What can I do with this 9600?

[GHoosdum]

So I have to downgrade my Secondary Rig since I'm losing my job in January. I'm replacing the 9500 Pro (parting is such sweet sorrow!) with a 9600 that I bought today at BB for $70 AR.

What kind of potential does the 9600 have? Will I be able to play anything decent with this 9600? How will it OC?

I want my job so I can keep 2 good PCs! :bawling:

[SimGuy]

9600's OC well, considering they are the lowest clocked 0.13 micron manufacturing process cards available.

Running stock speeds against your 9500 Pro, you are going to see a 30-45% performance drop.

Running an Barton 2600, 2x256 MB Corsair XMS3200-LL, a NForce2 motherboard and Catalyst 3.2, the following benchmarks show the 9600 -vs- the 9500 Pro.

Bench: [9500 Pro Score] - [9600 Score]
3DMark2001 @ 1024x768: [12640] - [9104]
3DMark2003 @ 1024x768: [3580] - [2464]
Q3A @ 1024x768: [276] - [203]
Q3A @ 1600x1200: [150] - [91]
Q3A @ 1024x768, 2xAA: [214] - [138]
Q3A @ 1600x1200, 2xAA: [95] - [61]
Q3A @ 1024x768, 4xAA: [171] - [114]
Q3A @ 1600x1200, 4xAA: [76] - [52]
Q3A @ 1024x768, 8xAF: [252] - [158]
Q3A @ 1600x1200, 8xAF: [128] - [77]
UT2003 @ 1024x768: [116] - [70]
UT2003 @ 1600x1200: [50] - [29]
UT2003 @ 1024x768, 2xAA: [88] - [57]
UT2003 @ 1600x1200, 2xAA: [38] - [20]
UT2003 @ 1024x768, 4xAA: [73] - [48]
UT2003 @ 1600x1200, 4xAA: [33] - [13]
UT2003 @ 1024x768, 8xAF: [87] - [57]
UT2003 @ 1600x1200, 8xAF: [40] - [24]

All benchmarks courtesy of NordicHardware.com (http://www.nordichardware.com/reviews/graphiccard/2003/Radeon9600Pro/index.php).

I've never looked into the overclockability of 9600 Non-Pro's, but I've seen the 9600 Pro's go from 400/600 to 510/740 without additional cooling. Still, the core does not offer the same fillrate as a 9500 Pro, even at that level because the 9600 only has 4 pipelines.

[GHoosdum]

Thanks for the info, SimGuy... I've seen good things about the core OC on the 9600, even with the stock passive cooler, but the RAM is what throws this thing in the dumps - it's got Samsung TSOP DDR - 250MHz max out of the memory clock... I might try to unload this sucker on eBay for a quick profit and try to pocket myself a 9600 Pro instead... hmm...

[GHoosdum]

OK SimGuy - I've decided to keep it. What's my potential?
I will try to OC the RAM to 250 on it... will ramsinks help? I've got some TSOP sized ramsinks.

I'm also going to take off the stock cooler and put on the rather large cooler I've pictured here (http://www.short-media.com/forum/showthread.php?postid=67278#post67278)... I want to keep it passively cooled. I also plan to stick with Ceramique instead of AS5. What do you think the core is likely to OC to?