once more in the gauntlet - 9800 vs. 9600 (pros) vs. 5900xt

J

Judge

Here's my question -

anyone in here used both the 9600pro and a 9800pro?

I've had the ATI retail 9600pro for about 4 months now, and have been
HUGELY disappointed in it. Performance was not what I was expecting
(stepping sideways and slightly upward from a geforce2 GTS) and there
has been the problem with the card not wanting to recognize Viewsonic
monitors (first a 3 year old P815 and a brand new P220F-3) which
manifested itself in the form of a 60hz desktop refresh rate problem
that only Powerstrip could fix.

So here I sit on the verge of putting this POS on ebay and ordering
either a FX5900XT/SE or 9800Pro. I've read that the FX when
overclocked outruns the 9800pro, but of course oc'ing the 9800 would
put it out front again I'm sure. Price wise, they are very close.

Has anyone had problems with the 9600pro that were not there with the
9800pro? (IE - refresh rate problems, monitors not being 'seen' by
the card, desktop level issues, etc)

If I do get the 9800pro, it would be the Sapphire at newegg. Any
thoughts on that particular card?
 
J

JLC

Here's my question -

anyone in here used both the 9600pro and a 9800pro?

I've had the ATI retail 9600pro for about 4 months now, and have been
HUGELY disappointed in it. Performance was not what I was expecting
(stepping sideways and slightly upward from a geforce2 GTS) and there
has been the problem with the card not wanting to recognize Viewsonic
monitors (first a 3 year old P815 and a brand new P220F-3) which
manifested itself in the form of a 60hz desktop refresh rate problem
that only Powerstrip could fix.

So here I sit on the verge of putting this POS on ebay and ordering
either a FX5900XT/SE or 9800Pro. I've read that the FX when
overclocked outruns the 9800pro, but of course oc'ing the 9800 would
put it out front again I'm sure. Price wise, they are very close.

Has anyone had problems with the 9600pro that were not there with the
9800pro? (IE - refresh rate problems, monitors not being 'seen' by
the card, desktop level issues, etc)

If I do get the 9800pro, it would be the Sapphire at newegg. Any
thoughts on that particular card?
Click to expand...

From what you have written it seems to me that your problem is not your 9600
but the rest of your system. You say that you don't really notice much
difference between it and a Geforce 2!! I'm wondering what kind of CPU do
you have?? I bet it's 1GIG or less am I right? I bet your system is over 3
years old, how close am I ? You will be wasting your money to invest in
another card. The 9600 is a very nice card that should be able to handle
just about anything you throw at it (except maybe Farcry)
So before you go out and blow another $250, why not think about upgrading
you PC. JLC
 
J

Judge

maybe I should've added that info, I'll do it now. :

asus nforce2 a7n8x dlx
2500 barton oc'd to 3200 (actually a little higher, 218 fsb)
1gb of mushkin pc3500
18.4gb Cheetah X15 main (6gb free)
40gb 7200rpm Hitachi storage (12gb free)
Plextor 708a
Plextor Premium
all aluminum case with a a healthy airflow
480w Thermaltake X power supply

I hope that answers your question.

==========================================
 
A

Augustus

Has anyone had problems with the 9600pro that were not there with the
9800pro? (IE - refresh rate problems, monitors not being 'seen' by
the card, desktop level issues, etc)

If I do get the 9800pro, it would be the Sapphire at newegg. Any
thoughts on that particular card?
Click to expand...

On a PIII 1.13 Ghz system, I went from a Geforce2GTS 32Mb Ultra to a Radeon
9100 128Mb. I was not overly impressed with the results...benched only
marginally faster, and a bit glitchy to boot. Then I upgraded to an XP3200
on a Nforce2 board. The Radeon 9100 did 10,500 on 3Dmark2001, the Geforce2
GTS did 6300. A 9600 Pro is a fair bit better than my 9100. I think your
processor and system are holding back the expected levels of performance.
 
S

sheer

Have to say I think all is not well with your config. A 9600pro should have
been a significant improvement. Do you know anyone with another 9600pro, try
their one to test you get similar results.
If so I would go a hunting a problem somewhere in your system.
Maybe someone can suggest a few smart tests!
 
J

John Schuler

I would suggest that you download the latest version of SiSoft Sandra to analyze
your system's performance. To measure frame rates, try Aquamark.

As far as your monitor, Viewsonic driver support comes from Microsoft, not the
video card manufacturer. If you contact Viewsonic they will probably have a
driver for your monitor, even though it may not be supported by your OS (XP, I'll
bet).
 
G

GTD

maybe I should've added that info, I'll do it now. :

asus nforce2 a7n8x dlx
2500 barton oc'd to 3200 (actually a little higher, 218 fsb)
1gb of mushkin pc3500
18.4gb Cheetah X15 main (6gb free)
40gb 7200rpm Hitachi storage (12gb free)
Plextor 708a
Plextor Premium
all aluminum case with a a healthy airflow
480w Thermaltake X power supply

I hope that answers your question.
Click to expand...
You should have seen more than a 'slight' improvement. What you've
said brings a few questions. Fist of all, did you COMPLETELY remove
the old video card drivers? Is the system stable, and can you rule out
a faulty card? I have a 9800pro in my system (2500+ bart @2400), and
my kid has a 9600pro in his (2500+ bart @stock), and both give great
performance, there has to be something amiss.


