Radeon 9600 (non-pro) DOOM III preformance

[Upke]

So, a good friend of mine asked for advice. He wanted a new graphics card, he had around 150 euro's to spend. Thats not much.

He plays alot of games. And wants to play doom III in the future (a long way) But he's quit greedy so he doesn't want to buy another card at that time. First I said go for a Geforce FX 5600. But then there was this good promotion at the local store here.

Radeon 9600 Non pro for 120 euro's. So I said go for that, and we'll hopefully overclock it to a PRO. I thought this card was good for doom. (1024x768 high medium details no AA or AF)

But now I red somewhere that the card isn't all that good for doom. So whats the deal? Were we better of buying another card? (The FX 5600 was to expensive according to him)

BTW: I tried to search, but the function is SOOO crappy, I enterd 3 words and it still gave me that error)

[pgn.inertia]

Always those greedy Dutchies... ;)

Look at this:

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1821&p=22

I'd go for the FX 5600, because although it isn't included, I think it will still perform better than the Radeon, looking at the difference in clockspeed between the 5600 Ultra and non-Ultra and the difference with the ATI card...

But doesn't your friend want to play other games than DOOM3 in about 1 year, and shouldn't he look at other benchmarks too?

[Upke]

We already bought the card :afro2:

So I guess that wasn't a good thing... And yes he wants to play other games than doom III but that was his main concern. I do know btw, that FX run Doom III better.

I just hope we can overclock it to the PRO version....


Its pretty hard these days to pic a good video card. I mean, with al the driver chea*cough*optimalisations, architecture differences and clock speed differences...

[pgn.inertia]

Originally posted by Upke

Its pretty hard these days to pic a good video card. I mean, with al the driver chea*cough*optimalisations, architecture differences and clock speed differences...

It has indeed been more complicated to find an appropriate card these days. It goes to show that my theory about the GPU market is getting closer and closer tot the CPU market is correct...

[Upke]

But its harder to choose a graphic card than to choose a processor. At least in my opinnion.

[pgn.inertia]

Originally posted by Upke
But its harder to choose a graphic card than to choose a processor. At least in my opinnion.

Isn't that because the largest differentiating factor with CPU's largely is clockspeed? There are not as many different models with CPU's as with GPU's (yet...).

Desktop CPU's
AMD: 1 model (AthlonXP)
Intel: 2 models (Pentium4, Celeron)

Desktop GPU's
ATI: 3 models (RV280 Radeon 9100, (RV350) 9600, (R350) 9800)
NVIDIA: 5 models (NV17) GeForce4 MX, (NV25) Ti, (NV34) GeForceFX 5200, (NV31) 5600, (NV35) 5900)

Edit: erased some "(" 's and ")" 's ...

[Upke]

Yeah, ok. You're right about that.

[Spiritwalker]

But now I red somewhere that the card isn't all that good for doom. So whats the deal? Were we better of buying another card? (The FX 5600 was to expensive according to him)


dont go by those numbers too much. They were done on nVidia prepped systems with an nVidia prepped demo on tweaked drivers.
When the game does come out then it will be time to make comparisons, cause rest assured, ATi will have coaxed a lot more performance out of their drivers. As Carmack has said himself, the 9800pro running ARB2 and the 5900U running nV30 are close to the same speed.

Let him enjoy the card and good luck on the overclocking.

[SurfMonkey]

Originally posted by Upke
Its pretty hard these days to pic a good video card. I mean, with al the driver chea*cough*optimalisations, architecture differences and clock speed differences...

Hey!! You did a bushism! Cool... :D

I think the 9600 and the 5600 are going to have almost the same performance in DOOMIII, maybe the 5600 might have a slight lead in the raw figures but nothing too amazing.

[Upke]

Thanks for the replies guys. I wonder, I just hope the Radeon 9600 non pro has BGA memmory, else it won't be good. (The pro has BGA, if I'm not mistaken.)

[euan]

Originally posted by Upke
Thanks for the replies guys. I wonder, I just hope the Radeon 9600 non pro has BGA memmory, else it won't be good. (The pro has BGA, if I'm not mistaken.)

Yeah square chips are much faster and more efficient than the old rectangular ones. :confused: :angel2:

[Upke]

Thats not it... :rolleyes: BGA chips run cooler, than TSOP chips, so thats why....

[StealthHawk]

ATI did not know about the test or have a chance to optimize their drivers for Doom3. I wouldn't worry about those preview numbers yet.

[Gator]

the 9600 is so damn overclockable your bound to get some performance out of it, don't panic I'm sure it'll be fine for Doom III

[pgn.inertia]

Originally posted by Upke
Thats not it... :rolleyes: BGA chips run cooler, than TSOP chips, so thats why....

Note: not all the time. Sure the BGA packaging is more efficient from a clockspeed point of view, but if the BGA memory is rated lower than the TSOP packaged memory, I think I'd go for TSOP....

[Upke]

Ok you're right about that. But I can't think of any Tsop memmory rated higher then BGA.

[ChrisRay]

From what I have seen. The Radeon 9600 Non pro uses MUCH slower memory than evena 9500 Non pro. And From all accounts I've seen from foreign review sites,

The 9600 Non Pro is slower than a 9500 Non pro. This is simply due to the fact the memory is like 75 Mhz slower...

[Upke]

Well lets hope I can get that 75 MHz more. I'll keep you guys posted. Its interresting...

[pgn.inertia]

Originally posted by Upke
Ok you're right about that. But I can't think of any Tsop memmory rated higher then BGA.

On top performance you're right, but remember there are slow BGA memory chips just as well as their are chips with TSOP packaging...

[Upke]

Ok...


Btw, funny, 2 dutch guys, talking English.. we're stupid ;)

[pgn.inertia]

Originally posted by Upke
Ok...


Btw, funny, 2 dutch guys, talking English.. we're stupid ;)

Inderdaad!

En 't mooie is, we kunnen ze zo allemaal kapot schelden zonder dat ze 't in de gaten hebben of kunnen verwijderen...;)

Oranje boven!

[Upke]

Ok, maar Nederlands praten is toch illegaal hier?

Sorry guys, private talk :D

[pgn.inertia]

Originally posted by Upke
Ok, maar Nederlands praten is toch illegaal hier?

Sorry guys, private talk :D

Won't happen again...

Promise...;)

[druga runda]

please keep us updated... I myself am interested in 9600 non pro dependable how it overclocks... so what are the stock speeds? 350 gpu and 200 mem?

[pgn.inertia]

Originally posted by druga runda
please keep us updated... I myself am interested in 9600 non pro dependable how it overclocks... so what are the stock speeds? 350 gpu and 200 mem?

Almost; core clock 325 MHz, Memory clock DDR 200 MHz