what vid card shoud i get??

[Sazar]

Originally posted by Heath3n
Well my opinion would be that they needed some lower end cards to provide affordable competition against the geoforce 3s & 4s. So they just used the same board and closed off some pipelines. I believe the 9500s and 9700 did not come out until after the 9700 pro. I have nothing to back up what I just said...but that's what I thinked happened.

thats only partially true...

far as I know only the sapphire gfx company is using the 9700 pcb's for their 9500 boards...

basically in order for them to sell the card as a 9500 they are making changes to close off 4 pipelines...

however not ALL the pcbs are 9700 ones... therefore if you say just buy a 9500 and make hardware/software changes to make it into a 9700... it will not work... only certain boards can be modded... and not the ati boards...

also if sapphire is doing this I don;t think they will be doing it much longer once ati gets a whiff of this...

all in all the 9500 (non-pro) is designed to compete NOT with the 4200 but its gf4 mx brethren which it does quite well...

the 9500pro competes with the 4200 market...

the 9700 (non-pro) competes with the 4400/4600 and the 4800/4800 se market...

the 9700pro currently does not have a competitor...

 

[Heath3n]

Originally posted by Sazar
all in all the 9500 (non-pro) is designed to compete NOT with the 4200 but its gf4 mx brethren which it does quite well...

the 9500pro competes with the 4200 market...

the 9700 (non-pro) competes with the 4400/4600 and the 4800/4800 se market...

the 9700pro currently does not have a competitor...

Actually...from benchmarks and tests that I have seen on various sites...all three of the top Radeon cards..9500pro, 9700, and 9700 pro will literally smoke anything Nvidia puts out right now.

 

[Sazar]

Originally posted by Heath3n
Actually...from benchmarks and tests that I have seen on various sites...all three of the top Radeon cards..9500pro, 9700, and 9700 pro will literally smoke anything Nvidia puts out right now.

not true entirely...

yes once AA anf FSAA are utilised the r300 based cards you mention are very good..

however the 9500pro's scores are around the same as the ti4600 (therefore ti 4800) and therefore does not smoke it...

it is a cheaper solution though...

 

[Heath3n]

Originally posted by Sazar

however the 9500pro's scores are around the same as the ti4600 (therefore ti 4800) and therefore does not smoke it...

it is a cheaper solution though...

K...agreed the 9500 pro does not beat out the ti4800...that wasn't in the tests i saw though.. they only tested and compared up to the ti4600..

 

[Sazar]

Originally posted by Heath3n
K...agreed the 9500 pro does not beat out the ti4800...that wasn't in the tests i saw though.. they only tested and compared up to the ti4600..

the 4800 is basically a 4600 with agp8x performance...

4800SE is a 4400 with agp 8x performance...

we ALL know that agp8x is not utilised right now... therefore the product are identical...

 

[FoSsiL]

can anyone tell me how big of a difference in performance between the apg 4x and 8x?