How good is 256MB Sapphire 9600?

D

DocFaustus

2[H]4U
Joined
Sep 22, 2002
Messages
2,830
My cousin is building himself a new computer and is on a bit of a budget. He is looking at this card from newegg. It is a SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600 Video Card, 256MB DDR, 128-bit, DVI/TV-Out, 8X AGP(OEM). The card is selling for 108.00.

How does this card compare to other cards around that price range?...and if this is not a good solution, what is? He is not a fanboy for either camp, so both ATI and NVIDIA solutions are acceptable.

Please point out ALL pros and cons. Thanks.
 
Well the 256mb will do nothing for the card as it is not fast enough to utilize the extra memory.

If he can scrounge up around 130$ he should be able to find a 9600pro 128mb which would perform nicely.
 
>Well the 256mb will do nothing for the card as it is not fast enough to utilize the extra memory.

Care to elaborate this very absolute statement?

I've seen it thrown around here time and time again like some kind of axiom.

Saying it's "not fast enough" makes no sense to me, but I'm ready to be educated. Feel free to be as advanced and low-level as you can get, I'm no stranger to technical jargon.
 
Ok hehe I will try,

To fill up the ram over 128mb you would need to be using high resolutions and great amounts of AA (anti-aliasing) and AF (Anistropic Filtering). And if you were to use those type of settings on this card the game would become unplayable because the card is not powerful enough. So you are just paying extra for the memory when it will do you no good.

A card like a 9800pro or 9800xt has the power to run these high resolutions with AA and AF on so it can benefit from the extra memory, but still even on these cards it is a minor performance boost as of now.
 
Yeah, that's the conventional wisdom, but it's not an absolute truth, more a result of how games today are designed and what kind of hardware they target.

To fill up that much RAM you only need to use many different and/or huge textures. Since we can't model every last detail, we must still rely on textures for detail. I'd like games to use more textures.

The conventional wisdom only works as long as games are naively targeted at a particular texture load, typically to please some happy middle-end -- AND -- if you assume that the card will be replaced in a year or so, meaning this "happy medium texture load" doesn't move up the rank.

Another question is; how much performance do you sacrifice (due to slower memory)? I don't know, but I expect it to be very little. If someone's running the 128M version of this card on an Athlon 1333 they can compare against me here.

...not that I'm trying to extol the virtues of 3DMark.

Basically my view is that if doubling the memory cost me some 2-3fps on average now, but saves me those rare but extremely irritating hickups that accompany texture trashing (and will happen more and more as the card grows older), then I'm a happy man. I don't plan to replace this card for at least three years.
 
I have the card - now the card has older memory chips on it than the standard sapphire 128mb ( the clock is 200mhz -400mhz effective) I bought the card on sale for like much less than the standard pro at the time... But should have done my homework -
Effectively its a good card - but the 128mb you can overclock the memory as well as the gpu - not so with this card.
Also has no cooling fan - this can be a plus or minus depending - if you overclock - bad - if you want quiet case - good.
So, buy a Pro or the 128mb ok?
 
Originally posted by eloj
Yeah, that's the conventional wisdom, but it's not an absolute truth, more a result of how games today are designed and what kind of hardware they target.

To fill up that much RAM you only need to use many different and/or huge textures. Since we can't model every last detail, we must still rely on textures for detail. I'd like games to use more textures.

The conventional wisdom only works as long as games are naively targeted at a particular texture load, typically to please some happy middle-end -- AND -- if you assume that the card will be replaced in a year or so, meaning this "happy medium texture load" doesn't move up the rank.

Another question is; how much performance do you sacrifice (due to slower memory)? I don't know, but I expect it to be very little. If someone's running the 128M version of this card on an Athlon 1333 they can compare against me here.

...not that I'm trying to extol the virtues of 3DMark.

