Decisions

Decisions Decisions

What shall I choose???

http://www.sapphiretech.com/vga/9600pro.asp

OR

http://www.power-color.com/r96a-c3n.htm

OR

Of course the "ATI Original Radeon 9600 pro"

What prices have you found?

Saf and powercolor are the same price the ati one is priceyer

ive heard bad things about power color's motherboards but not sure about graphics cards.

I was on the ATI site and the ATI guy said the best graphics card is the 9600xt should i fork out the extra cash for the xt?

What system are you going to run it on?

:D 9500pro hands down :clap:

u can overclock it to a 9700pro! w00t! :P :D

Yeah...wheres he gona get one? and the 9700Pro is only 20 more bux brand new...its $200 now.

I'm gonna run it on my "soon to be new computer"

Athlon Xp 2800+
1024mb ram

bump.

VB is on point. What prices have you found?

And as far as specs go:

"Athlon Xp 2800+
1024mb ram"

Is not very helpful. What would help us diagnose your problem would be if we knew exactly motherboard/chipset/PSU combo you had in mind, as that will undoubtedly determine your options. ;)

Ok the prices:

Sapphire Radeon 9600pro: $220cnd
Powercolor Radeon 9600pro: $220cnd
Ati original Radeon 9600pro: $265cnd
Asus Radeon 9600xt: $285cnd

Lets see motherboard ummmm most likely it's gonna be the

Asus a7n8x-x

Look here .You may have to pay 10-15 bucks for shipping but it is almost 40 bucks cheaper than you have found elsewere.

bfgtech.com

their 5700 ultras (not ati) come with a full lifetime warranty + 24/7 support

if u need a 9600xt, get it from some1 who bundled half life 2 with it

Quote:

---

Originally posted by atiVidia@1 February 2004 - 07:24
their 5700 ultras (not ati)

---

There are ATI 5700 Ultra cards? :blink:

Quote:

---

Originally posted by DWk+1 February 2004 - 16:30--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (DWk @ 1 February 2004 - 16:30)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-atiVidia@1 February 2004 - 07:24
their 5700 ultras (not ati)

---

There are ATI 5700 Ultra cards? :blink: [/b][/quote]
Yep, the 5700 Ultra is on par with the 9600 XT, much better than a 9600 Pro, and about the same price.

From what I&#39;ve heard/seen, its a damn good performer.

Simon.... read again what I said ;)

Quote:

---

Originally posted by DWk@1 February 2004 - 16:56
Simon.... read again what I said ;)

---

Oooh.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Mad Cat+1 February 2004 - 11:52--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Mad Cat @ 1 February 2004 - 11:52)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

Quote:

---

Originally posted by DWk@1 February 2004 - 16:30
<!--QuoteBegin-atiVidia

---

Quote:

---

@1 February 2004 - 07:24
their 5700 ultras (not ati)

---

There are ATI 5700 Ultra cards? :blink:

---

Yep, the 5700 Ultra is on par with the 9600 XT, much better than a 9600 Pro, and about the same price.

From what I&#39;ve heard/seen, its a damn good performer. [/b][/quote]
not only that, the bfgtech asylum 5700ultra comes with a lifetime warranty and 24/7 tech support

if u had bought it b4 yesterday, and bought a sniper boomslang mouse from bestbuy.com b4 yesterday, u would have also been eligible for an 80 dollar rebate on the mouse&#33;

its still an awesome value tho

Quote:

---

Originally posted by DWk+1 February 2004 - 09:30--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (DWk @ 1 February 2004 - 09:30)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-atiVidia@1 February 2004 - 07:24
their 5700 ultras (not ati)

---

There are ATI 5700 Ultra cards? :blink: [/b][/quote]
Read again... I&#39;m asking something

Quote:

---

Originally posted by DWk+1 February 2004 - 14:20--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (DWk @ 1 February 2004 - 14:20)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

Quote:

---

Originally posted by DWk@1 February 2004 - 09:30
<!--QuoteBegin-atiVidia

---

Quote:

---

@1 February 2004 - 07:24
their 5700 ultras (not ati)

---

There are ATI 5700 Ultra cards? :blink:

---

Read again... I&#39;m asking something [/b][/quote]
read the quote u quoted&#33;&#33;&#33; its right there&#33;

I know they are nVidia&#39;s <_<

However, why post something such as "not ati" when only nVidia has 5700 ultras? :smilie4:

ever think somebody might not know that?

