Which graphics card is the best ?
 

Can someone advise me on which is best to go for out of these two:
(Click for details)


Radeon 9600XT 256MB DDR AGP


or this one:


Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB DDR AGP RP DVI VO


Which is the best to go for ?
They'l be run on a P4 3.4Ghz 1Gb Ram.

Thanks.

Tim.

Re: Which graphics card is the best ?
 

Deinitely the 9800 Pro :)

Re: Which graphics card is the best ?
 

Even though the other is 256mb over 128mb ?

Re: Which graphics card is the best ?
 

Yep ;)

9600 Series = 4 Pipelines/128-bit memory interface
9800 Series = 8 Pipelines/256-bit memory interface

The extra memory won't do the 9600XT any favours when compared to the 9800 PRO.

Re: Which graphics card is the best ?
 

Why didnt anyone tell me that before I bought my 9600XT !? Anyway im pleased with my 9600XT, rox the sox off my old GeForce MX 440 :D

Re: Which graphics card is the best ?
 

Even if it has 128MB memory, I wouldn't count on it using all that up. Even if it does, it will use the AGP memory in your system memory to take over.

Re: Which graphics card is the best ?
 

I'd definately get the 9800pro as well :)

Re: Which graphics card is the best ?
 

i think this will be unanimous in favour of the 9800 (thats another vote in its direction btw), solidly fast cards, used to be a high end card with all the bells and whistles and has now slipped into mainstream level and is still kicking on strong due to native pci express cards taking over the mainstream sector they are actually not going to be replaced. Instead they're gonna keep on kicking them out for a while yet.

I would look out for a 256meg version pro (was allways quite rare may not exist anymore) of an xt which will be about to take another price tumble as the x700's and nv 6600's start to show up (slightly quicker than a 9800xt but pci-e only so far)

It allways used to be whatever had the most memory was inherently the faster in the days when amount of memory was really important (8meg vs 12meg voodoo for example). This ended in the era of the gefroce 4 ti when the 64meg version shipped with faster ram than its 128meg brother and in quite a few cases was faster in raw pace, but fell back when aa and af were involved. Suprisingly alot of people still base there card decision on amount of ram on it, mainly big manufacturers do it to claim they have an **mb video card in there system. The 256meg ati 9200 (i think) was born for this exact puprose

K

Edit - Just checked, the ati 9550 256meg is the current weapon of choice for high amounts of memory but lame performance. It has 256megs of 400mhz ddr memory on a 128bit bus, and a 4 pipeline gpu running at 250mhz.
This is geforce 3 ti 200 speed memory and ti 500 speed core, ooo it must be fast :-\

Re: Which graphics card is the best ?
 

Also, look out for 9800SE which is a cut-down version of a 9800 but which can be soft-modded to unlock the 4 dormant pipes and magically turn it a full-blown 9800. These are a lot cheaper than a normal 9800 ....bout £90 at ebuyer, iirc.

You can find loadsa info on these cards by Googling :)

Re: Which graphics card is the best ?
 

OK, ebuyer quickfind code thingy is 56695 and it retails at £90.46 inc VAT (I really need to get out more :()

Re: Which graphics card is the best ?
 

I believe that Bifta is the resident graphics card connoisseur I'd wait for his opinion

Re: Which graphics card is the best ?
 

Aha, strangly enough the 9200 256meg cards have been discontinued, here is a link to one of the product pages for one of them,
http://www.tul.com.tw/global/product...cat2=7&cat3=14

That really must be made to jump off the shelf into the hands of someone not quite upto speed with graphics tech (saying that they are doing there best to confuse everybody and its working)
It has though been replaced by the 9250, same card same ram, slightly updated core that now supports dx9 features but isnt any faster

Re: Which graphics card is the best ?
 

Yes, but not all 9800SE cards are the same though. As a general rule of thumb, the cards with L shape memory (256-bit memory interface) will mod to a 9800 PRO. However, the cards with I shape memory are limited to a 128-bit memory interface and will only mod to the equivalent of a 9500 PRO (but with R350 core) ;)

Re: Which graphics card is the best ?
 

I have a 9600XT in my Athlon 3200+ machine and a 9800 Pro in my FX-53 machine, the 9800 is a lot better although the 9600XT is still a very fast card.

Re: Which graphics card is the best ?
 

I don't really need to make any comments, I was only going to add something about non pro 9800's having a 128bit memory interface, but I've been beaten to it. I've no experience of a 9600XT so can't really offer an opinion. On a similar note though, I've not overly impressed with the X800 series, I don't know if it's my CPU speed hampering it but I see only minor performance increases over my old 9800 pro.

Re: Which graphics card is the best ?
 

As I understand it the 9800 is superior, but both are very good cards for 'current' and close coming games - the 9600 is assuming you don't mind missing the 8x anti-aliasing.

My 9600 (non XT non PRO) runs that game I'm not allowed to talk about very well.

Re: Which graphics card is the best ?
 

Depends on the games you play.
You'll see the most increase during DX9/Pixelshader 2.0 games like Far Cry and Doom.

Re: Which graphics card is the best ?
 

Far Cry performance was actually worse, even with PS2.0 enabled. Doom 3 appeared to be worse, a lot more stuttering, in fact, the only game I've noticed a slight performance increase in is Tiger Woods 2004, as for the Sims 2 .. the performance is bloody awful even at 1024 x 768, That's on a machine with a fresh install of XP, Cat. 4.9 and the latest Creative / Nvidia drivers.

Re: Which graphics card is the best ?
 

I've got an 'all in wonder' version - you need windows xp to enable the 'softmod', though ;)

Re: Which graphics card is the best ?
 

I've looked on the dabs site for the 9800 version that has 256kb bus but it doesnt seem to say.
Overclockers seem to have tonnes of them and Im not sure which one it is exactly thats the same one but with the 256 bus.
Can anyone guide me, there are loads:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatal...00_Series.html

Re: Which graphics card is the best ?
 

4.9's are notorious for there lack of performance and bugs. Aparrently there is an allocation of ram over 128megs bug in the 4.9's which has been fixed in the 4.10 beta's which goes along way to explain the 20-25% boost in performance seen in 3dmark 05.
What cpu are you running it off, and are you pushing AF and AA ?