NEED HELP G-force fx (5600 ultra 256mb) v Radeon 9600 pro (256mb ddr)

Falgorn

Can anyone tell me the better card to get? I have a pentium 2.6G about 8 months old. 512mb ddr ram, and want a powerfull games card, but the higher end 5900 and 9800 are too expensive.

Thank you.

Falgorn.

Retr0gamer

ATI all the way!

Falgorn

Why is Radeon ATI better then the other? want to try and make an informed decision!! Basically wanna spend €250 - €300 on as good a graphics card as that will buy?

Retr0gamer

The master has spoken do not question him!

Well if you must then:The Geforce is a noisy, badly designed, overclocked piece of crap. The ATI is far more efficient in what it does. Also you will get much better support on games with the Radeon since games developers prefer them.

I would recommend even more in saving up a bit more money and getting a higher end cards. Low end cards tend to go obsolete very quickly and you will get far more lifespan out of a higher end card. Trust me on this, it happened to me. I'm stuck with a geforce 2 mx which while cheap was useless after 4 months.

koneko

The 5600 Ultra and 9600 Pro are middle of the range cards, they're not budget cards. If you buy a GeForce 2 MX you can't expect much out of it. It's equivalent now is the FX 5200.
The two cards you mentioned are fairly solid performers and will last fairly long, as long as you don't crank up the resolution too much on future games I still have a GeForce 4 Ti4200 in one of my systems and it's running nicely.

They're very close performance wise. The 9600 Pro may edge ahead slightly as it does support some games better, and performs slightly better in a lot of tests.

The FX 5600 Ultra though will get new drivers (Nvidia always do that) that may improve the performance a lot. Ifs and buts though.

The card with the big cooling (the noisey one) is the 5900 Ultra, not the 5600 Ultra. The 5600 Ultra looks more like a GeForce 4 (slightly bigger cooling, but not too big).

Anyway, the cards are fairly close performance wise. The 9600 Pro seems to be slightly better at the moment though.

astrofool

then 5600's are tiny, just installed one here.

the 5800 is the loud one. 5900 is probably the best performer out there atm, card is large but not overly noisy.

Best buy atm is probably the rad 9700 pro, nvidia still have the edge when it comes to drivers tho, esp. with regards older games which ati won't be bug fixing as much for, whereas due to the unified driver set, nvidia worked out alot of the bugs years ago.

retr0 stick to the consoles, at least there your "don't have a clue"-ness is of opinion rather than just plain getting facts wrong

astrofool

5600 ultra wth 256meg ram is the better bet of the above two btw, the 9600 pro ain't too hot of a performer, even compared to older ati cards (9500 pro), the 5600 is the new ti 4200.

and I just thought of it (smacks forehead), ati do gamecube, and nvidia do xbox, which does retr0 whisper sweet nothings to ?

Retr0gamer

Die Fatbox!


I didn't get it all wrong. The numbers just confused me and I was talking about all the Geforce cards being fairly noisey compared to the ATI cards.

Asuka

Amusingly, the game thats bundled with the new GeForce card actually runs better on the new radeon

A

Praetorian

Amusingly, the game thats bundled with the new GeForce card actually runs better on the new radeon

The fact that Nvidias "Dawn" runs better on a Radeon 9800 than a 5900 Geforce is even more amusing.

I'd recommend getting a 9700 or a 9800. I have a 9800 for quite a while now, it’s a super card.

Although, the 9900 is due out around the same time as Half Life 2. It is rumoured that Half Life 2 will be bundled with the card.

Well seems ATI has come out on top, even Divx prefers em

conZ

Before you choose your FX card, read this.

wh00t, 800 posts.

Creamy Goodness

one thing is for sure gfx cards don't look the same any more

shinzon

Not to rain on this guys parade but this question by comic store guy has been posted on a few different forums on boards.

All you need to do m8 is post in one and youll get an answer, as you have here

Regards

Shin

Falgorn

Kinda more confused now than when i started.. basically here is how it breaks down

G-force fx 5600 ultra (256 mb ddr) ----> €250.00

Ati Radeon 9600 pro (256 mb ddr) ----> €275.00

From what i read they are both good cards, but i have heard mis givings about them both. My best guess is that one would notice no real difference between them, or am i wrong?

Again sorry about the multiple posts..

Falgorn

amp

Well, there's not much between them and they seem to overtake each other when new drivers are released, so if it was me, I'd pick the nvidia one to annoy Retr0gamer.

Besides, nvidia are cooler. Nearly as cool as 3dfx...

Retr0gamer

Bet you have a 'cool' 3dfx t-shirt and hope that one day they may be as cool as the atari t-shirt that you got 20 years ago

(Hey, I'm joking)

amp

Originally posted by Retr0gamer
Bet you have a 'cool' 3dfx t-shirt and hope that one day they may be as cool as the atari t-shirt that you got 20 years ago

(Hey, I'm joking)

Good thing too. Never be dissing the Atari.

Asuka

I think Atari dissing is perfectly valid since they became Infogrames

A

Retr0gamer

I think they can be forgiven for enter the matrix because of Ikaruga.

Now to google.com to look for an atari jaguar or lynx t-shirt.

BKtje

You could probably get a 2nd hand 9700pro over on the for sale forum for the money you want. Beats both those cards without breaking a sweat

Personally i prefer ATI (nvidia remind me too much of eircom in their ways ) but i dont think theres that big a difference. I wouldn't listen too much into nvidia driver performance advantages since ATI have been fairly good with their own driver improvements since the release of the 9700pro.

You could probbaly find a load of benchmarks between the two cards on www.tomshardware.com or www.anandtech.com. Not sure if thats what you were looking for tho. Word of warning about above sites, neither are perfect (read unbiased) so its a good idea to read both or more before making a decesion.

amp

Originally posted by Asuka
I think Atari dissing is perfectly valid since they became Infogrames

There is no new Atari. Atari died with the Jaguar.

/me sticks fingers in ears and goes LALALALLALALALALAALA!

Giblet

Get the Nvidia.
Retr0 talks through his arse.

RicardoSmith

Only in the last 6 months have ATI had decent drivers. For the previous 5 or so years their drivers have been a bugfest. If you want to run any older games don't go with ATI. Only newer titles work well with them. But even the some new titles have issues. So check the support forums of your fav games before you buy.

Nvidia have let he ball drop a little over the last while, but generally they work with everything.

If it was me I'd look for a GFt4i4200/9500pro/9700pro in order of preference. But its comes down to what games work best with which card. Oh and if you use any 3D or CAD apps a Nvidia card would be a better choice.