Quote:

---

Originally posted by pc&#045;gamer&#045;dude@1 February 2004 - 13:58
ever think somebody might not know that?

---

Not the point. He also gave a site&#39;s url. If you go there, you will only find nVidia cards ;)

I can&#39;t internet shop though... :(

But anyways is it worth it to get the xt over pro?

Firstly, the 5700 Ultra is not even a DX9 part. Yes that&#39;s true, it is DX 8.1 only.

Therefore it will suffer in future games (especially HL2 and later games). Although it has performed almost on par with 9600 XT, if you plan on playing games released beyond today, I would highly advise you not to purchase the 5700 Ultra.
Read it:
ATI RADEON 9600 XT vs. NVIDIA GeForce FX5700 Ultra
Conclusion

Quote:

---

So, we have run the benchmarks for you to see the results. The new VPU from ATI Technologies is feeling confident in most currently available games. I can’t say the same about the new GPU from NVIDIA. However, the NV36 has its chance in OpenGL games as well as in games with poor textures but complex geometry. Besides that, this GPU shows good speed when no full-screen anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering are used, as well as in high resolutions. However, this largely depends on the specific application.

The matter of price can be waved aside – both cards cost about the same amount of money. As for pure usability, the ATI RADEON 9600 XT looks advantageous, too. It takes less space in the system case, produces less heat and noise and requires no additional power. The GeForce FX 5700 Ultra may be interesting to people who are not much into gaming as well as for those who want to have a graphics card with two DVI-I outputs. And of course, all hardcore fanatics of NVIDIA may find the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra an interesting solution for &#036;200. Although our card had only one digital output, there will surely be a model with two of them in the market. The owners of a GeForce FX 5600 Ultra may find themselves behind the times – this GPU may not be able to run the upcoming DirectX 9.0 games properly.

For those of you who are looking forward to the release of such games as Half-Life 2 or S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Oblivion Lost, but who can’t afford a high-end card, the RADEON 9600 XT may suit just fine. The owners of the RADEON 9600 PRO may not bother much about the new VPU. Instead, they can try to overclock the graphics core, because the main difference between the RADEON 9600 XT and the RADEON 9600 PRO is the operational frequency.

---

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Keikan@1 February 2004 - 13:16
I can&#39;t internet shop though... :(

But anyways is it worth it to get the xt over pro?

---

Does newegg.com, zipzoomfly.com, or allstarshop.com deliver to Canada?

Quote:

---

Originally posted by adamp2p@1 February 2004 - 21:42
Firstly, the 5700 Ultra is not even a DX9 part. Yes that&#39;s true, it is DX 8.1 only.

Therefore it will suffer in future games (especially HL2 and later games). Although it has performed almost on par with 9600 XT, if you plan on playing games released beyond today, I would highly advise you not to purchase the 5700 Ultra.
Read it:
ATI RADEON 9600 XT vs. NVIDIA GeForce FX5700 Ultra
Conclusion

Quote:

---

So, we have run the benchmarks for you to see the results. The new VPU from ATI Technologies is feeling confident in most currently available games. I can’t say the same about the new GPU from NVIDIA. However, the NV36 has its chance in OpenGL games as well as in games with poor textures but complex geometry. Besides that, this GPU shows good speed when no full-screen anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering are used, as well as in high resolutions. However, this largely depends on the specific application.

