![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Wednesday, October 15, 2003
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
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.
Test Setup:
ABIT IC7-G (i875P), Intel Pentium 4 3GHz “C” operating at 800MHz FSB, 2 X 512MB Corsair XMS PC3200LL TwinX Dual Channel DDR400, Maxtor 40GB ATA/133, Windows XP Professional SP1 with DirectX 9.0b.
ATI Radeon 9600XT 128MB - Operating at default clock speeds 500/600 using Catalyst Driver 3.8 (WHQL).
ATI Radeon 9600Pro 128MB – Operating at default clock speeds 400/600 using Catalyst Driver 3.8 (WHQL).
NVIDIA GeForceFX 5600 Ultra 128MB (Flip Chip) – Operating at default clock speeds 400/800 using Detonator 45.23 driver (WHQL).
Drivers:
The latest Catalyst 3.8 WHQL drivers were used on both the 9600Pro and the 9600XT. This new driver set adds many new features for these video cards. However the one feature we were most looking forward to testing out, OverDrive, is currently not supported for the 9600XT yet. We are told it will be late November when the 9600XT will gain OverDrive support. There will be two OverDrive settings above the default 500MHz. The first level is 513MHz core speed. And the top OverDrive level will be 527MHz.
Above you can see the detailed option properties on the 9600XT we are reviewing today. Note that the XT is referred to as a “Radeon 9600 Series”.
The default clock speeds on this card are exactly 499.50MHz core and 297MHz (594MHz DDR) memory.
The maximum Anti-Aliasing level support in D3D and OpenGL is 6XAA. You can only run 6XAA up to 1280x1024 on this card. If you try to run a game at 1600x1200 at 6XAA it will automatically revert down to 4XAA which is supported at 1600x1200. The maximum Anisotropic level supported is Quality 16XAF. This matches what the 9600Pro is capable of as well.