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ATI Radeon 9600XT Review

We have ATI’s new mainstream video card in the house, the 9600XT. We run it through performance tests and look at the gaming experience delivered with this brand new video card and compare it with the competition.

Introduction:

On October 1st we introduced two brand new video cards from ATI. At the high-end we took an in-depth look at the Radeon 9800XT and compared it to its predecessor a Radeon 9800Pro as well as the competition's GFFX 5900 Ultra. We found that the image quality and gaming experience delivered on the 9800XT was the best you can find. The only caveat is the high retail price of US$499. Of course the high-end enthusiast market is not the only one ATI is focusing on. While the high-end market generates a lot of press, and a lot of buzz, it is the mainstream and budget markets that bring the profit dollars home. These levels of graphics cards will sell the most as the price point is much more appealing to many more people. The video cards at these price points need to be low cost, yet well performing video cards. The video card we are focusing on today is a "mainstream" market card. That denotes performance and price, usually a good bit of performance above the budget cards, but a price usually below the US$200 retail price point...by a cent.

The Radeon 9600XT is poised to throne itself king of the mainstream market. The predecessor to the Radeon 9600XT is the Radeon 9600Pro. That card is based on the RV350 VPU and was the first VPU from ATI to be built on the .13 micron process. Along with that process, ATI was able to achieve higher core frequencies while still not requiring any secondary power sources. The RV360 (9600XT) continues this tradition with even higher core clock while working inside of AGP power constraints.

The 9600XT is built upon the .13 micron process but utilizing the new Low k dielectric process. Low k dielectrics were the next step in after switching to .13 micron. Low k allows for reduction in capacitance, which in turns allows the core to run cooler and use less power while maintaining a higher frequency.

Even though the new core is supposedly running cooler with less power, ATI still opted to use a more robust cooling solution on the 9600XT compared to the 9600Pro. As you can see above the 9600Pro’s small fan and heatsink is compared to the 9600XT’s new cooling solution. The difference in cooling solutions required is most likely due to the fact the 9600XT is running at 100MHz over the 9600Pro’s core speed and is capable of running even higher with the OverDrive feature. The cooling solution is still very quiet and has an appealing look to it.

Speaking of what is different between the Radeon 9600Pro and the Radeon 9600XT we can see above how they compare. The pipelines and core architecture are exactly the same between the 9600Pro and 9600XT. This means both cards support the exact same level of DX9 shader support, which means full floating point Pixel Shader 2.0+ and dual Vertex Shader 2.0 engines. The "+" indicates the inclusion of the F-Buffer, which allows unlimited pixel shader program lengths. The exact same Z-compression through HyperZ III+ is included. The Radeon 9600XT also supports 128MB or 256MB of memory. You will also find the same support for Smoothvision 2.1, which means the exact same Anti-Aliasing, and Anisotropic filtering features as found on the 9600Pro. That is all what is the same, so what is different between the two?

1.) The core speed has been raised to 500MHz default that is up from 400MHz on the 9600Pro.

2.) There is thermal diode that can be used to monitor temperature built into the actual ASIC that is functional with the overclocking feature called OverDrive*. (*Note - OverDrive will not be functional until Catalyst 3.9 to be launched in late November).

3.) A full version of Half Life 2 is to be bundled with the 9600XT most likely in coupon form that will allow you to download the game or send off for it (shipping and handling not included).

In short there are no architecture changes compared to the 9600Pro. Simply a much more mature process using Low k dielectrics combined with hardware monitoring.

Radeon 9600XT:

The Radeon 9600XT is built with a red PCB utilizing 8 BGA RAM chips equaling 128MB total. What first stands out is the placement holder on the PCB where the external power would go if it needed it. As stated above the Radeon 9600XT does not require external power just like its predecessor the Radeon 9600Pro.

In the first image above you can compare the 9600XT (on top) to the 9600Pro (on bottom). It becomes very apparent that the PCB layout is very similar between the two. There are some differences in the circuitry however. It appears some of the capacitors that are needed on the 9600Pro are not needed on the 9600XT, further showing its lower requirement for power even though it is running at a higher speed. ATI has explained to us, much like the 9800XT, the 9600XT's PCB was redesigned with shorter and more efficient traces in mind that further allow for higher clocks and more efficient power supplies.

When you compare it to the 5600Ultra the first thing you notice is the fact that the 5600Ultra’s PCB is longer and that it requires external power. You will also notice the 5600Ultra’s PCB has some bare spots on it with no circuitry. Apparently it seems ATI has managed to get everything they need into a small PCB form factor and wastes no space.

Our card is a Non-Qualification Sample but does represent how the retail card will perform. The part number indicates that this is 109-A03400-20. Interestingly enough the part number on the 9600Pro is 109-A03400-00, so the difference in recognizing an XT model is the ending -20 number on ATI built cards. You will find the standard VGA, DVI out and TV-Out features on this card. The RAM is Samsung model K4D263238E-GC33. This means that the RAM is specified at 3.3ns, which equates to 300MHz. The default memory clock speed on the 9600XT is 300MHz (600MHz DDR), so we are already at the theoretical maximum clock on the RAM. So we aren’t expecting very high overclocking with the RAM, but we will find out later on in the review.

The exact length of the card is 6.75” and the width is 3.75”. It should fit well inside SFF cases. The fan size appears to be 45mm, which is larger than the fan on the 9600Pro, which is 35mm.