Should I get a 9600GT for $164?

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: SniperDaws
is it the 8.3's cats everyone is waiting for?

No, not everybody .. nvidia is hoping AMD will be very [very] late

 

[SniperDaws]

i might be waiting for em just yet as im not sure which card to get yet

i was contimplating stearing clear of ATI purely because of this 1800XL its horrible image quality its horrible video/DVD playback its horrible TV quality.

its basically horrible.....lol.

But the 3870 is fav for World in Conflict which is all i play at the moment.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: SniperDaws
i might be waiting for em just yet as im not sure which card to get yet

i was contimplating stearing clear of ATI purely because of this 1800XL its horrible image quality its horrible video/DVD playback its horrible TV quality.

its basically horrible.....lol.

But the 3870 is fav for World in Conflict which is all i play at the moment.

How is this game online? Is it really fun? I've played the single player portion but wasn't to my liking.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: SniperDaws
i might be waiting for em just yet as im not sure which card to get yet

i was contimplating stearing clear of ATI purely because of this 1800XL its horrible image quality its horrible video/DVD playback its horrible TV quality.

its basically horrible.....lol.

But the 3870 is fav for World in Conflict which is all i play at the moment.

i'd like to benchmark WiC .. do you happen to know if the MP demo has a built-in benchmark? ... i have a 10-day trial on DVD for it

btw, x1800 is ancient history



*since x1800* ... AMD has released: ... x1900 ... x1950 ... 2900 ... 3700 ... with only 2900 considered possibly "disappointing" ...

 

[Cookie Monster]

Originally posted by: Azn

Originally posted by: trajan2050
The Anandtech review is the worst I've seen from them. Why didn't they test with AA when all the other reviews show the 9600GT matching or beating the 3870 when eye candy is on.

http://www.pcper.com/article.p...522&type=expert&pid=14

First looking at the most pertinent comparison, the 9600 GT can clearly be seen as a superior choice to the AMD Radeon HD 3850 256MB and Radeon HD 3870 512MB

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/...w4LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

The first thing to note is that in all three games tested the 9600 GT was in fact faster than AMD?s fastest single GPU video card, the ATI Radeon HD 3870. At this price point of $169-$189, the 9600 GT competes more with the Radeon HD 3850, but lo and behold, it was besting the 3870 in our game testing. In Crysis it simply had faster shader performance which allowed several in-game settings to be set at ?High? versus ?Medium? on the 3870.

http://www.elitebastards.com/c...&limit=1&limitstart=10


It's the last of these decisions which is probably the smartest move of the lot, turning AMD's Radeon HD 3850 and 3870 into also-rans when it comes to gaming performance with AA turned on in this price range overnight. Although we didn't have a Radeon HD 3800 series board available for our full range of testing today, from the numbers we've compared even the Radeon HD 3870 often fails to keep pace with the GeForce 9600 GT once anti-aliasing is put to use.

We know HD3000 series doesn't do AA as good as Geforce 8. Something to do with dx10.1 feature where AA is handled through shader. This is within specs of dx10.1.

Geforce 8 and this new 9600gt does AA the old fashion way. Through pipes. More tmu or rops it has better it performs.

9600gt does AA well because the old way is actually faster than through shader with current crop of cards. When you eliminate these filters than what you get is "raw" performance #'s. What Anadtech shows. Although it would have been nice if they add some AA #'s in...

TMU count has nothing to do with AA resolve done on ROPs, not to mention the increasing ROP count doesn't have any impact on faster AA performance.

Also ever since the introduction of G80 and even R580, the term "piplines" is meaningless. Alot of what consisted of a "pipeline" are now independent.

From the reviews, 9600GT is clearly the card to buy. Its consistent, and when AA is enabled it still gives the 8800GT a run for its money thanks to new compression method? (theyve done something to manage memory better, but not much detail about this)

Anyway this card packs quite a punch. Its good at AA/AF thanks to it having a 256bit bus i.e high bandwidth, 512mb framebuffer, fast shader performance and a good video engine to boot. All for $169~189.

