Me Needs Advice...

spinviperspinviper Join Date: 2003-05-08 Member: 16151Members
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">on what to buy...</div> First of all what are some good online dealers? I tried newegg and Couldnt find my 9800 Non-Pro.

I'm Torn between the 9500 PRO, 9600XT and the 9800 Non-Pro. I heard you can get the Non-Pro for 199 USD. Is that true? Because it will be like X 2 for me... And I only have 460 dollars to spend. For the 9500 I could flash the bios to the 9700 PRO and try to OC to the stock levels of the 9700. Currently the 9600XT seems to be the best bet for me... whats your 2 cents?
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Comments

  • nightdragonnightdragon Join Date: 2003-01-05 Member: 11848Members, Constellation
    edited December 2003
    *ok ignore me, i tend to ignore the fact that your prices are just under double ours with the exchange rate, the 9800XT 256MB is like over $600 for you guys*

    ND
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  • spinviperspinviper Join Date: 2003-05-08 Member: 16151Members
    edited December 2003
    Anyone else? I really need advice people!

    Edit:
    <!--QuoteBegin--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> </td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->*ok ignore me, i tend to ignore the fact that your prices are just under double ours with the exchange rate, the 9800XT 256MB is like over $600 for you guys*<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
    Actually the XT costs $800
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  • 2of12B0RG2of12B0RG Join Date: 2002-12-21 Member: 11285Members
    edited December 2003
    If you got $460 bucks to blow you can get the 9800 XT... they dropped to a few dollars more than that.... save your allowance for one more week and you can get it!


    $800 bucks? WHo is trying to rip u off? Or is that exchange rate from whatever country you're from?
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  • SpoogeSpooge Thunderbolt missile in your cheerios Join Date: 2002-01-25 Member: 67Members
    I bought my latest card from <a href='http://www.essencompu.com/index.asp?rvid=7107' target='_blank'>Essential Computers Inc.</a>

    Here's a link to a <a href='http://www.essencompu.com/nupplysingar.asp?ID=4168' target='_blank'>ATI 9800pro</a> for a decent price.

    Here's the card that I bought - <a href='http://www.essencompu.com/nupplysingar.asp?ID=5510' target='_blank'>ASUS 9600XT</a>. So far I'm pretty happy with it. The picture is clearer and sharper than my overclocked Geforce3 ti200. The software bundle is pretty good too.
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  • CForresterCForrester P0rk(h0p Join Date: 2002-10-05 Member: 1439Members, Constellation
    I'd get the 9500 Pro and use the soft-mod in the <a href='http://www.omegacorner.com' target='_blank'>Omega Drivers</a> to make it a 9700 Pro.
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  • TalesinTalesin Our own little well of hate Join Date: 2002-11-08 Member: 7710NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators
    Agreed. Get the 9500 Pro if you can. The others aren't worth the added cost, relatively (the 9800 non-pro isn't worth it as much, and the 9600XT actually performs worse than the 9500 Pro... the cost of only having 4 pipes compared the the R9500Pro/9700/9800's 8).
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  • CreepieCreepie Join Date: 2003-02-19 Member: 13734Members
    edited December 2003
    I looked around for a 9500 128 Pro and couldn't find one for love nor money. Not in the UK anyway. Does it have a smaller memory bandwidth compared to say an 9600 Pro then ?

    Also, I thought the 9600 Pro had 8 pipes and the 9600 had 4 ? Am I wrong here ?

    [edit]
    Yes, I'm wrong. The 9500 128 Pro has 8 pipelines. It's GPU is clocked much lower than the 9600 Pro. The 9500 128 Pro's memory bandwidth is slightly lower than the 9600 Pro. However, the 9500 128 Pro has 4 pixel shaders to the 9600 Pro's 2. Better support for Dx9 perhaps ?

    I've read that the 9500 so close to the 9700 that the 9500's BIOS can be flashed into a 9700. Is this true ?

    In essence, the 9500 128 Pro sounds like an excellent card.
    [/edit]
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  • TalesinTalesin Our own little well of hate Join Date: 2002-11-08 Member: 7710NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators
    The lower GPU clockspeed is because the 9600 is on a .13 micron process, meaning it can dissipate heat far more effectively.

    The 9500 Pro was an aberration in the world of video cards. They are essentially just 9700s that wouldn't meet the clockspeed requirements. They beat out the 9600, 9600 Pro, and 9600XT in all benchmarks so far, and are well worth the money if you can find one.

    In fact, the Omega Catalysts include a 'Soft 9700' option that allows you to turn one into a 9700 without doing anything dangerous like flashing the EEPROM (possibly ending up with a dead card), though in all honesty I haven't seen much (if any) of a performance boost with it enabled. Might give more of a boost on the non-Pro, but that only has four pipelines (aka: is much slower).


    Sure, a real 9700 Pro will beat a 9500 Pro out, and a 9800 Pro (or XT) will whap one flat. But for the money, it still stands as one of the best bang-for-buck cards in video card history, only surpassed by cards featuring the PowerVR Kyro2 chipset (which beat out GF2GTS cards, and even kept up with GF2 Ultras, while priced to compete with the GF2 MX line).
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  • CreepieCreepie Join Date: 2003-02-19 Member: 13734Members
    Excellent - thanks for the info. I'll have a butchers at ebay. I've already seen a couple.
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