The matter of price can be waved aside – both cards cost about the same amount of money. As for pure usability, the ATI RADEON 9600 XT looks advantageous, too. It takes less space in the system case, produces less heat and noise and requires no additional power. The GeForce FX 5700 Ultra may be interesting to people who are not much into gaming as well as for those who want to have a graphics card with two DVI-I outputs. And of course, all hardcore fanatics of NVIDIA may find the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra an interesting solution for &#036;200. Although our card had only one digital output, there will surely be a model with two of them in the market. The owners of a GeForce FX 5600 Ultra may find themselves behind the times – this GPU may not be able to run the upcoming DirectX 9.0 games properly.

For those of you who are looking forward to the release of such games as Half-Life 2 or S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Oblivion Lost, but who can’t afford a high-end card, the RADEON 9600 XT may suit just fine. The owners of the RADEON 9600 PRO may not bother much about the new VPU. Instead, they can try to overclock the graphics core, because the main difference between the RADEON 9600 XT and the RADEON 9600 PRO is the operational frequency.

---

---

I can&#39;t comprehend why that may be true. I&#39;m gonna do some looking around.

Its talking about the 5600 isn&#39;t it:

Quote:

---

The owners of a GeForce FX 5600 Ultra may find themselves behind the times – this GPU may not be able to run the upcoming DirectX 9.0 games properly.

---

After a little looking I see no other site that says this...

On most benchies, the 5700 Ultra wins over the 9600XT.

Benchmarks are not the issue:

MSI GeForce FX 5700 Ultra-TD128

Quote:

---

If frames per second were the only measure of success, then the 5700 Ultra would be the winner by a slight margin. However, we must also take into account driver stability and visual quality. I&#39;m pleased to report that both cards performed flawlessly during testing and casual use. There were no compatibility issues or funny pixel happenings going on.

Visually, however, I was quite surprised to detect a difference between the two cards. This is the first RADEON card I&#39;ve tested, and while I&#39;ve read in other reviews that ATi often has a slight edge in visual quality, I didn&#39;t really expect to notice it. However, back-to-back comparisons clearly showed a small, but appealing, difference in image sharpness and color depth with the 9600XT. Colors were more vivid and deep with the ATi card. The 5700U certainly looks nice, but the 9600XT wins the visual prize.

Conclusion

The FX5700 Ultra is certainly successful in addressing the shortcomings of the FX5600 cards. It fits nicely in the middle ground between the price leader FX5200&#39;s and the top end FX cards. As usual with NVIDIA graphics cards, it is ultra-stable and compatible. Head-to-head tests with the ATi 9600XT confirm that essentially the two cards are even in terms of performance. The 9600XT has a slight visual edge, however, at least to my eyes.

MSI is less successful with the bundling options. It does come with the requisite cables and connectors, but the bundled software is of little value. It appears the buyer is paying a premium for this bundle, because a quick Pricegrabber search revealed that the MSI was the most expensive of the five FX5700 Ultras available.

Regardless of price and software reservations, the MSI FX5700 Ultra-TD128 performs very well for its class and against its competition. We award it 8 out of 10 Bear Paws.

---

It&#39;s all about quality gaming.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Keikan@1 February 2004 - 00:30

Lets see motherboard ummmm most likely it&#39;s gonna be the

Asus a7n8x-x

---

Umm, why?

Perfect video card for the best price&#33; http://www.pricewatch.com/1/37/5113-1.htm

Geforce FX 5200 128mb

Sure there are &#036;300 cards better than it, but... THERE&#39;S NO GAMES THAT REQUIRE ANY &#036;300 VIDEO CARD. I&#39;m sick of arguing with people over which card is the best and the fact is you DON&#39;T need the best video card to play hit games. Unless you&#39;re render-farming, putting together CGI movies, or dealing with millions of polygons per inch, you are well-off with this fine piece of graphics acceleration right here. I put these in every computer I build and they run like a charm. Not just computers for myself, but my clients as well. Ati is to Nvidia as Intel is to AMD. The only difference is the price. You will NOT notice more than a few fps better any high-end video card these days. Trust me.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by adamp2p@1 February 2004 - 16:12
Benchmarks are not the issue:

MSI GeForce FX 5700 Ultra-TD128

It&#39;s all about quality gaming.