 

[SniperDaws]

Originally posted by: Azn

Originally posted by: SniperDaws
i might be waiting for em just yet as im not sure which card to get yet

i was contimplating stearing clear of ATI purely because of this 1800XL its horrible image quality its horrible video/DVD playback its horrible TV quality.

its basically horrible.....lol.

But the 3870 is fav for World in Conflict which is all i play at the moment.

How is this game online? Is it really fun? I've played the single player portion but wasn't to my liking.

Its amazing, its well worth buying, the single player is ok but online is just brill, download the multi demo if there is 1.

 

[AzN]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster

Originally posted by: Azn

Originally posted by: trajan2050
The Anandtech review is the worst I've seen from them. Why didn't they test with AA when all the other reviews show the 9600GT matching or beating the 3870 when eye candy is on.

http://www.pcper.com/article.p...522&type=expert&pid=14

First looking at the most pertinent comparison, the 9600 GT can clearly be seen as a superior choice to the AMD Radeon HD 3850 256MB and Radeon HD 3870 512MB

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/...w4LCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

The first thing to note is that in all three games tested the 9600 GT was in fact faster than AMD?s fastest single GPU video card, the ATI Radeon HD 3870. At this price point of $169-$189, the 9600 GT competes more with the Radeon HD 3850, but lo and behold, it was besting the 3870 in our game testing. In Crysis it simply had faster shader performance which allowed several in-game settings to be set at ?High? versus ?Medium? on the 3870.

http://www.elitebastards.com/c...&limit=1&limitstart=10


It's the last of these decisions which is probably the smartest move of the lot, turning AMD's Radeon HD 3850 and 3870 into also-rans when it comes to gaming performance with AA turned on in this price range overnight. Although we didn't have a Radeon HD 3800 series board available for our full range of testing today, from the numbers we've compared even the Radeon HD 3870 often fails to keep pace with the GeForce 9600 GT once anti-aliasing is put to use.

We know HD3000 series doesn't do AA as good as Geforce 8. Something to do with dx10.1 feature where AA is handled through shader. This is within specs of dx10.1.

Geforce 8 and this new 9600gt does AA the old fashion way. Through pipes. More tmu or rops it has better it performs.

9600gt does AA well because the old way is actually faster than through shader with current crop of cards. When you eliminate these filters than what you get is "raw" performance #'s. What Anadtech shows. Although it would have been nice if they add some AA #'s in...

TMU count has nothing to do with AA resolve done on ROPs, not to mention the increasing ROP count doesn't have any impact on faster AA performance.

Also ever since the introduction of G80 and even R580, the term "piplines" is meaningless. Alot of what consisted of a "pipeline" are now independent.

From the reviews, 9600GT is clearly the card to buy. Its consistent, and when AA is enabled it still gives the 8800GT a run for its money thanks to new compression method? (theyve done something to manage memory better, but not much detail about this)

Anyway this card packs quite a punch. Its good at AA/AF thanks to it having a 256bit bus i.e high bandwidth, 512mb framebuffer, fast shader performance and a good video engine to boot. All for $169~189.

Raising ROP might not raise AA performance but pixel fillrate have effects on AA performance. We are living in video card limited situations anytime someone raise up the resolution with AA. Pixel performance matter much as TMU with AA.

The way I see G80 and G92 is nothing more than a hybrid of the old pipelines and the new SP. It does AA through tmu and memory bandwidth. Not through shader.

9600gt does well with AA not because of some miracle compression but because it has same amount of ROPS with high clock speeds that rival 8800gt, its tmu count enough to compete, and memory bandwidth that is fast as 8800gt if not faster.

Yes I'm not doubting it packs a quite a punch for $170-210 price currently. But it's not as future proof or killer of 8800gt which can be had under $190 after rebate.

 

[bryanW1995]

since x1800* ... AMD has released: ... x1900 ... x1950 ... 2900 ... 3700 ... with only 2900 considered possibly "disappointing" ...

uh, apoppin, I have news for you...2900 was DEFINITELY disappointing. It was too hot, it was too loud, it couldn't hang with the big boys from nvidia, it just plain SUCKED. amd came out with a card 6 mos later that was faster, quieter, cooler, and 1/2 the price. amd's top end up until the release of 3870x2 was based on an RV chipset...when was the last time THAT happened?