Basically my view is that if doubling the memory cost me some 2-3fps on average now, but saves me those rare but extremely irritating hickups that accompany texture trashing (and will happen more and more as the card grows older), then I'm a happy man. I don't plan to replace this card for at least three years.
Click to expand...
finally a smart person.
Speed is not the only factor here gentlemen. So its only xGBps rather than yGBps, if it has to pull textures from the AGP Apteratue, it only has 2.1GBps THEORETICAL bandwidth dependant on the system load, memory specs and northbridge efficiency.
 
err ummm...the sapphire radeon 9600xt 256 meg is ONLY $171 on pricewatch. i just bought this card and why not spend an extra 62 dollars for a card that covers all of the answers above.
IMHO. :rolleyes:
 
i still want a 5200 PCI 256mb because it will just be a series of bottlenecks ;)
 
Oh, I thought I had put this in the original post, but I guess I forgot it:

He will be overclocking and/or modding it to get the fullest potential out of whatever he purchases.

HvyMtl, thanks for the hands on experience, that helps a lot.
 
128MB will be fine for quite some time. Not to mention that's a 9600 regular, and is clocked slow as mollasses.

My secondary box has a 9600Pro @ XT speeds, and it performs admirably, but at pro speeds it was a little sluggish, and I can only imaging what a np would be like.

The price difference is quite negligible. Get a 9600Pro 128MB. You're not likely to need 256MB of video ram for years, at which point that card will be such POS, you'll give it to your grandmother.
 
I have a 9600 256mb. The card runs everything fine but for some reason I feel that an XT or just a pro would have been able to perform much better. I would go for a Pro or an XT. Its not a bad card though...
 
If your cousin wants to overclock, this card's a bad idea. Not only do you have to worry about how most 256MB cards have less headroom on the RAM, but the GPUs got a passive heat sink on it. If he wants a 9600 for OCing, he should get one that's got a fan on the heatsink.


With that said, I've got a Sapphire 9600-NP 128MB -because- it's passively cooled (pretty much the fastest silent card you can get) and I've got no real complaints. I'm not OCing any, but it's a major improvement over my old GF3 ti200.
 
Thanks for the feedback guys. Since this card is not all that great, what do you all suggest in the 100 dollar price range(Might be able to go higher if something is really worth it)? Also, does ATI dominate that price bracket, or should I be looking at some nVidia solutions too?
 
ok, Doc, an quick way to answer the question is see what newegg.com has to offer in that range... (quick way is to click on "shop by category" then on "video cards" then using their excellent search engine - type in $100 as the max price... then sort by highest price as this will get you to the best bang for buck cards)
What you'll find is you will need to add some dough to get a decent card. The majority of the cards shown are the 9600SE (SE= 64bit memory instead of 128bit memory ="Sucky Edition" avoid the EZ editions as well) and the 5600XT (opposite of ati XT - in other words the LOW end of Nvidia's chips equal to ATI's SE)
In other words cards that have major speed/bandwidth issues - cards that are slower than the original sapphire 9600 standard 256mb card...
For $108 you get the sapphire 9600 with 256mb - the standard 128mb cards IS PRICED MORE than that - because it OUT PERFORMS IT by about 5-10%. But its only $112 retail or $109 oem. NOTE: Both the Sapphire 128mb AND the 256mb are PASSIVELY cooled - no fans - so that will dramatically limit your overclocking - (side note I have a 120mm fan blowing over mine and can overclock the core to 400mhz or 9600 Pro speeds - but the 256mb memory will NOT overclock at all...)
So my suggestion, try to add more $$$ like up it to $150 - this will put you in the range of two GOOD cards, the 9600 Pro and the 5700 (replacement to the slow Nvidia 5600)
here are links to some suggestions:
9600 Pro's
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-156-010&catalog=48&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-131-219&catalog=48&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-102-301&catalog=48&depa=1
5700's
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-170-045&catalog=48&depa=1
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-130-180&catalog=48&depa=1
hope this helps
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top