---

I still prefer MSI. I don&#39;t mind paying the extra cash just to get quality (long-lasting type).

Quote:

---

Originally posted by jasonmog@1 February 2004 - 16:53
Perfect video card for the best price&#33; http://www.pricewatch.com/1/37/5113-1.htm

Geforce FX 5200 128mb

Sure there are &#036;300 cards better than it, but... THERE&#39;S NO GAMES THAT REQUIRE ANY &#036;300 VIDEO CARD. I&#39;m sick of arguing with people over which card is the best and the fact is you DON&#39;T need the best video card to play hit games. Unless you&#39;re render-farming, putting together CGI movies, or dealing with millions of polygons per inch, you are well-off with this fine piece of graphics acceleration right here. I put these in every computer I build and they run like a charm. Not just computers for myself, but my clients as well. Ati is to Nvidia as Intel is to AMD. The only difference is the price.&nbsp; You will NOT notice more than a few fps better any high-end video card these days. Trust me.

---

Sure, but there is no need to pay &#036;300 for a quality card anyways. &#036;140-&#036;250 is all you need. You see, I take my gaming experience very seriously. I think you do too; however you either don&#39;t have much cash, don&#39;t have a powerful enough system to appreciate what it means to get 70 frames per second on QUALITY settings = 4X AA and 16X AF all day.

For myself and other serious gamers out there, &#036;140-&#036;250 USD not an extravagant amount of cash to lay down for something that we cherish. And after experiencing such an enthralling virtual reality-like simulations, how could we step down to using a card that is not able to really perform on the DX9 level without a recompiler which recoded FP32 shader operations in FP16?

Nvidia was basically forced to make heavy optimizations once 3dmark03 was released since their cards aren&#39;t dx9 compliant and 3dmark03 uses dx9 shaders. The compiler introduced with the forceware drivers eliminated most of the need for these optimizations, and thus why current benchmarks show the 5950 and 5700 more closely associated with ATI&#39;s offerings. But there are still issues with the use of FP16 and FP32; especially since the FX cards simply aren&#39;t powerful enough to run anything decently in FP32 mode.

If you still prefer nvidia good for you. I don&#39;t.

9600xt for &#036;155...

Quote:

---

Originally posted by KinXen@1 February 2004 - 17:27
9600xt for &#036;155...

---

NO, LOOK:

9600 XT With Half Life 2 Coupon &#036;150 after mail in rebate

Here

So after the game that only will cost you &#036;100 USD.

http://www.circuitcity.com/IMAGE/pro...7100CCS.CN.JPG

Quote:

---

Originally posted by adamp2p+1 February 2004 - 18:48--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (adamp2p &#064; 1 February 2004 - 18:48)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-KinXen@1 February 2004 - 17:27
9600xt for &#036;155...

---

NO, LOOK:

9600 XT With Half Life 2 Coupon &#036;150 after mail in rebate

Here

So after the game that only will cost you &#036;100 USD.

[/b][/quote]
Then again, you could get an FX5900 for 160&#036;, and it&#39;s one of the best cards around. It was 200 dollars like 2 months ago... price is down, time to buy :)

EDIT - btw, I still don&#39;t understand why ATI&#39;s prices still haven&#39;t go down....

Quote:

---

Originally posted by DWk+1 February 2004 - 19:34--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (DWk &#064; 1 February 2004 - 19:34)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

Quote:

---

Originally posted by adamp2p@1 February 2004 - 18:48
<!--QuoteBegin-KinXen

---

Quote:

---

@1 February 2004 - 17:27
9600xt for &#036;155...

