...Should I get the "GeForce FX 5600 128MB" ($90) or the "RADEON 9600 Pro 128MB" ($80)? I'm trying to upgrade my computer's video from a "Geforce4 440 MX 64MB". Any help would be appreciated.

-- SavageX

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"...and if you don't like that, then you need to be slugged in the face repeatedly, until my hands are soaked in blood. Have a nice day!"
http://www.savagex.net

If you want numbers, benchmarks are easy enough to find.

I prefer nVidia for their drivers. I haven't used an ATI card recently, but the last one I did gave me a sour aftertaste because ATI never fixed the driver bugs that I repeatedly reported to them. They just ignored me and went ahead with their Radeon stuff. Grrr. nVidia, on the other hand, has never, ever given me driver problems.

2¢

Whether or not the drivers blow...well I guess they do, but Radeons are still superior cards, for obviously superior prices. Get the 9600, and if you need a reason why, then go to www.hardfind.com. My uncle benched both, and the 9600 quite nearly kicked the 5600's ***. Of course they were both pro, or ultra, or whatever...

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There is no signature

9600 Pro is better, and ATI have about no problems with their drivers anymore.

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Map-Review | Digital Core | The Matrix: Unplugged

Farewell, MaDaVentor. In our hearts, you'll always live on.

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\(='_'=)/

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WARNING: THIS POST MAY CONTAIN TRACES OF PEANUT!!!

ATi's drivers and cards have increased in quality in the past 3 years by substancial amounts. Go ATi, you'll be wasting your money on ANY FX card.

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Massassian since: March 12, 2001

[=-"The hardest thing is to forgive, but God does;
Even if you murdered or robbed, years wrong, but God loves;
Take one step toward him, he takes two toward you;
Even when all else fail, God supports you." - Nas-=]

Great performance, great price. Get the 9600 Pro

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

Especially with the new FX cards, I would defintily prefer ATI over Nvidia. I myself have a GF4 Ti4200, and it does everything I need it to. When I need to, I will upgrade to Radeon 9800.

Both drivers really havn't been that great so far. Both companies's versoin have caused overheating (FX especially), causing the card to crap out.

However, for a GF4 users, the new Nvidia drivers are fine, especially the 40.xx series which really are nice.

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Official Staff of Massassi Temple:
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Moral to the Story: Don't Mess

Like everyone said, it's a great price. Just a few months ago the blasted things were 160 dollars, .

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There is no signature

my PNY Geforce FX 5200 ultra runs great

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---Thomas jefferson, Declaration of Independance.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned that the FX can't run games like Half-Life 2 - or did I completely miss out an important update?

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"LC Tusken: the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot"
Jack Chick preaches it
NMGOH

wow.. for the whole topic, there has been only one post only advocating NVidia. well, i don't mind. I say go with ATI, too. I recently got the 9600, and it runs great, and i haven't had any problems with the drivers. Plus, i get HL2 for free whenever it comes out, but i'm not sure if they're still running that deal.

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"No good can ever come from staying with normal people"
-Outlaw Star
"Some people play tennis. I erode the human soul"
-Tycho, Penny Arcade

[This message has been edited by Noble Outlaw (edited December 15, 2003).]

I wish people would stop ragging on ATI's drivers.. How many years ago was that a problem? Three? Four? I got my 8500 128mb edition last august, my first ATI card (all other computers before that had been dell), and it's run like a beaut. since then.

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MadQuack on Military school: Pro's: I get to shoot a gun. Con's: Everything else.
"I'm going to beat you until the laws of physics are violated!!" ! Maeve's Warcry

RIP -MaDaVentor-. You will be missed.

Ok, I think I'm convinced then. I'll get the RADEON card.

-- SavageX

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"...and if you don't like that, then you need to be slugged in the face repeatedly, until my hands are soaked in blood. Have a nice day!"
http://www.savagex.net

Where are you finding a 9600 pro for $80? That's an insane price drop... make sure that's the actual card,and not a 9200 or a 9600 SE.

The only thing NVidia bests ATI with is OpenGL performance (ie, most 3d apps), so ATI is the better choice for gamers right now..

Well.. I dont know how good a 9600 is, but ATI is definatly better overall than nVidia... I feel bad for nVid.. i used to pull for them.

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"Ahhhh!! I'm Burnin'! I'm Burnin!!!" - Cleaner from Max Payne 2

It's not just the fact that their drivers were poor. It's the fact that they left a loyal customer out to dry with buggy drivers. The problem was with the refresh rate in Direct3D games. Surely one of their expert programmers could have fixed it. Did they bother to assign one of them to spend a little while fixing it? No. So they lost a customer. Not that they care...

What! 80 dollars!? I just bought this a few months ago and it was 120... Ati 9600 pro =

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"answer to life the universe and everything = 42" - Google calculator

If you are using Win2k, that's actually a windows bug. Nvidia cards have the same problem, with resetting to 60hz by magic.

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"The future is not determined by a throw of the dice, but is determined by the conscious decisions of you and me."
I am addicted to ellipses!!! AHHH!!! ...

