Reccomend a graphics card

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2003-10-05 02:56pm

I am thinking an ATI, I've found a good price for a HIS Excalibur Radeon 9600 - 128 MB DDR, anyone know if this card is any good?

Or do you have any other reccomendations?
I am looking for something in the 140-160$ range.

Shogoki · Post by **Shogoki** » 2003-10-05 03:52pm

I don't know about that specific card, but the 9600 is the best you can get at that price range. Try to get the Pro version if you want to play Half Life 2.

Embracer Of Darkness · Post by **Embracer Of Darkness** » 2003-10-05 04:20pm

S3 Trio.

Nah, only joking, that is a pain worse than death.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2003-10-05 04:44pm

Well, these are the three choices about that card that I can choose from:

Code: Select all

Hightech HIS Excalibur Radeon 9600       - AGP 8x - 128 MB DDR   117euro
Hightech HIS Excalibur Radeon 9600 PRO   - AGP 8x - 128 MB DDR   171euro
Hightech HIS Excalibur Radeon 9600       - AGP 8x - 256 MB DDR   143euro

How much better is the pro, does it warrant the higher price, or maybe the 256MB non-pro version would be better?
And yes, I'd like to be able to play HL2 or Max Payne 2, or Halo 2.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-10-05 04:48pm

256MB of RAM on the RV350 isn't worth it. However, the Pro version is very much worth it.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2003-10-05 04:52pm

I think I'll heed that advice then.

However including shipping and everything it'l total out at 188€, or around 190$, better be worth it.

Shogoki · Post by **Shogoki** » 2003-10-05 05:46pm

I belive the clock rates are the difference
400/600 gpu/memory for the 9600 pro
325/400 gpu/memory for the non pro.

Chardok · Post by **Chardok** » 2003-10-05 06:09pm

I have an ATI Radeon 9700, and it's a great card. But I think that only Dell computers use the 9700 non pro. I've always used ATI cards, IMHO they are the best, as they have given me ZERO trouble. I installed, upon recommendation of a friend of mine, a GeForce4 in my GFs computer (Don't recall the model) but it sucked balls, and eventually, I ripped it out and threw it away in favor of the onboard graphics card on her machine. that's how badly it sucked.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2003-10-05 06:19pm

Chardok wrote:I have an ATI Radeon 9700, and it's a great card. But I think that only Dell computers use the 9700 non pro. I've always used ATI cards, IMHO they are the best, as they have given me ZERO trouble. I installed, upon recommendation of a friend of mine, a GeForce4 in my GFs computer (Don't recall the model) but it sucked balls, and eventually, I ripped it out and threw it away in favor of the onboard graphics card on her machine. that's how badly it sucked.

I too have an ati radeon 9700, but in my experience, nvidia stuff has been better to use, asnvidia seem to have their arse in gear with their drivers. I get the feeling that ATI just put out "nearly there" drivers to go with their excellent gpu architecture and card, and it lets the side down imo.

I'm considering going back to the nvidia cards when i build my next one.

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2003-10-05 08:13pm

Embracer Of Darkness wrote:S3 Trio. Nah, only joking, that is a pain worse than death.

*/me wants to shoot the fucker responsible for that particular card design* You realize what a fucking pain in the ass it is to design a ship in MSPaint when you can't use background-color-transparency mode on the select tool and are limited to the 32 colors (DITHERED DOWN NO LESS!!) in the palette? 256 colors MY FUCKING FOOT. At least now I have a GeForce2MX 100. Excellent for MSPaint, crap for Quake 3...

HDS, go with that ATI Radeon (but find a 256meg version) if you use DirectX9 a lot. Otherwise (aka OpenGL) nVidia becomes a very strong contender. Your choice tho

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-10-05 09:04pm

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:HDS, go with that ATI Radeon (but find a 256meg version) if you use DirectX9 a lot. Otherwise (aka OpenGL) nVidia becomes a very strong contender. Your choice tho

There's no point in getting 256MB of RAM with an RV350 card.

Seggybop · Post by **Seggybop** » 2003-10-05 10:14pm

The 9600 isn't bad, but there are better ones you can get. If you see one, the best would be a first-version 9500. You can get a driver hack for it to make it think it's a 9700, and that would be extremely good.

lukexcom · Post by **lukexcom** » 2003-10-06 01:00am

1. There is no point for 256mb RAM if you're going to change your card within the next 12-18 months.

2. I'm not so sure about recommending the Radeon 9600. It's a simplified 9800, and has less vertex shader pipelines, IIRC (or was it texture pipelines?). Either way, the 9600 is to the 9800 like the Geforce 4MX (the power of a GF2Ultra) to a Geforce 4 Ti 4x00.

I highly recommend the 9700 Pro, or if that price a bit too high, then the 9700 Non-Pro by Sapphire, and download the bios at http://www.rage3d.com (Forums>>Overclocking, stickied post by Warp11) to boost your card to a 9700 Pro.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-10-06 01:37am

He already bought the card, but the RV350 offers the best bang for the buck, and he probably doesn't have the cash for a full-on R350.

The comparison between GF4MX and RV350 is rather inaccurate; the former is a wholly different core while the latter is merely a cut-down core. The first-release R9500s are also difficult to find, even moreso the ones that actually can softmod.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2003-10-06 02:36am

Can the 9600 Pro's be soft-modded? Is that safe?

Silver Paladin · Post by **Silver Paladin** » 2003-10-06 03:26am

9600s cannot be modded, because they have 4 pipelines/1 shader rather than the early 9500s 8/2. The early 9500s were basically 9700s with 4 pipelines locked away. You could flash the bios to unlock the pipelines.

However, the difference in quality isn't that much bigger; 9600 has a faster core/memory speed. Frankly, if you can find one of the downclocked 9700s 9500s, then go for it. Otherwise, the 9600 is actually cheaper than the 9500, and offers very comparable performance and is FAR easier to find.

His Divine Shadow · Post by **His Divine Shadow** » 2003-10-06 06:11am

What about overclocking?

Can I use this card to gain immortality?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2003-10-06 10:15am

The RV350 can typically be overclocked quite nicely.

Ypoknons · Post by **Ypoknons** » 2003-10-06 11:52am

In fact, I'll tell you to avoid 256MB versions. For some reason, they usually clock the ram speeds lower than the typical 128MB version, and usually decreases performance in typical modern-day use. Most articles deal with 5600's with this problem, but this Digit-Life Article takes a 256MB 9600PRO for a twirl.

The higher clocked 9600PRO XT is coming out at $200, btw. But it's only a higher clocked version of the normal 9600PRO's. Mind you, it's always good to have a factory guranteed overclock.