Which is best?

baldasacoot · 03-20-2006, 03:38 AM

I just bought a cheap Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro, 256 MB card to replace the (very expensive three years ago) ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, 128 MB card which was causing problems until I broke it. I can't really see much difference (except I don't crash when in 3D - I think the ATI was nurfed). In fact, some things don't look as good as they did.

Which is meant to be the better card (apart from RAM)?

Is the "X" in X800, X1600 etc meant to be a "10", since all the slightly older cards are numbered 9600, 9700, 9800 etc?

Cheers

~

**UncleMacro** · 03-20-2006, 03:31 PM

An X1600 Pro has way more internal processing power than a 9800 Pro. Basically, the X1600 Pro can do the computations used to draw complex pixels about twice as fast as a 9800 Pro. On the other hand, the 9800 Pro has almost double the memory bandwidth as the X1600 Pro. That means that games which are fetching lots of data from video RAM, running at high resolution, or running with lots of anti-aliasing enabled will be faster on a 9800 Pro. Which one is quicker depends on what game you're running and what resolution and anti-aliasing settings you're using. Newer games tend to do lots more internal processing when drawing pixels so X1600 Pros do better on them unless you turn the resolution or anti-aliasing up too high and hit its limited memory bandwidth.

baldasacoot · 03-21-2006, 02:17 AM

Cheers.

How much more recent is the X1600 than the 9800?

This business of the difference between memory band width and total RAM - I take it that one is the total pool of RAM while the other is how much can be accessed at one time through the 8x AGP 3.0?

Why was a card with 128 MB RAM (9800) designed to have twice the bandwidth of a card with twice the RAM (X1600 = 256 MB)? Is a lot of the extra RAM on the X1600 used for this internal processing?

Cheers!

~

ebackhus · 03-21-2006, 12:11 PM

The difference is the card's memory bus width. The best cards all have 256-bit memory busses. Lower-end cards have 128 and 64-bit busses which are terrible for newer games with all the pretties turned on.

03-20-2006, 03:38 AM	#1 (permalink)
baldasacoot Registered User Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 74 OS: W2K	Which is best? I just bought a cheap Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro, 256 MB card to replace the (very expensive three years ago) ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, 128 MB card which was causing problems until I broke it. I can't really see much difference (except I don't crash when in 3D - I think the ATI was nurfed). In fact, some things don't look as good as they did. Which is meant to be the better card (apart from RAM)? Is the "X" in X800, X1600 etc meant to be a "10", since all the slightly older cards are numbered 9600, 9700, 9800 etc? Cheers ~ __________________ Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000G rev 4.0 (865PE, 800 MHz FSB), Intel P4 3.2 GHz HT, Tagan 530 W Two Force psu, 1024 MB DDR 400 RAM (PC3200), 160 GB Western Digital Caviar WD1600JB, Optiarc DVD RW AD-7170A, Sapphire 512 MB Radeon X1950 Pro, 19" NEC MultiSync 90GX2Pro (1280 x 1024),

03-20-2006, 03:31 PM	#2 (permalink)
UncleMacro TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: San Diego Posts: 2,133 OS: Vista SP1 My System	An X1600 Pro has way more internal processing power than a 9800 Pro. Basically, the X1600 Pro can do the computations used to draw complex pixels about twice as fast as a 9800 Pro. On the other hand, the 9800 Pro has almost double the memory bandwidth as the X1600 Pro. That means that games which are fetching lots of data from video RAM, running at high resolution, or running with lots of anti-aliasing enabled will be faster on a 9800 Pro. Which one is quicker depends on what game you're running and what resolution and anti-aliasing settings you're using. Newer games tend to do lots more internal processing when drawing pixels so X1600 Pros do better on them unless you turn the resolution or anti-aliasing up too high and hit its limited memory bandwidth. Last edited by UncleMacro; 03-20-2006 at 03:36 PM.

03-21-2006, 02:17 AM	#3 (permalink)
baldasacoot Registered User Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 74 OS: W2K	Cheers. How much more recent is the X1600 than the 9800? This business of the difference between memory band width and total RAM - I take it that one is the total pool of RAM while the other is how much can be accessed at one time through the 8x AGP 3.0? Why was a card with 128 MB RAM (9800) designed to have twice the bandwidth of a card with twice the RAM (X1600 = 256 MB)? Is a lot of the extra RAM on the X1600 used for this internal processing? Cheers! ~ __________________ Gigabyte GA-8IPE1000G rev 4.0 (865PE, 800 MHz FSB), Intel P4 3.2 GHz HT, Tagan 530 W Two Force psu, 1024 MB DDR 400 RAM (PC3200), 160 GB Western Digital Caviar WD1600JB, Optiarc DVD RW AD-7170A, Sapphire 512 MB Radeon X1950 Pro, 19" NEC MultiSync 90GX2Pro (1280 x 1024),

03-21-2006, 12:11 PM	#4 (permalink)
ebackhus Manager, Design Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: SATX Posts: 14,275 OS: WinXP Pro SP3/Windows 7 RTM My System Blog Entries: 28	The difference is the card's memory bus width. The best cards all have 256-bit memory busses. Lower-end cards have 128 and 64-bit busses which are terrible for newer games with all the pretties turned on. __________________ ----------------------------- There are no dumb questions, unless a customer is asking them. Help in the fight against cancer and other serious illnesses.