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
The Test
We used the exact same test bed and settings as our Catalyst 3.8 review, the only difference here was that we benchmarked at 1024x768 given the power and target market of the Radeon 9600 XT. We also used the "almost final" version of the 52 series Detonators from NVIDIA (52.16) which have been submitted for WHQL certification.
As a refresher, here are the games we benchmarked with:
Aquamark3
C&C Generals: Zero Hour
EVE: The Second Genesis
F1 Challenge '99-'02
Final Fantasy XI
GunMetal
Halo
Homeworld 2
Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy
Neverwinter Nights: Shadow of Undrendtide
SimCity 4
Splinter Cell
Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness
Tron 2.0
Unreal Tournament 2003
Warcraft III: Frozen Throne
Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory
X2: The Threat
Our testbed remained the same:
AMD Athlon64 FX51
1GB DDR400 (2x512MB)
ASUS nForce3 motherboard
The only issues we encountered were as follows:
1) Homeworld 2 would not run on either the Radeon 9600 Pro or the Radeon 9600 XT. This is the same issue we ran into the first time we tried to run this benchmark on ATI hardware. Interestingly enough, it works on all of ATI’s high end cards – just not their midrange hardware.
2) Tomb Raider would not run on the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra with the latest 52.16 drivers at 1024x768. The game kept on returning an out of memory error at any resolution higher than 1024x768. Given that we tested with a 128MB card and none of the other cards had a problem, this seems like more of a driver issue or a game issue than anything else.
3) Since the GeForce4 Ti 4200 only supports PS1.1, we could not include this card in the Tomb Raider tests either. Performance under PS1.1 is much higher than performance under PS2.0, so the comparison would not be fair to ATI if we ran all of their hardware using PS2.0 and ran the Ti 4200 in PS1.1 mode.
We have not had time to go back and figure out a benchmark for BF1942 yet nor work out the issues with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004. We haven’t received much feedback in terms of any ideas for benchmarking under these two games, but we’re still open to suggestions.
For image quality comparisons refer back to our Fall 2003 Video Card Roundup - Part 2.
With that out of the way, let’s get to the games.
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Anonymous User - Thursday, October 16, 2003 - link
There is something in the review not clear to me. The 9800XT article made much of the dynamic overclocking feature, while one of the benefits touted for the 9600XT was its .13 process, making it run cooler and which should help overclocking.Yet the article mentioned neither dynamic overclocking nor made any attempt to overclock. This should have been done!
rms
Anonymous User - Thursday, October 16, 2003 - link
#29, get a life. All big web sites use flash, you'd be idiotic not to. This isn't slashdot, where you can bitch and moan about how evil MS is, how great Linux, and how your pimples pop every time you eat too quickly.AlteX - Thursday, October 16, 2003 - link
I think there's a problem with testing all these cards on the same machine. Of course, this gives a good competitive analysis, but is this what we really want to see?I, for one, want to buy a value gaming system in a month or two. Being a value SYSTEM (not a high-end system with just a value Gfx card), it definitely won't include anything near Athlon64 FX or even DDR400. It will most probably include some mid-range Ahtlon XP (2500+ or so), DDR333, etc. A Radeon 9600 class card would be a perfect fit for such a system.
And what I'd really like to know is not how Radeon 9600XT compares to Radeon 9800XT on a high-end machine, but how it compares to other mainstream cards on a mainstream machine. Also, I'd like to know how each game is playable on each card. Meaning: what are the maximal IQ settings (resolution, AA/AF settings) that I can use to still get MINIMUM framerate of at least 25-30 FPS.
Thanks.
Anonymous User - Thursday, October 16, 2003 - link
I have returned 2 different 9600 Pro cards (Club3D and Hercules) because at high resolutions they show a dark shadow to the right of (black on white) text. At 2048x1536@85 it is terrible. A 9000 Pro does not have this problem. I wonder whether the 9600 XT has this same problem, or that it is fixed, maybe because of the new process.The problem is most visible using a pattern of alternating black and white pixels, like this:
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Anonymous User - Thursday, October 16, 2003 - link
The truth of the matter is that the nvidia cards are more technologically advanced then the ati cards...(btw I originally owned the 5900u sold it when I saw the hl2 benchmarks and bought a 9800p at best buy, returned it 4 days ago and picked up the 9800xt :) )...I have owned the tnt2, geforce2pro, geforce 4 ti4400, and the 5900u over the course of the last 4 years. In the case of the 5900u vs the 9700/9800 series, the 9800 series is a better version of card then the 5900u why? Nvidia dropped the ball, even with a better manufacturing process, higher core and memory speeds they weren't able to match ati's performance due to the fact they render at 32bit instead of 24....basically they render at a higher scale but they are too slow at 32 to help. If they redesign the core of the chipset to have more shaders I think the nv40 will be an awesome card. I'm hoping they do because ATI's customer service is the worst I have ever experienced.Pointwood - Thursday, October 16, 2003 - link
What about noise? This is more or less the most important info and I didn't find any info about that.If the card isn't close to silent, it's worthless to me.
Anonymous User - Thursday, October 16, 2003 - link
the 5200 provides directx 9 at a low priceAnonymous User - Thursday, October 16, 2003 - link
#37I couldn't agree with you more...I want the same for my 9700.
I have to agree with #5
"Telling people to wait on the 5700 Ultra doesn’t make much sense."
Seems like paid advertisement to me.
Wait...blah... I heard that a lot when the 9700 came out and people said wait for NV30. Then again when 9800 came out and people said, wait for NV 40.
If people are going to buy a card you can wait for something... 1-2 weeks maybe, but damn, If I got the money NOW and I plan to buy a solution NOW, why in the world can we get a good recomendation of what is available NOW, or in the inmediate future? I can understand the 9600pro vs XT dilema, but not when the other option is still a ghost without any presence as we speak.
Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - link
I just want to add my vote to include the 9800SE in future benchmarks. This is looking like the card I will buy to play DX8 and DX9 games, and is within my budget (~$170). Actually, I can't find a better performance/price ratio.Anonymous User - Wednesday, October 15, 2003 - link
Not that I want tsteal the topic of the thread, but I was wondering about those high;y promoted cards from XGI with Volari GPU(s). Has anyone had a chance t use them? If so, how do they fare in comparison to the market leaders?