---

NO, LOOK:

9600 XT With Half Life 2 Coupon &#036;150 after mail in rebate

Here

So after the game that only will cost you &#036;100 USD.

---

Then again, you could get an FX5900 for 160&#036;, and it&#39;s one of the best cards around. It was 200 dollars like 2 months ago... price is down, time to buy :)

EDIT - btw, I still don&#39;t understand why ATI&#39;s prices still haven&#39;t go down.... [/b][/quote]
No link? :01: And as far as the performance of the 5900: not very impressive. Not very efficient either. And to boot, the image quality will be comprimised for the simple fact that none of NVIDIA&#39;s offerings can handle FP32. Their complier converts FP32 back into FP16 and then runs the code, while ATi&#39;s cards are totally comfortable with FP32 because they were built around the DX9 code.

Quote:

---

myself

I have a question for you. Is it true that the nominal frequencies of current nVidia cards are several (hundred) megahertz higher than todays ATi cards? I know that the current high end ATi card is the 9800 XT. Its engine clock runs at 412 MHz and the memory clock runs at 365 MHz (730 MHz DDR). Currently the 9800 XT is the highest performing gaming card in today&#39;s market.

The nVidia 5950 Ultra, nVidia&#39;s current answer to the 9800 XT has an engine (core) speed of 475 MHz and a memory clock of 475 MHz (950 DDR).

Man that is a lot faster&#33; Why isn&#39;t the 5950 Ultra, with a 63 MHz faster core, and a 220 MHz faster memory clock trouncing the 9800 XT?

Something is fishy here? Or maybe the ATi card is more efficent? No, that couldn&#39;t be possible...

See you around my friend...

---

Reply: Let me quote my friend Delta for his observations:

Quote:

---

Actually, I looked at the technical comparisons somewhere and it was stated that nVidia&#39;s 5950 Ultra was actually the more powerful than ATi’s 9800XT. But that’s just in raw power. I can&#39;t recall where I saw that, but I remember reading something to the effect of ATi being a well balanced and powerful race car, whereas nVidia was more like a drag racer. nVidia would win the race, so long as there were no turns in the course. In other words, raw power doesn’t mean squat if you can’t use it.

Due to the architecture of nVidia’s chip, they needed to write a compiler in order to boost performance. Unfortunately, compiling takes time and makes the card appear to be slower as a result. ATi doesn’t have to take the additional step of compiling code, so they are able to avoid this problem altogether. So, even *IF* ATi’s cards are less powerful, they still finish first.

That said, I still prefer nVidia. But that’s because I’m not much of a gamer. For my purposes, nVidia’s offerings fit the bill better than ATi. If I were interested in gaming and wanted the best possible performance, ATi is the unmistakably better choice. At least for now anyway.. the gaming market is volatile and that&#39;s a good thing. Competition is good for everyone&#39;s business.

Really, it all comes down to the right tools for the job. If I want to haul a bunch of people around, a van would be the appropriate automobile to drive. If I wanted to haul a bunch of furniture around, a pickup would be the more ideal option.

---

;)



More? Source: Anandtech

Quote:

---

Half-Life 2 Performance Benchmark Preview

Date: September 12th, 2003
Topic: Video Card
Manfacturer: Valve
Author: Anand Lal Shimpi


By now you&#39;ve heard that our Half-Life 2 benchmarking time took place at an ATI event called "Shader Day." The point of Shader Day was to educate the press about shaders, their importance and give a little insight into how ATI&#39;s R3x0 architecture is optimized for the type of shader performance necessary for DirectX 9 applications. Granted, there&#39;s a huge marketing push from ATI, despite efforts to tone down the usual marketing that is present at these sorts of events.

