Skip to main content

Notice

Please note that most of the software linked on this forum is likely to be safe to use. If you are unsure, feel free to ask in the relevant topics, or send a private message to an administrator or moderator. To help curb the problems of false positives, or in the event that you do find actual malware, you can contribute through the article linked here.
Topic: ATI Radeon 9600 vs. nVidia 7600 GS (Read 11342 times) previous topic - next topic
0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

ATI Radeon 9600 vs. nVidia 7600 GS

Hey guys, I am thinking about upgrading my Sapphire ATI Radeon 9600 AGP video card and am wondering what to get. PCIe cards are not supported by my motherboard, so I have to use AGP (8x). Since I also want to use the PC for playing DVDs and movie files, the card should have passive cooling or a low-noise fan. I probably won't play recent games at the maximum resolution, but the card should handle older games and maybe stuff like NFS Carbon at 1024x768. The price is also important and shouldn't be higher than 100 €. VGA and DVI is a must, HDMI and HDCP are not important.

The best offer I was able to find here in Germany is the ASUS N7600GS SILENT/HTD/256M that is based on an nVidia 7600 GS and has 256 MB (like my Radeon). It costs between 70 and 80 € with shipping. What do you think? Is it worth the update, or is the difference too low?

PS: Weird thing - I was just browsing on the Sapphire page and read that my card should have an 128 bit memory interface (since I don't have the SE model). However, when I check with Everest or similar programs, the reported interface has only 64 bit

ATI Radeon 9600 vs. nVidia 7600 GS

Reply #1
For that price, better get a Radeon HD 2600 Pro. Should be at least 50% faster, and it accelerates HD video. But i have no info on the noise levels of those cards.

ATI Radeon 9600 vs. nVidia 7600 GS

Reply #2
It's tough to say whether it's worth upgrading or not, because I'm not fully convinced the 9600 fails to do what you want it to do.  I have a 9600, and I think it plays older games just fine.  Though you and I may have a different definition of what an older game is.

I haven't tried my setup with NFS Carbon though.

FWIW, I don't fully trust Asus silent video cards

 

ATI Radeon 9600 vs. nVidia 7600 GS

Reply #3
9600XT is a mighty fine card back in the day it also can play most games at 1024x768 settings but don't expect to play Crysis on it.

I'm sure x1950 has a AGP version not sure on price but these cards are very good at newer released games.
:Foobar 2000:
:MPC --standard:
:iRiver H320 Rockboxed:

ATI Radeon 9600 vs. nVidia 7600 GS

Reply #4
I recommend that you avoid ATI's recent AGP cards.
I had ATI X1650 AGP in one of my machines for some time, had to get rid of it because the drivers were horribly broken, under both Vista and XP, seems to be specific to ATI's recent AGP cards. I finally replaced it with a 7600GS AGP, no single problem since. According to complaints I've read on various internet sites, it was not an isolated case.
I'm sure my card wasn't broken, specific old driver versions under Windows Vista were perfectly stable running Vista/Aero desktop and various old games, but anything from 7.5 up would BSOD on boot. Latest Windows XP drivers would freeze soon after booting; XP drivers bundled with the card caused a system crash / reboot during first 3DMark2001 pass.
Microsoft Windows: We can't script here, this is bat country.

ATI Radeon 9600 vs. nVidia 7600 GS

Reply #5
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=45565

Enjoy reading AGP horror stories on ATI cards. How these drivers and previous releases even pass WHQL is beyond me and people say Nvidia has bad drivers? It's been broken since 7.5 at least, so it's 6 months of broken AGP support.

ATI Radeon 9600 vs. nVidia 7600 GS

Reply #6
Shame about the ATI AGP drivers. But the 7600 GS is overpriced. Look on eBay for a used one, maybe.

ATI Radeon 9600 vs. nVidia 7600 GS

Reply #7
Hi,

I was thinking about getting an ASUS EN8500GT PCIe passively cooled card (/me is not a gamer). What do you think about nvidia cards in general? In the past (pentium 2/3 era) I had no problems with such cards (elsa erazor 2). Regarding heat, the card/pc/os needs to survive 5 hrs of nonstop running.

The other side is a current problem with my relatives pc. Cheap average xp bullshit machine. AMD, Asrock mainboard, ATI radeon card, agp. Problems with windows hardware detection, screen getting black as in standby, now no more vga output, finally we found out the mainboard is broken (no output with other cards). But also the card driver installation was horrible, via 4in1 driver pain etc. etc... My experience is: If you hear "via", run away as fast as you can. Now I'm waiting for a new mainboard for my relative. And I really hope I'll don't get driver problems again. haven't had such a sucking pc problem for years.

ATI Radeon 9600 vs. nVidia 7600 GS

Reply #8
Hi,

I was thinking about getting an ASUS EN8500GT PCIe passively cooled card (/me is not a gamer).


Thread hijacking aside (but after all, we're in OT): The 8600 GT theoretically is a much better buy. I know you're not a gamer, but one day you might wanna play a game. The 8600 GT is on average 55% faster than the 8500 GT, but only costs about 20% more.


Quote
The other side is a current problem with my relatives pc. Cheap average xp bullshit machine. AMD, Asrock mainboard, ATI radeon card, agp.


"Stay away from ASRock" is really a good motto. They like to violate design standards and thus you might run into some very odd problems with such boards. Pay a couple bucks more for a Gigabyte or Asus board.

ATI Radeon 9600 vs. nVidia 7600 GS

Reply #9
The 2600 AGP cards have rather loud fans. The only passive cooled card is an MSI that is too expensive (around 100 €) and has bad reviews. I guess I can buy the 7600 and make use of the 14 days return right. Since it's over 40 €, I don't lose anything for shipping it back.

ATI Radeon 9600 vs. nVidia 7600 GS

Reply #10
Scaling down from the current price/performance king Radeon HD 3850, the 7600 GS should cost no more than 20-25 Euro... 

ATI Radeon 9600 vs. nVidia 7600 GS

Reply #11
Well, a big disadvantage is that my motherboard does not support PCIe and I don't have enough money now to build a new PC. I guess that people who buy new cards usually choose PCIe nowadays so the "price war" is going to affect those cards only. In a few months, IDE drives will probably be more expensive than SATA - if it's not this way already.

ATI Radeon 9600 vs. nVidia 7600 GS

Reply #12
Thanks citay for your hint, yes I'll get such a card now...

Well, a big disadvantage is that my motherboard does not support PCIe and I don't have enough money now to build a new PC.

I was a bit surprised how cheap PCs are. Till a month ago as my desktop pc I used a P3/500 with W2k. Last month I decided to buy another one for a few bucks. Well it's a hp/compaq dc7100cmt, 3ghz/1Gb, 220 EUR.  I put another 2 GBs of RAM in, a new 500 GB sata disk, one of my old hard disks (there's just one IDE slot) and well I must say life can be so easy.