9600 pro, revisited

[MrMarbles]

Back when 9600 pro first came out, it faced tough competition. The card it was supposed to replace, 9500 pro outperformed it, and both were priced similarly. Also, intial reports that 9600 pro was an excellent overclocker didnt hold true in many cards shipped later. In fact, there were instances in which an unmodded 9500 non pro (with 'L' shaped ram) outperformed it when both were overclocked.

Things have changed since then. 9500 pro is either out of stock or is fairly expensive, and it is the same case with the non pro (except for the 'I' shaped ones which are still cheap). At the same time 9600 pro dropped from $180ish to $140ish. Thats at least $30 cheaper than 9500 pro ever was. Even at stock speeds, thats a pretty good deal, especially for people who dont want to spend over $200 on a video card.

On a side note, is there any word on the vold mod on the 9600 pro?

[R4z0r4mu5 Pr|m3]

seems like the retail versions of any card overclock much better, such as the TYAN 9600Pro now available at newegg, reviewed by [H] to overclock from 400 to 525mhz core, however the ram is a bit lacking, this card is beautiful nicely cooled with hardware monitoring even fan control, this card is surprisingly only $160 shipped retail version from newegg

[Shade00]

Watch it with the cheaper 9600 'Pros.' The majority of these are either the EZ or Lite versions that come clocked at 400mhz on the core but only 400mhz on the memory.

Also, there is a volt mod for the R9600's core and the memory, but only the core mod seems to have an effect. The memory mod does up the voltage, but it doesn't have an effect; most folks hypothesize that it needs a vref mod too.

Here's some info on the vmod. (http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=33690026&perpage=20&pagenumber=12)

The 9600 Pro is fairly weak when not overclocked. In a 2200mhz AMD with the card at stock it might score around 11k. With some heavy O/Cing (at least 500/700) you could hit 13k. In my opinion, you're still better off going with a 256-bit 9500np (if you can find one at a good price) and O/Cing it. My card at 375/317 would score over 14k.

[MrMarbles]

I wish manufacturers didnt do this. All these 'lite' and 'ultimate' version of video cards. Makes this so much more confusing and dangerous for consumers.

anyway, thanks for the input guys

[waver123]

yes I don't know what they're thinking, it's getting so confusing.

and nvidia is doing the same thing with the new 5600 ultra flip-chip (400mhz vs the old 5600 ultra 350mhz).