I know that you got yours for $320, and that was a very good deal at the time. Don't let that fool you into thinking, however, that a bunch of amd engineers opened up some bubbly with the intro of 2900 and said "we've got a winner".

 

[Damn Dirty Ape]

Originally posted by: jaredpace
inst an 8800gt faster than this? You can pick one up online for 188 right now. I don't see any better deal that this.

from what I saw earlier tonight, the 8800gt overall is a tad faster in a number of areas.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995

since x1800* ... AMD has released: ... x1900 ... x1950 ... 2900 ... 3700 ... with only 2900 considered possibly "disappointing" ...

uh, apoppin, I have news for you...2900 was DEFINITELY disappointing. It was too hot, it was too loud, it couldn't hang with the big boys from nvidia, it just plain SUCKED. amd came out with a card 6 mos later that was faster, quieter, cooler, and 1/2 the price. amd's top end up until the release of 3870x2 was based on an RV chipset...when was the last time THAT happened?

I know that you got yours for $320, and that was a very good deal at the time. Don't let that fool you into thinking, however, that a bunch of amd engineers opened up some bubbly with the intro of 2900 and said "we've got a winner".

2900xt didn't disappoint me ... but then i got it back in May for $330 [with Orange Box]; in fact i set it right alongside my 8800GTS-640OC for a couple of weeks of intensive benchmarking and playing - and the damn AMD GPU managed to keep up.

*remember* ... i picked it for my 14x9 thru 16x12 resolutions and i warned our fellow members that 2900xt was NOT suited for 19x12 without some serious 'compromise'.

of course, the fact that i had a 850w PS, 2900xt was $75 cheaper than the GTS plus the fact i had a Xfire MB and foresaw myself getting another XT in the future, pretty much sealed the deal for me and i am not the slightest bit sorry about my decision .. looking back it was the best choice for me for the $$$ ... $480 total for HD2900 Crossfire! My rig is still 'keeping up' and i have no doubt i could go to a 19x12 display pretty well IF i wanted to [but i just find them too big for gaming].

it appears that a bunch of AMD engineers looked at their 'inherited' Dustbuster when GTX was released in November and said WtF? ... then they got to some serious work reworking it completely to compete with nvidia's MIDrange GTS .. and .. unbelievably [although i was a believer back then] .. it worked! .. AMD is back in the game with the top single slot solution and it looks like 'more' is on the way in the form of X2, X3, and X4. ... and r7x0. Prices are low ... what is not to like?



SO .. that is *one* serious disappointment, one 'so-so' shot and 3 successes ... not bad considering the tumultuous times AMD - ATi went thru in their merger ...
... and wth bought a x1800 when we warned against it ... that a new series was immediately forthcoming ?

 

[bryanW1995]

oh, I think that amd is doing a great job right now. In fact, I think that they might just be doing a good enough job to keep the company afloat until they figure out what to do about their cpu mess. They have some great cards out now and their driver support keeps making them better. I also know that for your particular circumstance, the 2900xt was a good move. I'm just saying that your belief that the 2900xt was "possibly" disappointing is definitely a minority opinion in the enthusiast gaming world. And on wall street. And at amd.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: bryanW1995
oh, I think that amd is doing a great job right now. In fact, I think that they might just be doing a good enough job to keep the company afloat until they figure out what to do about their cpu mess. They have some great cards out now and their driver support keeps making them better. I also know that for your particular circumstance, the 2900xt was a good move. I'm just saying that your belief that the 2900xt was "possibly" disappointing is definitely a minority opinion in the enthusiast gaming world. And on wall street. And at amd.

let's look at it my way for a change


AMD *built* on r600 ... 2900xt was a *start* in their grand plan to take on both nvidia and intel. As to CPUs, they need the same 'luck' they had with their ATi engineering division ... i think they will get it; they are close to their revised [realistic] roadmaps and are using a similar [but more difficult] strategy with intel as with nvidia - hitting the midrange hard until they get their X2s, X3s, and X4s and Spyder platform transformation into Fusion going. They are back from completely dead just a few months ago.

2900xt helped keep AMD alive ... that IS a success ... did you notice that their marketing is less stupid now? Very small and focused better.

now you can look at it your way again - thanks!
:laugh: