Radeon 9600 Pro -vs- GeForceFX 5600 Ultra

[ragejg]

Originally posted by eesa
that's so true. I found out the hard way. What was your experience?

my experience was: browsing many a forum on said subject, and consulting with [OC]_This @ amdforums... that said, the best cards for high AGP freq's are as follows:

1. GF3: can put up with up to 100mhz AGP

2. GF2ti/Pro/Ultra: can put up with 90-97mhz AGP

3. Radeon 8500 series: can put up with 85-95mhz AGP

4. Geforce 4ti series: can put up with up to ~92mhz AGP...

...for reference, I also have ran an FX5200 (64bit memory equipped) @ 85-90mhz AGP without problems... I expect that the 5600U FC may be able to put up with the same...

I've pretty much heard that R300 core based cards crap out around 75 or so...

Dig: YGPM...

[RogerAdam]

Originally posted by digitalwanderer
How so? On what do you base that? (I'm really curious.)

He's on NVidia's driver team... must be talking about the new chea... err optimizations. :o :lol:

[Skuzzy]

Originally posted by ragejg
I've pretty much heard that R300 core based cards crap out around 75 or so...

Uh,..I am assuming you are talking from the relative speed of the bus, seeing how the AGP8X bus is clocking at 533Mhz, versus the AGP4X speed of 266Mhz, it is difficult to figure out what your baseline is.

One other thing. Do you know how many wait states are introduced by those cards? You are aware that the AGP bus speeds are maximum guidelines and that any card can introduce wait states to hold off the bus cycle timing.

[ragejg]

I haven't enough knowledge of wait states to properly respond to that...

but...

533/8=66 ... there's my baseline... 8 signifies the "8x"...

dang you, you made me break out my calculator!!:D

And for the record, I'm not downing R3XX for crapping out @ 75 or so, it's just that my needs require a card that can handle the higher rates... ie: I have a kt266a that goes to ~190fsb (2700mbps in sandra... not bad for a summer '01 chipset) when configured properly...

[Skuzzy]

I wasn't jumping on you, but the baseline was not stated, just wanted to know. So you are calculating a delta from the native bus speed. That is all I wanted to know.

The wait states are important as they pretty much dictate what overclock the card will stand. It does not mean the AGP bus is actually running any faster, it just means the cards can introduce more wait states to hold it off. I would have to dig up what the maximum wait state tolerance it before the bus errors out, but I know this to be a limiting factor.

I hear what you are saying. You have a motherboard that cannot lock the AGP bus speed. Not a problem on the current generation of motherboards.

[eesa]

Originally posted by ragejg

I've pretty much heard that R300 core based cards crap out around 75 or so...

Dig: YGPM...

That's almost dead on.

[danlofgren]

WOW! Thanks for all your input everyone!

I feel VERY confident in my purchase now.

Rock on

[theultimo]

Hes a link from guru3d.com (bah, deals with 5600 U and 4600)
http://www.guru3d.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=64491
Fanboyism in this thread, but deals with the 5600 actually being slower than the 4600.