fumanstan

You are incorrect sir. It's the 9500 Pro that is a bit faster then the 9600 Pro.

Trigger

What the hell are you guys talking about?

9800 > 9700 > 9600 > 9500

The numbering isn't goofy at all.

When ATI updated it's 9000 family product line, they upped the numbers...

9000, 9500, 9700 became 9200, 9600, and 9800... respectively.

fumanstan

Nope. The 9500 Pro has 8 pipelines while the 9600 Pro has 4. The 9600 has higher clock speeds to make up for the fewer pipelines to bring up performance. Take a look at some benchmarks, and the 9500 Pro is faster on most accounts. The 9500 Non Pro, on the otherhand, is a dog.

Jackskeleton

that is unless you softmodded it. the 9500 was a power house.

the 9500 was a watered down version of a 9700, that's why it was softmodded so easy.

fumanstan

Only some, and in many cases the soft mod created graphic anomalies. Personally, i'm happy with my 9700 non pro flashed with the pro bios instead of spending 150 dollars and taking a chance on something that may or not work. Especially since i didnt want to be one of those people who returned a card just because it wouldn't overclock or mod

Jackskeleton

that is true. I'm pretty sure that the 9700 will handle half life well if the rest of your system specs are up to par.

GatorDeb

Kind of in topic, off topic.

My nephew just got $615 for his bar Mitzvah. He wants me to get him a gaming rig. In pieces is ok, I know how to build them. I already have a hard drive. What's the best I can get him for that money? I also have a mid-sized case (how hard is it to switch motherboards?). So we're looking for motherboard, CPU, memory, soundcard, and video card. Links? Thanks!

Is the ATI 9600 Pro 256 MB DDR better than the ATI 9500 Pro 128 MB DDR? I ask because the 9500 is $150 and I found the 9600 for $137.

This is what I got:

P4 2.4 and mobo $184
Radeon 9600 Pro 256 MB DDR $137
Hard drive 120 gig already have
Case already have
Windows XP Home $63
Sound Blaster Audigy Gamer $72
1 gig PC 3200 DDR $140
-------------------------------------------
$596

He's not into the greatest and latest games, just games Will this run him games for the next 2 years or so?

We have tons of speakers, mice, and keyboards here and he has a monitor over there, so we're not counting those.

Jackskeleton

Ack! Don't get the 9600 256mb, It has slow memory. stick with the 128

Also, hat sound card do you have? most games arent heavy when it comes to Sound card requirements. So you can often times settle for a cheaper sound card, and in most cases, new mobo's come with sound cards already in them.

told you Ram was dirt cheap.

as for 9500 vs 9600, the 9500 is no longer being made, some you can softmod to preform to the likes of a 9700. the 9600 replaced the 9500 and pretty much are a standard now a days. that could be reason behind price. but stay away from the 256mb 9600, I heard plenty of horror stories about that one.

You also have to worry about heat issues. a good heat sink will save your rig, and not to mention power supply.

GatorDeb

Well I've never dealt with mobos... is there a gaming rig already made under $600 shipped that you recommend?

Jackskeleton

nothing out of the box for anything less then 600..

Important thing is to get a good heat sink and fan to cover up your processor unless you want to fry it. an Alpha heat sink should run you no more then 20-30. fans are cheap. add some neon lights if he wants to rice it out. that should all come to around 50 bucks in itself. but you have to make sure about heat issues. http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQ3

power supply, a good 350 to 400 power supply should handle that. that would be around 80 there. look around and you might find them cheaper.


My suggestion.. get what he wants to do with it. You said he isn't into the latest games so maybe gettin him a top notch video card isn't the best thing. video cards at this point should last atleast a while. and check out http://newegg.com/ or Mwave.com best prices and great service.

fumanstan

I'd disagree about the fan/heatsink. Intel's fan/heatsink that come with their retail P4 are very good, and will work just fine.

Sound is subjective... if you're just using cheap speakers the onboard sound on a motherboard might be good enough. If you have some decent speakers, you might want to pick up a soundcard. I'd pickup an Audigy 2 or the new Audigy 2 ZS over the original Audigy.

Jackskeleton

Some Mobo's come with an Audigy 2 already built on. Mine did. that is what I was refering to. with Mobo's coming with more and more features already on the board you should look around for the best price and for the item that will bring the biggest bang for your buck. For the most part games aren't too big on sound card requirments. so unless they are going to go all out and buy a 5.1 speaker set, you can be laid back about it with basic speakers and an average audigy 2 card (Have it be on the board or by itself)

Trigger

I had looked at the benchmarks - when the 9600 first came out, the 9500 pro kicked its ass... months later, with the drivers improved the differences were alot smaller(and the gap between the 9600 pro and the 9500 non pro widened). You're right, the 9600 having only 4 pipelines gave the 9500 pro an advantage, but the 9600 pro has more memory bandwidth, faster memory clock, faster GPU clock, (smaller micron process), and it came out a bit cheaper than both 9500 versions. I think the 9600 was a good replacement for the 9500... however, you're right in that the 9500 was a good card - overclocking made it a great value. I bought one for my friend and I had to decide between the 9600 and 9500. In the end I went with the 9600 cuz my friend wasn't an overclocker and I figured there was untapped potential in there. Maybe i went the wrong way, but really you can't go wrong with either card.

Jackskeleton

nope, that you can't. the 9600 will be a card to handle a lot for some time to come.

trigun

This thread is making my head hurt. I guess that's why I haven't spent the time to upgrade my system in a while.

CharlesC

Hmmm, thanks for pointing that out. I didn't pay too close attention to the parts I was picking. I was more interested in getting a general idea how much it would all cost.

Centurion

No problem, although my word is not golden and I'm still looking into this to find as much as I can.

I would like to place an order from one place and so far, newegg.com seems to be the one where I can find what I'm looking for the cheapest:

ASUS Motherboard for Intel Pentium 4 / Celeron Processors, 800Mhz FSB Model# P4C800-E DELUXE Retail
$191.99

Intel Pentium 4 / 3.0CGHz 512k socket 478 Hyper Threading Technology 800 MHz FSB - RETAIL
$389.00

Antec Power supply True480 with Blue LED Fan Retail
$86.00

CORSAIR MEMORY XMS Extreme Memory Speed Series, (Twin Pack) 1GB(2 x 512MB) 2x(64MX64) PC-3200C2PT With Platinum - Silver Heat Spreaders.Retail
$246.00

Thermaltake XASER III V2000A ( SILVER ) 12-Bay All Aluminum ATX Super Tower Chassis w/ Large Side Window and Locks - Retail
$158.99

I don't have any experience with newegg but I have not heard any negative feedback regarding there business practices...or maybe I'm not looking hard enough.

Jackskeleton

newegg is great. it's one of the two places that overclockers trust the most.

Centurion

Thanks.
It's now just a matter of waiting for Gabe or anyone else at Valve to give us the 'Gold' signal and I'm placing the order.