ATI Radeon 9600 vs. GeForce FX 5600

I'm not sure which is the all-round better card, for the price
I ve always leaned towards Nvidia, for some reason. I think it might be time 4 a change.

They both share the RAMDAC's of 400MHz

The ATI clocks 50MHz higher than the Nvidia on the Core (ATI 400/Nvidia 350)

Nvidia has 500MHz DDR Memory and the ATI 400Mhz

They share almost the same of everything else in specs and both have very stable drivers.

My choice is between a Creative 3D Blaster 5 GF FX 5600 and a Connect3D ATI RAD 9600. Both cards are priced within £3 of each other.

What would you choose????

Thanks

 

http://www20.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/vga-charts-03.html#unreal_tournament_2003

This is only one benchmark. Ati wins hands down in all the others as well except Quake3. Although you will notice that the 9600 Pro gets 160 FPS in that game so it's not an issue.

Added to that is the fact that ATI has better DX9 implementation (i.e. DX9 effects are rendered properly) and image quality is better.

The 9600 Pro will beat the 5600 Ultra and the 5700 also.

 

If nothing else, the proper DX9 implementation on the Radeon is something I'd consider to be the biggest thing to sway my dollar.

 

Ditto See this, this, and this for reference.

 

Radeon have better drivers but with the price of those cards you dont want to be left with the less capable gfx card personaly i think 5600 are brilinant and the 9600 is is equally machted but you will be able to overclock the 9600 better then the 5600 i would go with the 9600 only cos i have never used nvidia chip cos i have all ways prefered ati...... you need to think of the old gfx cards you have had in the past and wether they had ati or nvidia chips and decide that way

 

I have decided to go for the ATI. Thanks for your advice everyone, it helped alot.

Cheers.

 

No you can't base your purchase on precedent cards because the GeForce 4 line was very good. Especially the Ti4200 which attracted many people.

However, the FX line just doesn't cut it. The proof ? Nvidia HAD to cheat in benchmarks to attract buyers. Other proofs are non-biased reviews.

Good choice lamia, I hope you enjoy your new card

 

My 16mb nVidia vanta card is sh*t. I want to buy a radeon 9600. How much will a normal reference design card cost? how much extra would it cost to get a pro or xt?

 

Going by Newegg's prices, a plain 9600 starts at just a tad over $100. $140 or so for the Pro, and about $150 for the XT.

 

thanks. i'm having doubts about getting an xt. I've read reviews that it doesn't offer as much performance as expected. Though i might be needing a faster graphics card by the time half'life 2 comes out.

 

i've just bought a fx powerpack 5900 tv/dvi for £139. not bad.

 

The XT is just a higher clocked Pro, FYI.

 

The XT also has a temp sensor and the overdrive feature, and HL2 of course.

 

Exactly. The XT is really a sign of the new proactive attitude of ATI towards overclocking. To me, this sounds pretty good. Nvidia has traditionally been the better overclocker, and now we're seeing a marked change in the opposite direction. ATI however is taking full advantage of this situation, and rightly they should be. The geezers among us will remember when Intel locked the multipliers on its Celeron-A. Besides, without stiff competition, technology tends to stagnate...