Fall 2003 Video Card Roundup - Part 3: ATI's Radeon 9600 XT
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on October 15, 2003 10:26 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
The Radeon 9600 XT ended up not being nearly as interesting as ATI would've liked it to be, but it does continue ATI's success in the midrange segment. We crowned the original Radeon 9600 Pro the winner of this segment back in April, and with the Radeon 9600 XT ATI extends the lead (although the improvement is only marginal). The GeForce FX 5600 Ultra is quite disappointing when put up against the Radeon 9600 Pro and 9600 XT; although NVIDIA will tell you to wait for the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra, try telling that to those that did invest in the FX 5600 Ultra.
The GeForce FX 5700 Ultra is architecturally different from the 5600 Ultra, so there is a chance that the gap could shrink but we'll have to wait another week or two before deciding on that.
We continue to see that the Radeon 9700 Pro is performing quite well and unfortunately ATI's assertions that the 9600 XT would perform similarly to the 9700 Pro are simply untrue. Given the very low price of the Radeon 9700 Pro we'd strongly suggest buying a 9700 Pro over a Radeon 9600 XT, or if you don't want to spend that much money we'd suggest a Radeon 9600 Pro as the performance difference isn't all too great.
We're wary of making a final recommendation for this segment right now because of the fact that the 5700 Ultra is right around the corner; we haven't heard anything about its performance relative to the 9600 XT so only time will tell. However if you are going to go the 9700 Pro route we mentioned above then feel free to pull the trigger, as the 5700 Ultra shouldn't be able to outperform the 9700 Pro.
What's also worth mentioning is how competitive the GeForce4 Ti 4200 remains in all non AA/aniso modes. If you are a current GeForce4 owner and don't plan on turning on any of those features then you're better off sticking with your current card until you do need DX9 support.
With another round the saga continues; the picture is almost fully in focus for this holiday season though and it's shaping up to be a very red and white scene...
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Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - link
Sorry but these scores are rubbishAnonymous User - Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - link
Is there a particular reason why a 9500pro card isn't included in these reviews. It seems at least as worthy as the the Ti4200, or I could be just biased because I have a 9500pro. Either way, if you could include it in future reviews it'd be appreciated.PrinceGaz - Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - link
I agree with #4, the 9800se should be included as it is in the price range. Its widely available and radically different from the 9600pro/xt and fx5600ultra as its got a full 256-bit memory bus. That should certainly help with DX8 titles but its relatively slow four-pipeline (by default) core clocked at 325MHz could be a problem with future shader-intensive DX9 games.Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - link
Man I love to see how well the 9700 Pro still holds it own after all this time. What a great card!Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - link
i remember an article where some guy from ATI said that this card would outperform the 9700 pro. i had serious doubts about such claim and kind of laughed about it.and i guess that i was right, as it does not outperform the 9700pro.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - link
THANKS FOR USING ALL CAPS #8!!Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - link
homeworld 2 ran just fine on my radeon 9500 pro...I'm running the 3.7's though...Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - link
/me pets my modded 9500np->9700proAnonymous User - Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - link
Nvidia will be back. Not that I care. As long as I can buy a decent card from someone I don't care who it comes from.Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - link
Any idiot who "built computers for a living" should know better than to shout. Especially in the presence of his superiors. Check the settings again moron. They often AA/AF on and off, as well as V-sync off etc. If you had time to benchmark your systems with all these variables then you had too much time on your hands. Hence the "built" not build.