One of the presenters at Shader Day was Gabe Newell of Valve, and it was in Gabe&#39;s presentation that the information we published here yesterday. According to Gabe, during the development of Half-Life 2, the development team encountered some very unusual performance numbers. Taken directly from Gabe&#39;s slide in the presentation, here&#39;s the performance they saw initially:


http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/...epreview/1.gif

As you can guess, the folks at Valve were quite shocked. With NVIDIA&#39;s fastest offering unable to outperform a Radeon 9600 Pro (the Pro suffix was omitted from Gabe&#39;s chart), something was wrong, given that in any other game, the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra would be much closer to the Radeon 9800 Pro in performance.

Working closely with NVIDIA (according to Gabe), Valve ended up developing a special codepath for NVIDIA&#39;s NV3x architecture that made some tradeoffs in order to improve performance on NVIDIA&#39;s FX cards. The tradeoffs, as explained by Gabe, were mainly in using 16-bit precision instead of 32-bit precision for certain floats and defaulting to Pixel Shader 1.4 (DX8.1) shaders instead of newer Pixel Shader 2.0 (DX9) shaders in certain cases. Valve refers to this new NV3x code path as a "mixed mode" of operation, as it is a mixture of full precision (32-bit) and partial precision (16-bit) floats as well as pixel shader 2.0 and 1.4 shader code. There&#39;s clearly a visual tradeoff made here, which we will get to shortly, but the tradeoff was necessary in order to improve performance.

The resulting performance that the Valve team saw was as follows
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/...epreview/2.gif
Taken from Valve Presentation

---

Q.E.D.

Oh...your video card, (MX 440) doesn&#39;t have a single pixel shader&#33;

:lol:

Quote:

---

The very fact that Valve had to develop a special &#39;mixed mode codepath&#39; in order for the FX to run decently in HL2 while all Radeons run it very well without any special coding should scream foul play. Why can&#39;t you realize that? The &#39;forceware&#39; drivers convert the dx9 code which as you may know can lead to imperfections in the rendering. Not only that but the image quality is not on par either. All these things combined are what account for the half decent framerates in the latest benchmarks but it does not change the fact that the NV30 was not designed with dx9 in mind.

Not to mention all the sneaky little tricks their driver team tried pulling off like running with objects and particles missing. And detecting when a screenshot was being attempted so as to increase the image quality specifically for that shot in order to trick the viewer&#33;

I like knowing that what I spend my money on isn&#39;t a half assed product which is what you are getting from nvidia.

---

Now, do I have to explain to you what "FULL PRECISION" is? Is that the way you want your video games to be rendered? Is it any wonder why the entire FX&#39;s image quality suffers in newer DX9 games that are based on pixel shader 2.0?
How would you know? Your video card (MSI Geforce4 MX440 64MB DDR 8x AGP) does not use a single pixel shader. :lol: :lol: :lol: So are you speaking out of your ass or for the needs of gamers? I don&#39;t think so. <_< :frusty:

For what? the 5900?

PriceWatch.com

but since you look lazy (as usual), here you go

http://castle.pricewatch.com/search/search...+Cards&mi=N&m=N

Edit - btw, make that 170&#036;, i forgot about shipping

Quote:

---

Originally posted by DWk+2 February 2004 - 03:34--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (DWk @ 2 February 2004 - 03:34)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

Quote:

---

Originally posted by adamp2p@1 February 2004 - 18:48
<!--QuoteBegin-KinXen

---

Quote:

---

@1 February 2004 - 17:27
9600xt for &#036;155...

---

NO, LOOK:

9600 XT With Half Life 2 Coupon &#036;150 after mail in rebate

Here

So after the game that only will cost you &#036;100 USD.

---

Then again, you could get an FX5900 for 160&#036;, and it&#39;s one of the best cards around. It was 200 dollars like 2 months ago... price is down, time to buy :)

EDIT - btw, I still don&#39;t understand why ATI&#39;s prices still haven&#39;t go down.... [/b][/quote]
Adam, using a long outdated test, that used older drivers for one of the cards isn&#39;t really fair.

I&#39;ve heard about the picture quality thing also... from what I&#39;ve heard ATi beats nVidia in that.