Your experience is personal, I understand that blujay, but that was a long time ago when ATI didn't really have all that much going for it. At the moment, they are on top, including their driver support.

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

ATI sucks. Get a real card.



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The Matrix: Unplugged

*cough*Nvidiafanboy*cough*



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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

I got that price off of pricewatch.com. You can get a LOT of good deals off the internet rather than going to the store.

-- SavageX

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"...and if you don't like that, then you need to be slugged in the face repeatedly, until my hands are soaked in blood. Have a nice day!"
http://www.savagex.net

Actually, no. I've been using Win2k for...a long time, and my nVidia cards do not have the 60hz problem that my ATI Xpert@Play did.

I'll tell you the last part of the story I guess. ATI put up beta drivers for the card, that fixed the 60hz problem, but added a new problem that was even worse: in 2D mode (meaning, 90% of the time you use the computer), all bold fonts were rendered with jagged edges. VERY jagged edges. Yes, I had anti-aliasing turned on. Beta drivers = jagged fonts, non-beta drivers = 60hz. Eyestrain or eyestrain. Hmm. Did they bother to fix either problem? No. But nVidia came to the rescue.

Maybe ATI has the performance edge at the moment, but I'm not interested in supporting their business. Yes, it's personal, and I don't expect other people to feel the same way if they didn't experience the same problems I did. But nVidia's never let me down.

4¢

There is a 60 Hz refresh rate bug in XP/2K, though.

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Bassoon, n. A brazen instrument into which a fool blows out his brains.

Wait until you want to play HL2

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

You can still get HL2 free, but only with the XT cards.

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Roses are Red
Violets are Blue
I'm a schizophrenic
and so am I

About how much would one of these here ATi Radeon 9600 Pros cost?

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Duel Zero key count: Zero! Down to guns and forces. Expect a release soon.

Just head over to pricewatch.com. You can find one as low as 80 bucks there.

-- SavageX

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"...and if you don't like that, then you need to be slugged in the face repeatedly, until my hands are soaked in blood. Have a nice day!"
http://www.savagex.net

I've got a Geforce 4 Ti 2400, never did figure out how much RAM it was I assume it's probably 128...
Anyway, it's never let me down Well... not too much anyway, but of course it's pretty old, I got it like 2 years ago when it was like top of the line I bet you could find it now for almost free

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Do you have stairs in your house?

A Geforce 4 is still a decent card.....until likely mid next year, yeah then it's doomed.

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Cantina Cloud | BCF | The Massassian & A Very Massassian Xmas
Corrupting the kiddies since '97

Fixed.

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Fight the future.

Pfft, you even believe that Linux is better than Windows!

Oh, and don't trust the HL2 benchmarks yet - after all, the game is sponsored by ATi.

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Map-Review | Digital Core | The Matrix: Unplugged

Farewell, MaDaVentor. In our hearts, you'll always live on.

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Multiplayer Game Alias: II88BlackOps
JA is awesome!
Corrupted Paths, my WIP for JA. Screens here: http://imagebase.freewebspace.com/photo.html

My quote: "People choose to side with the left, and the others choose to side with the right. I go forward."

Are these the Nvidia drivers that couldn't even run Homeworld 2 a while ago? Both sides have driver issues, so it's no longer a big factor unless you're working primarily with OpenGL based 3d applications (nvidia wins out heavily here).

Errr... right.

I have that EXACT same card, and was using it for a long period before jumping to my GF3. (I pick what is fastest at the period of time... note my voodoo 3 ) And it never, EVER did that to me.

And yes nvidia cards have the same bug, its just that the drivers have a workaround for it, by automatically resetting the stupid refresh rate whenever the screen turns off or changes res. ATI drivers also do this now. But it's still a windows bug, not a video card bug.

And you may not like their business practices, but it's almost guaranteed that nVidia would do the same thing if they stopped their UDA system. (Unified Driver Architexture, meaning that all the cards pretty much run on the same driver, very little card-specific programming)
If you had a bug like that, you better hope that about a million more people complain about it, or the company will blow it off. Most all companies do this, whether it is right or not is not a factor.

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"The future is not determined by a throw of the dice, but is determined by the conscious decisions of you and me."
I am addicted to ellipses!!! AHHH!!! ...

Wait until this spring, from what I've heard these new cards ATI and nVidia are releasing are supposed to own. Completely own. I mean making the GF FX 5950 look like a GF 2 kind of own. I had a 9600, returned it and bought a 9800np. Complete waste of money, $300 for that card and it cant do crap. I have to crank the resolution down to 1024*768 to get a playable framerate in deus ex 2. Unless your really hard pressed to get a good graphics card now (which it sounds like you are), neither are gonna help much in the long run.

The 5600 is not better and HL2 isn't sponsored by ATi...

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Massassian since: March 12, 2001

[=-"The hardest thing is to forgive, but God does;
Even if you murdered or robbed, years wrong, but God loves;
Take one step toward him, he takes two toward you;
Even when all else fail, God supports you." - Nas-=]

If by "not sponsoring" you mean "ATI gave Valve 5 million dollars", then yes, you are correct.