You should start drinking prune juice and KY jelly cocktails right now,
that will make things a lot smoother.
-Felatio Love
 
J

Judge

Have to say I think all is not well with your config. A 9600pro should have
been a significant improvement. Do you know anyone with another 9600pro, try
their one to test you get similar results.
If so I would go a hunting a problem somewhere in your system.
Maybe someone can suggest a few smart tests!
Click to expand...


The ATI product had a 30% improvement over the GTS in FPS on Call of
Duty. Yes, there were big differences in numbers on benchmarks, but
real world stuff (ie - playing the same level, testing the same
position in a game with fire, sky etc) it was nothing to write home
about. The biggest difference in performance was the higher
resolutions - the GTS and 9600p are fairly close in the 800x600 world,
but anything 1024 or higher and the 9600 does show improvements.

Not $200 improvements, but improvements.

===========================================
 
J

Judge

I would suggest that you download the latest version of SiSoft Sandra to analyze
your system's performance. To measure frame rates, try Aquamark.

As far as your monitor, Viewsonic driver support comes from Microsoft, not the
video card manufacturer. If you contact Viewsonic they will probably have a
driver for your monitor, even though it may not be supported by your OS (XP, I'll
bet).
Click to expand...


No, this is a documented ATI problem - their hardware does not 'see'
the monitor therefore Windows (nor any driver) can do anything about
it. As far as the video card goes, the P815 did not exist! As for the
brand-new P220f3 it saw it, but did not make available all the
res/refresh settings.

I did test this with both a ATI 9600pro and a Gigabyte 9200 so it's
definitely an ATI issue and not Microsoft or Viewsonic.

==================================
 
J

Judge

Not only did I remove them - I installed XP SP1 clean with the 9600 in
it, and used Omega's latest driver (2503?).

What sort of differences do you see between your 9800 and 9600 as far
as performance??

===============================
 
R

Rockin Ronnie

I have a Viewsonic G773 with a 9600Pro and my rig works like a charm. Can't
be all Viewsonics IMHO.

Ron

Ron
 
J

Judge

possibly it's the professional series? Or 21" has something to do with
it. The 815 had a mitsubishi tube and the 220f has a sony tube I
believe.. not 100% sure on that.

The 9600p wouldnt see the 815 at all! ATI tech told me to look for
warez sites to get powerstrip, can you believe that?

==================================
 
J

John Hall

Go to the Viewsonic website and download the inf file for that monitor. XP
has inf files for a lot of monitors, but not all of them. My Hansol 920D is
not recognized by XP so in device manager I get "Default Monitor". Hansol
has a driver file that you can download and install in XP that corrects the
problem. Viewsonic will have one too.

JK
 
J

John Hall

If your memory is not running in sync with your processor's front side bus
speed, then you will have performance problems. Your 2500 barton has an fsb
of 166 mhz. You can run your memory at any speed you like, but the best
performance is achieved by running it at 166 mhz.

JK
 
J

Judge

uh, no. That would be too simple - it's a hardware issue on the ATI
side - even if you hardset the INF in windows, the ATI card will
ignore it. They (ATI) must think they are bigger than Microsoft, eh?

ATI tech told me it was hardcoded into their chipset that way.

With the 21" monitors, I do not get the 'monitor' tab in the ATI
control panel. It's greyed out.


=========================================================
 
J

Judge

You're right - the 'problem' is a huge increase in performance!

The nforce2 seperates the fsb from the system bus. You can set the fsb
to anything and the agp/pci stuff is still stock. (if you choose it to
be)


=================================================
 
J

John Hall

So I take it that you tried that and it didn't work. I have a 9800 pro and
my system has no problem recognizing my Hansol monitor.

JK

uh, no. That would be too simple - it's a hardware issue on the ATI
side - even if you hardset the INF in windows, the ATI card will
ignore it. They (ATI) must think they are bigger than Microsoft, eh?

ATI tech told me it was hardcoded into their chipset that way.

With the 21" monitors, I do not get the 'monitor' tab in the ATI
control panel. It's greyed out.


=========================================================

Go to the Viewsonic website and download the inf file for that monitor. XP
has inf files for a lot of monitors, but not all of them. My Hansol 920D is
not recognized by XP so in device manager I get "Default Monitor". Hansol
has a driver file that you can download and install in XP that corrects the
problem. Viewsonic will have one too.

JK

<Judge> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
possibly it's the professional series? Or 21" has something to do with
it. The 815 had a mitsubishi tube and the 220f has a sony tube I
believe.. not 100% sure on that.

The 9600p wouldnt see the 815 at all! ATI tech told me to look for
warez sites to get powerstrip, can you believe that?

==================================

On Mon, 29 Mar 2004 21:34:37 GMT, "Rockin Ronnie"

I have a Viewsonic G773 with a 9600Pro and my rig works like a charm. Can't
be all Viewsonics IMHO.

Ron

Ron
<Judge> wrote in message news:[email protected]...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
J

John Schuler

Ditto, I have a 9600 pro and it has no trouble recognizing my custom driver
(from NEC, for a 6GF).

John said:
So I take it that you tried that and it didn't work. I have a 9800 pro and
my system has no problem recognizing my Hansol monitor.

JK

uh, no. That would be too simple - it's a hardware issue on the ATI
side - even if you hardset the INF in windows, the ATI card will
ignore it. They (ATI) must think they are bigger than Microsoft, eh?

ATI tech told me it was hardcoded into their chipset that way.

With the 21" monitors, I do not get the 'monitor' tab in the ATI
control panel. It's greyed out.


=========================================================
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
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