Radeon 600 Pro (256Mb) or 9800 Pro (128Mb)

B

Bobby

The 600 Pro is available for £99 and the 9800 Pro for £95.

Which card is best?

I do mostly Internet, video playing, music, photo processsing and some games
(Doom).

Windows XP Pro, 1Gb RAM.

Cheers.

Bobby
 
O

ofn01

Bobby said:
The 600 Pro is available for £99 and the 9800 Pro for £95.

Which card is best?

I do mostly Internet, video playing, music, photo processsing and some games
(Doom).

Windows XP Pro, 1Gb RAM.

Cheers.

Bobby
Click to expand...

The 9800 Pro with 128Mb is far far better than the 9600Pro with 256Mb.

Despite having 'less' on board memory, it uses its memory much more
efficiently - it has twice the bus width (256bit vs 128bit on the 9600
Pro - note do not confuse this with the memory amount) and it has twice
as many pipelines (8 vs 4). This means that it runs much faster than a
9600 Pro. The extra memory on the 9600 Pro will not be used at all
efficiently so makes it null and void

You can see a comparison of the cards in this table as well:
http://techreport.com/etc/comparo/graphics/

Note that the 9800 Pro has higher power requirements than the 9600 Pro -
you need to have at a minimum a good 300W CPU with at least 15A on the
12V rail (which you can find out by looking at the side of your PSU -
there will be a sticker with all the details)
 
B

Bobby

Thanks for the feedback.

But I meant the Radeon 600 - not the 9600 Pro.

How does the 9800 Pro compare to more recent (AGP) cards such as the Radeon
700 or 800?

Bobby
 
O

ofn01

Bobby said:
Thanks for the feedback.

But I meant the Radeon 600 - not the 9600 Pro.

How does the 9800 Pro compare to more recent (AGP) cards such as the Radeon
700 or 800?

Bobby
Click to expand...

Ah right - I wasn't aware that the X700 and X800 had come out in AGP
flavours.

Both the X700 and X800 (if they're AGP cards and therefore comparable to
a 9800 Pro which is only AGP), will be more powerful than a 9800 Pro. An
X800 Pro will be almost twice as fast - an X700 will still be faster.

An X600 though will be slower as it is comparable mostly to a 9600 and
still only has 4 pipelines and I think only a 128bit interface.

I would still choose a 9800 Pro over an X600
 
I

Ian Oxley

ofn01 said:
The 9800 Pro with 128Mb is far far better than the 9600Pro with 256Mb.

Despite having 'less' on board memory, it uses its memory much more
efficiently - it has twice the bus width (256bit vs 128bit on the 9600
Pro - note do not confuse this with the memory amount) and it has twice
as many pipelines (8 vs 4). This means that it runs much faster than a
9600 Pro. The extra memory on the 9600 Pro will not be used at all
efficiently so makes it null and void

You can see a comparison of the cards in this table as well:
http://techreport.com/etc/comparo/graphics/

Note that the 9800 Pro has higher power requirements than the 9600 Pro -
you need to have at a minimum a good 300W CPU with at least 15A on the
12V rail (which you can find out by looking at the side of your PSU -
there will be a sticker with all the details)
Click to expand...

I made that "mistake when I bought my 9600 PRO with 256mb, which is not
really exploited anyway! Mind you, with the Athlon 3200+ I paired it
with, none of the games I own to date suffer performance problems at
all. They are probably a good match, actually.


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Virus Database (VPS): 0524-2, 15/06/2005
Tested on: 15/06/2005 21:04:14
avast! - copyright (c) 1988-2005 ALWIL Software.
http://www.avast.com
 
A

Augustus

Bobby said:
The 600 Pro is available for £99 and the 9800 Pro for £95.

Which card is best?
Click to expand...

Hands down, the 9800 Pro by 25% to 40% at any and all resolutions. AFAIK
it's a moot point since I don't think the X600 Pro is available in AGP and
the 9800 Pro is AGP only.
 
B

Bobby

PC World is selling an AGP X600 (I think) for £99 (256Mb).

But it sounds like the 9800 Pro is the better card.

How does the 9800 Pro compare to newer cards like the X700 or X800?

What's the best AGP card right now? My budget is limited to around £100
(hence the £94 9800 being attractive).

Bobby
 
O

ofn01

Bobby said:
PC World is selling an AGP X600 (I think) for £99 (256Mb).

But it sounds like the 9800 Pro is the better card.

How does the 9800 Pro compare to newer cards like the X700 or X800?

What's the best AGP card right now? My budget is limited to around £100
(hence the £94 9800 being attractive).

Bobby
Click to expand...

I had a look at the X700 specifications on the ATI site here:
http://www.ati.com/products/radeonx700/specs.html

It seems that you get either 4 or 8 piplines and either a 64 or 128bit
memory interface.

