Radeon 9600 overclocked and performing.......

Zardon · Apr 19, 2003, 02:55 PM

A few early reports had Radeon 9600 Pro cards overclocking to almost 570MHz core clock speeds, with 350MHz+ memory speeds. We weren't quite that lucky, but had great results nonetheless.

At core speeds in excess of 540MHz, with memory speeds hovering around 370MHz, we could complete some benchmarks, but had visual anomalies and the test system frequently hung.

So, we raised the AGP voltage to 1.7 and lowered the clock speeds until we found the point where all visual artifacts were gone, and the test system was able to complete all of our benchmarks without a problem. We finally settled on a 519MHz core clock speed, with our memory clocked at 366MHz (732MHz DDR)!

That's a full 119MHz over the stock clock speed of 400MHz for the core, and 66MHz (132MHz DDR) over the stock memory clock speed of 300MHz (600MHz DDR)!
Keep in mind this was achieved with STOCK cooling, with no modifications made to the card whatsoever. We ran through a complete set of benchmarks while overclocked to see what kind of real-world performance gains can be realized with the Radeon 9600 Pro running at overclocked levels...

Hothardware

Zardon · Apr 19, 2003, 03:00 PM

Overclocking the 9600 Pro yielded an approximate 28% performance gain across the board. !

~~Asuka~~ · Apr 19, 2003, 05:50 PM

What a nonsense

Comparing an OCed 9600 Pro to a non-OCed 9500 Pro is quite an useless waste of time

If it couldn't even win win in OCed state, it'd be even more pitiful than it already is.
Seems like they were paid by ATI for this crap to make the n00bs believe that the 9600 Pro isn't as pitiful as everyone says

Zardon · Apr 19, 2003, 05:57 PM

I was just waiting for your anti-ati post, its becoming quite a regular occurance isnt it? I keep getting complaints on your posts... I think 20 this week so far.

the 9600 figures speak for themselves. 30% overclock is impressive.

~~Asuka~~ · Apr 19, 2003, 08:33 PM

Originally posted by Zardon
the 9600 figures speak for themselves. 30% overclock is impressive.

Yes, 30% overclock IS impressive - yet it is often still not enough to reach to performance of a not-OCed 9500 Pro

Especially the AA peformance has been cut down quite rigorously, even though that was the card's trump. Let's just look here:

Even with this extreme OC, the 9600 Pro is only very slightly ahead of the non-OCed 9500 Pro! With 4xAA it looks a bit better again, but woe you if you should try to activate 8xAniso to go with the 4xAA, or even 6xAA - then the OCed 9600 even falls behind!

But that's not all yet. The 9600 Pro also exposes a great inability for high performance in high resolutions, like in 1600x1200:

The 9600 Pro is already insanely high OCed, yet it utterly fails to reach even the performance of a non-OCed 9500 Pro! Even worse yet, should you be so daft as to activate 4xAA, it even gets whopping 29% behind the non-OCed 9500 Pro, and with 6xAA it's already 30%!

Now that's really extreme! Let's best not think of the carnage that would ensue if the 9500 Pro would be OCed as well, especially even only remotely that much as the 9600 Pro!

This move from ATI is far from intelligent. They shoot their best horse in the stable, the 9500 Pro (not the best performance-wise, but the best regarding popularity, as it has, or rather had, the best price-performance ratio) and replace it by some lame nag, the 9600 Pro, which you need to OC to hell and back so it gives decent performance in the first place, and even then it sometimes can't even reach a non-OCed 9500 Pro!

Finally, they give this lame nag an even higher number to trick the poor n00bs into thinking it would have a higher performance, where it clearly has not! This smells very much like a rip-off to me... it's sad that they feel the need to stoop *that* low

That's not even the first time they did this, they did it already several times before: 8500->9000 (much less performance), 8500->9100 (250->200 memory), 9100->9200 (whereas the 9200 is only a 9000 with 8xAGP).
nVidia is not quite that bad there. They're clearly no saints either - they still have their share of misleading naming, but not that much: GF4 MX (whereas it was only a slightly upgraded GF2), and GF4 4600->4800SE, whereas the 4800SE is a 4400 with AxAGP (which wasn't quite that bad, as the difference between 4400 and 4600 is only very small, which was the reason why the 4400 got removed from the line-up later on). However, at least they're consistent with their naming of the GF FX cards: 5600 is clearly faster than 5200, and 5800 is clearly faster than 5600. Also, *all* FX cards support DX9, not as with ATI where the cards below 9500 don't support DX9, even if the name 9xxx suggests otherwise.
I really can't approve of ATI's absolutely crappy bussiness practices there (and then there's still them totally screwing the European market

), so I hve to say that nVidia is clearly the lesser of two evils. Let's just hope that the Xabre 2 will be as good as they claim to be so we will have another competitor here.

