ATI cards and the model numbers

[broderp]

I'm buying (soon) an ATI 9600XT video card to swap out the 9600XT AIW I currently use. I have been amazed at the cards performance and would like to maintin that.

I was window shopping at a computer store and wondered WHY an ATI 9550 card is selling for $124, and my 9600XT for lesss then $85??


I see no rhym or reson to the ATI pricing / performance, unless the (9550 is newer and better performer. I thought the cards nuber signified the performance. 7500 series, 9600 series, 9800 series etc...

Any light to help me see get the and best bang for my buck?

Thank you

[JUC]

well, I just did a search on newegg and all the 9550's that came up were below $66. Was the 9550 an AIW or VIVO--not sure why the price was so high though. I do believe generally the higher the number the better the card---BUT--you have to take into consideration the letters after the number. For instance, I think a 9600XT is equivalent or some say better than a 9800SE. Not exactly sure though.
Also, I have an ASUS 9600XT and love it
JUC

[RoosterX]

The Radeon 9550 is a underclocked radeon 9600 gpu - meant for the Asian marked(not to be mistaken for 9600 XT - which is a different GPU), often you can 'overclock' the 9550 gpu to 9600/9600pro (depending on cooling provided), but more oftren you can *not* clock the memory to same speeds as 9600/9600 pro.

Overlay quality is as i know exactly the same as on 9600xt/9600/9600pro, and for the record i also believe it to be the cheapest ATi card with dual ramdac's - the reason i bought one in the first place for my htpc setup.

Hope this explains what you wanted to know.

[Kanati]

not only that but you can flash the 9550 bios and it will be functionally a 9600 at that point. Which indicates to me that the 9550 IS a 9600 detuned...

[broderp]

Thanks, thats what I thought. Now to decide which version to get!


SAFFIRE ASUS GIGABYTE, with fan, with heatpipe.....fun stuff. I may have to buy two, or just see which one gives me the most bang for my buck (oem vs retail)

Thank you

[stanger89]

FWIW, hadn't really thought about it before but it seems to work like this:
the last 3 digits are performance related, ie a *800 seems to be the flagship of the line, where a *600 is slower, and a *200 is bottom.

It used to be that the first digit was what DX class it was, eg the 8500 was DX9, the 9500 was DX9. Of course they broke that with the 9200 which was really an 8500.

But yes, with the exception of the 9500 (which the pro version is probably better than the 9600, and definitely better than the 9550) the last three digits do seem to jive with relative performance.

[nielm]

fresh off slashdot... ATI + Nvidia model comparisons...

http://www.rojakpot.com/default.aspx...var1=88&var2=0

[RoosterX]

-> katani:

True, as I said it's a underclocked 9600 gpu, just remember if you want to go for the bios upgrade, update with a bios with same memory freq as your card support (mine supports only 200MHz), because the 9600/9600pro has generally a higher memory speed. One more thing, which i forgot to mention, there is some versions of 9550 that has only a 64 bit memory bus, which is not the same as 9600/9600pro, that memory bus is by default 128Bit wide(like my 9550), with updated bios - running at 398MHz GPU and 200MHz RAM. (Sapphire version of 9550)

I took a quick search on the net and i noticed there have been released even more versions of this card, with different GPU speed etc.

So dont blame me if you blow your card

[JUC]

The Powercolor 9600XT has software (smartdoctor) that lets you control the speed of the fan on the video card--quite helpful and it also includes the option to overclock with software too.
JUC