I can't imagine that even with the newer technology chip that the 128bit
interface would be better than the 256bit interface of the 9800 Pro,
*however*, I believe that the 6600GT has a 128bit interface and that is
definitely faster than a 9800 Pro.

Gladiator computers have an AGP X700 going for £80 at the moment:
http://www.gladiatorcomputers.com/ProductDetail.aspx?StockCode=ATIX700128&Link=SearchResults

I cannot find any X700 vs 9800 Pro comparisons on the web. an X800 is
*definitely* better than a 9800 Pro

PC World get a *crap* rating on this site by the way:
http://www.romulus2.com/feedback/chart.php?1
 
O

ofn01

ofn01 said:
I had a look at the X700 specifications on the ATI site here:
http://www.ati.com/products/radeonx700/specs.html

It seems that you get either 4 or 8 piplines and either a 64 or 128bit
memory interface.

I can't imagine that even with the newer technology chip that the 128bit
interface would be better than the 256bit interface of the 9800 Pro,
*however*, I believe that the 6600GT has a 128bit interface and that is
definitely faster than a 9800 Pro.

Gladiator computers have an AGP X700 going for £80 at the moment:
http://www.gladiatorcomputers.com/ProductDetail.aspx?StockCode=ATIX700128&Link=SearchResults


I cannot find any X700 vs 9800 Pro comparisons on the web. an X800 is
*definitely* better than a 9800 Pro

PC World get a *crap* rating on this site by the way:
http://www.romulus2.com/feedback/chart.php?1
Click to expand...

OK couple of extra notes
1. Gladiator computers also have an X700 256Mb for around £90
This website shows the difference between an X700, X700 Pro and an X700XT:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/print/ati-radeon-x700-games.html

An X700 has about 2/3 the fill rate, 2/3 the memory speed and about 3/4
the GPU speed of an X700XT

That same site on page 6 shows that an X700XT is about 30% faster than a
9800 Pro. (though that is a PCI-express X700XT compared to an AGP 9800 Pro)

From this I would *roughly estimate* that a plain vanilla X700 is
probably going to be about the same speed as a 9800 Pro.

I would personally wait for some actual benchmarks to come out - but the
plain vanilla X700 with 256Mb of RAM for around £90 isn't a bad option
compared to the 9800 Pro - it is newer technology, comparable
performance and you do get twice as much RAM.

If you're looking to fullproof your purchase though then you would have
to look at going for an X800 series which will be more expensive (though
prices may drop in a month with ATI introducing their next generation card)
 
O

ofn01

Bobby said:
Cheers. Thanks for the advice.

What's the best price for an X800 (AGP) right now?

Bobby
Click to expand...

The slowest X800 AGP I am pretty sure is an X800 Pro.
You're still looking at over £200 for one of these (closer to £240) at
the moment. Again, these prices could drop when the next generation of
ATI cards are introduced in about a month or so.
 
B

Bobby

Cheers.

I think that you just made my mind up to buy the 9800 Pro (for £94) which
will be more than fast enough (along with my AMD64 3GHz CPU) to run any
game.

Bobby
 
O

ofn01

Bobby said:
Cheers.

I think that you just made my mind up to buy the 9800 Pro (for £94) which
will be more than fast enough (along with my AMD64 3GHz CPU) to run any
game.

Bobby
Click to expand...

OK - Thought I still do think that the X700 for £90 with 256Mb of RAM
isn't such a bad option either. I have a 9800 Pro with a 3Ghz P4 and I
get the following results:

3dmark01 - 17800
3dmark03 - 5970
3dmark05 - 2350
HL2 - 1024x768 4xAA 8xFF high detail
Doom3 - 1024x768 0xAA 8xAF high detail
Far Cry - 1024x768 0xAA very high detail
Chronicles of Riddick 1024x768 0xAA high detail
Battlefield 2 demo 1024x768 0xAA medium detail (though I get good
framerates - enough I think to bump the detail up a bit maybe)

I can play older games (like Mafia, Medal of Honor AA) at 1280x1024 all
maxed out with 4xAA no problems as well
 
P

patrickp

...

isn't it amazing how Ati fools with people? - no mentioning, even in the
specs, about neither the gpu clock speed nor the ram bus speed. The specs
are just basic blabla...
Click to expand...


That's probably because it's a specifications page for the class of
X700 cards rather than a specific model. Click on the ATI Products
link at top left, just under Specifications.

Patrick

<[email protected]> - take five to email me...
 
S

Steve K

patrickp said:
That's probably because it's a specifications page for the class of
X700 cards rather than a specific model. Click on the ATI Products
link at top left, just under Specifications.
Click to expand...

I cant find any details about this...must be hidden somewhere ..
 

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