Apr 19, 2003, 02:55 PM	#1
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 179	Radeon 9600 overclocked and performing....... A few early reports had Radeon 9600 Pro cards overclocking to almost 570MHz core clock speeds, with 350MHz+ memory speeds. We weren't quite that lucky, but had great results nonetheless. At core speeds in excess of 540MHz, with memory speeds hovering around 370MHz, we could complete some benchmarks, but had visual anomalies and the test system frequently hung. So, we raised the AGP voltage to 1.7 and lowered the clock speeds until we found the point where all visual artifacts were gone, and the test system was able to complete all of our benchmarks without a problem. We finally settled on a 519MHz core clock speed, with our memory clocked at 366MHz (732MHz DDR)! That's a full 119MHz over the stock clock speed of 400MHz for the core, and 66MHz (132MHz DDR) over the stock memory clock speed of 300MHz (600MHz DDR)! Keep in mind this was achieved with STOCK cooling, with no modifications made to the card whatsoever. We ran through a complete set of benchmarks while overclocked to see what kind of real-world performance gains can be realized with the Radeon 9600 Pro running at overclocked levels... Hothardware

Apr 19, 2003, 03:00 PM	Thread Starter #2
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 179	Overclocking the 9600 Pro yielded an approximate 28% performance gain across the board. !

Apr 19, 2003, 05:50 PM	#3
~~Asuka~~ BANNED Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Germany Posts: 579 Rep Power: 0	What a nonsense Comparing an OCed 9600 Pro to a non-OCed 9500 Pro is quite an useless waste of time If it couldn't even win win in OCed state, it'd be even more pitiful than it already is. Seems like they were paid by ATI for this crap to make the n00bs believe that the 9600 Pro isn't as pitiful as everyone says

Apr 19, 2003, 05:57 PM	Thread Starter #4
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 179	I was just waiting for your anti-ati post, its becoming quite a regular occurance isnt it? I keep getting complaints on your posts... I think 20 this week so far. the 9600 figures speak for themselves. 30% overclock is impressive.

Apr 19, 2003, 08:33 PM	#5
~~Asuka~~ BANNED Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: Germany Posts: 579 Rep Power: 0	Originally posted by Zardon the 9600 figures speak for themselves. 30% overclock is impressive. Yes, 30% overclock IS impressive - yet it is often still not enough to reach to performance of a not-OCed 9500 Pro Especially the AA peformance has been cut down quite rigorously, even though that was the card's trump. Let's just look here: Even with this extreme OC, the 9600 Pro is only very slightly ahead of the non-OCed 9500 Pro! With 4xAA it looks a bit better again, but woe you if you should try to activate 8xAniso to go with the 4xAA, or even 6xAA - then the OCed 9600 even falls behind! But that's not all yet. The 9600 Pro also exposes a great inability for high performance in high resolutions, like in 1600x1200: The 9600 Pro is already insanely high OCed, yet it utterly fails to reach even the performance of a non-OCed 9500 Pro! Even worse yet, should you be so daft as to activate 4xAA, it even gets whopping 29% behind the non-OCed 9500 Pro, and with 6xAA it's already 30%! Now that's really extreme! Let's best not think of the carnage that would ensue if the 9500 Pro would be OCed as well, especially even only remotely that much as the 9600 Pro! This move from ATI is far from intelligent. They shoot their best horse in the stable, the 9500 Pro (not the best performance-wise, but the best regarding popularity, as it has, or rather had, the best price-performance ratio) and replace it by some lame nag, the 9600 Pro, which you need to OC to hell and back so it gives decent performance in the first place, and even then it sometimes can't even reach a non-OCed 9500 Pro! Finally, they give this lame nag an even higher number to trick the poor n00bs into thinking it would have a higher performance, where it clearly has not! This smells very much like a rip-off to me... it's sad that they feel the need to stoop that low That's not even the first time they did this, they did it already several times before: 8500->9000 (much less performance), 8500->9100 (250->200 memory), 9100->9200 (whereas the 9200 is only a 9000 with 8xAGP). nVidia is not quite that bad there. They're clearly no saints either - they still have their share of misleading naming, but not that much: GF4 MX (whereas it was only a slightly upgraded GF2), and GF4 4600->4800SE, whereas the 4800SE is a 4400 with AxAGP (which wasn't quite that bad, as the difference between 4400 and 4600 is only very small, which was the reason why the 4400 got removed from the line-up later on). However, at least they're consistent with their naming of the GF FX cards: 5600 is clearly faster than 5200, and 5800 is clearly faster than 5600. Also, all FX cards support DX9, not as with ATI where the cards below 9500 don't support DX9, even if the name 9xxx suggests otherwise. I really can't approve of ATI's absolutely crappy bussiness practices there (and then there's still them totally screwing the European market ), so I hve to say that nVidia is clearly the lesser of two evils. Let's just hope that the Xabre 2 will be as good as they claim to be so we will have another competitor here.