9600XT instead of the 9700XT if it is supposted to outperform the 9700 Pro?

 

[Blackroot]

Probably, they want it in midrange market, and if it was 9700 it would be considered alot more high end. I also could have something to do with how the card is structured.

 

[bluemax]

And the chip core is RV350 to RV360 as opposed to a different core like the Radeon 9700 has.

That said, it looks like an awesome deal for good speed and HL2 to boot!

 

[mchammer187]

Originally posted by: hurrikaane
"if you can find a 9800 non pro with 2.8 ns memory which is a rarity"

Which is the rarity, finding the non pro, or finding the non pro with 2.8 ns memory? Not all 9800 non-pro's come with 2.8ns mem?

a non pro with 2.8 ns memory

9800 non pros can easily be found though i would never suggest buying one unless it is cheaper than a 9700 pro

 

[lordtyranus2]

If you get a 9800 nonpro with that memory you can BIOS flash and overclock it past 9800 pro speeds.

 

[Regs]

McHammer, most of those benchmark tests has the 9700p beating the 9800np by 1-2 frames per second. There is no difference, except stated by Anand and ati themselves, that the 9800 core is 30% more efficient at AA/AF than the 9700p core.

I even think the framerate between the 9800np and 9800 256 Pro is negligible. 3-6 frames difference in both non aa/af and aa/af situations.

So overclocking a 9800 non-pro will realistically only give you an extra 3-6 frames per second on a few games.

Edit:
But I might missed your point, that yes, the 9700p is still a top performer. Even the 100 dollar more expensive 9800 TX beats it only by maybe 8-10 FPS. And the TX is just a over clocked, 9800p.

 

[CheetahMk2]

Originally posted by: lordtyranus2
If you get a 9800 nonpro with that memory you can BIOS flash and overclock it past 9800 pro speeds.

This just made my day.

But, from what I heard, and after I did my research, I decided to get a 9800np now. First off, there are 'core enhancements' that I figured would come into play later, and also it has a wider pipeline [256bit] than the XT [128bit]. From all the reviews I have been reading, they are guessing bandwith is going to be the next issue. The stuff with larger pipelines scale better [as in larger resolutions] which is why the FX series can catch up, so I think the only reason for the XT would be a.) cheap** b.) HL2 or c.) neatness of a card that overclocks itself automatically and slows/speeds up fan to boot. It may overclock well too, but from what I have seen, they had to come up with a new fabrication process just to get to 500mhz core... I doubt the end consumer would be able to push it any farther.

OTOH, it might be neat to upgrade my laptop to a 9600XT core.... cooler, and faster than my 7500

 

[Regs]

Actually Cheetah, they say it's the other way around. They are stating that future DX9 games would be more GPU bound than bandwidth bound. But of course, that's only quoted from Valve and Anand, and I doubt every PC game manufacturer will just abruptly stop making bandwidth bound DX8 games.

 

[GTaudiophile]

The big question is, will ATi's OEMs offer a version of the 9600XT with a 256-bit memory pipe?

Visiontek's press release has this to say:

The XTASY 9600 XT features ATI?s RADEON 9600 XT VPU, a 256-bit memory interface with 128MB of high speed DDR memory, full Microsoft DirectX® 9 support and an 4-pixel pipeline. The card has a core clock speed of 500MHz and an effective memory clock of 600MHz. In addition, purchasers of the XTASY 9600 XT will receive a free copy of Half-Life ® 2, when the game ships. It has a suggested retail price of $199.

Think it's a typo?

Read this Box Shot from SAPPHIRE!

If the 9600XT is made available with a 256-bit memory pipe, it will give a 9700 PRO a run for its money.

 

[rbV5]

If the 9600XT is made available with a 256-bit memory pipe, it will give a 9700 PRO a run for its money.

Isn't the memory controller imbedded in the core? Is ATI's spec sheet wrong for the 9600XT, they wouldn't deliver a different core to OEMs. The 9600 also uses higher z-compression (8:1 vs 6:1 for r300) which was supposed to help make up for the reduced memory data path. I see how that could help tremendously if you are in a memory bandwidth bottleneck, but how is the shader performance going to match r300? Clockspeed? Interesting, lets see it already.

 

[Blackroot]

For me, i'm prolly not gonna be overclocking much or at all most likely, so would the 9600XT probably be best suited for me, and how i will use it?

 

[CheetahMk2]

Prolly will, and it may be able to overclock anyway. Plus you get a free copy/voucher for HL2, they may choose not to box it and just give a voucher. But who would be stupid enough to?

Quote: "Unprecedented mainstream power with a powerful base of four rendering pipelines" [maybe it's just me but I read that as 128bit..]

 

[ae8616v]

Originally posted by: sp80
Im just wondering, why would ATI name it the 9600XT instead of the 9700XT if it is supposted to outperform the 9700 Pro?

Different GPU core. . .

 

[PhiLoc]

damn i hope that's true. HL2 is going to be the first game for me to buy in a while and I need to upgrade my vid card so I guess I may as well kill 2 birds w/ one stone.






You aren't going to buy Max Payne 2? What are you going to play until April '04?

 

[ae8616v]

Originally posted by: PhiLoc
damn i hope that's true. HL2 is going to be the first game for me to buy in a while and I need to upgrade my vid card so I guess I may as well kill 2 birds w/ one stone.

Yeah well, apparently, I might hold off buying a new video card since the game got delayed again .

 

[Medicated858]

Originally posted by: sp80
Im just wondering, why would ATI name it the 9600XT instead of the 9700XT if it is supposted to outperform the 9700 Pro?

Because it isn't going to. Think about it it has half the pipelines. A non-softmodded 9500 np with the 256 bit interface still doesn't even come close to the 9700 np, even when it's overclocked. The missing four pipelines chop off the nuts of the card. But for midrange cards it will be a good buy. But if it outperforms the 9700 pro I'll eat my shoe.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: Medicated858

Originally posted by: sp80
Im just wondering, why would ATI name it the 9600XT instead of the 9700XT if it is supposted to outperform the 9700 Pro?

Because it isn't going to. Think about it it has half the pipelines. A non-softmodded 9500 np with the 256 bit interface still doesn't even come close to the 9700 np, even when it's overclocked. The missing four pipelines chop off the nuts of the card. But for midrange cards it will be a good buy. But if it outperforms the 9700 pro I'll eat my shoe.

Mind you however that just like 4 of the pipelines, half of the memory bandwidth is disabled, just like when Anand looked at his preview sample of the 9500.