Digit-Life's Radeon review (mainly Sapphires)

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Digit-Life has their typically NICE (1 jam-packed page) and thorough review of a few Radeons (R9200s and R9800s [including the SE]).

One problem, they have pictures of the R9500 and R9700 board and no pictures o the R9600P, yet their performance figures have R9600P figures and non for the R9500/R9700. The R9600P is of course used to reference the R9800SE's perfromance, but it would have been nice to keep that consistent.

<A HREF="http://www.ixbt-labs.com/articles2/radeon/sapphire-4.html" target="_new">http://www.ixbt-labs.com/articles2/radeon/sapphire-4.html</A>


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[cleeve]

I found it interesting that the 9800SE 256 bit is neck and neck with the 9600 PRO, for the most part.

I would have guessed that it would have done worse.

But if memory serves, the 9500 non-pros with 256 bit memory interfaces weren't nearly as good as even the 9500 PROs stock... then again, the clockspeeds are different...

------------------
Radeon 9500 (modded to PRO w/8 pixel pipelines)
AMD AthlonXP 2000+
3dMark03: 3529

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Yeah I kinda expected that for the most part. I just wonder how they compare in DX9-centric benchmarks.

The R9800SE may not be as bad a buy as some people think, but it all dpeends on the price. I still prefer he overhead and form-factor of my card.

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[cdpage]

Its quite annoying that the 9500's aare no longer put in comparison test... i'd like to know how mine is standing up to everyone else's



ASUS P4S8X - P4 2.4B - 2 x 512M DDR333 - ATI 9500 Pro(Sapphire) - WD 80G HD (8M Buffer) - SAMSUNG SV0844D 8G HD - LG 16X DVD - Yamaha F1 CDRW - Iomega Zip 250 int.

 

[Crashman]

Problem is, the 9800SE 256-bit is a rare part, like the 9500 Non Pro 256-bit.

In fact, it's still true that the 9800SE uses the same parts as the 9500 Non Pro, but cost 30% more. It's still 28% worse than the 9600 Pro. Unless you only want to discuss the ghost product 256-bit version.

ATI would have been smart to specify 256-bit only for the 9800SE in order to make it less of an insult to the 9800 name. I feel sorry for the person who buys the 9800SE expecting 9800np performance and only gets 9500np performance. And I blame ATI directly.

Yes, your memory does serv you correctly, this 256-bit card also used overclocked memory speed with non-standard 2.8ns memory. The 9800SE you're more likely to find on the market will be the 128-bit version using 3.3ns memory. Which means it uses the 9500np card, memory, and for the most part GPU.

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<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[ufo_warviper]

And I blame ATI directly.

And so do I. I hate all these confusing graphics card naming conventions schemes. Year by year, the names get muddied even more than the previous year. It actually seem that 2 years ago that Graphics card names where very straight-forward back then compared to now. People were even complaining about the confusion back then, now look at the confusion today.



My OS features preemptive multitasking, a fully interactive command line, & support for 640K of RAM!

 

[Crashman]

It would have been a lot more accurate to name it the 9550, since the 9600 already exist. Or the 9400 Pro, since it's 4-piped like the 9600 Pro, but the 9500 Pro already existed. With the specified 3.3ns memory and specified 128-bit pathway, it should fall between the 9500np and 9500Pro.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Well I think you're a little hard on ATI for this, but I won't say you're wrong because you've definitely got a valid point and I have no idea what their thinking is.

The only thing I can think of is that they may have so many bin'd R350 cores that don't quite make it to R9800NP standards, that turning them into R9800SE makes financial sense to them. The marketing they'll leave up to their partners, and therefore most of the backlash and blame. Yeah that could be underhanded, but I think people need to inform themselves to. Heck most people couldn't tell me what GT, SE, LS, etc mean in cars, yet they do the research to know not to get $crewed. IT's a weird card that has the opportunity to be moded towards an R9800NP, although the success rate if substantially lower than the R9500NP. But then again like I tell all hopeful R9500P moders, that's a risk (low as it may be), are you willing to get stuck with a lesser card if it doesn't work? I think it's got it's market, and unfortunately that target market / price-point are the same naive people who will buy an FX5200 or 5600non-ultra or GF4MX. They may not know better, but I don't feel as sorry for them as those who bought R9600Pros and ended up with R9600non-pros thanks to Powercolor and Gigapuke, those guys got F'ed!

Well that's my two frames worth.


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[siranthony]

These graphs and color codes are confusing as hell. Forget it.

P4 2.4c @ 3.0 ASUS P4P800 dx Geil Golden Dragon PC4000 2.5,3,3,6 250FSB 1:1 Radeon 9800 non-pro 2 Maxtor 60gig 7200rpm 8mb cach in raid 0 SB Audigy 2 Antec True 480

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

But with the ATI you should be able to discern the colours BEAUTIFULLY! Although not as nice as a Matrox.


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