Customer Reviews

ATI RADEON 9600 PRO - Graphics adapter - Radeon 9600 PRO - AGP 8x - 128 MB DDR - DVI - TV out

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This card is an excellent compromise between high performance and ease of installation. Why?
First, It does not need to be hooked into the power supply like the 9500 pro, 9700 pro and 9800 pro or the high-end Nvdia cards. This can be tricky and crash your entire system if your power supply is not at least 300W. Next, this card does have a small fan above the processor heat sink, but it runs so cool because of the new processor technology and in tight installations does not make the next PCI slot unuseable because of the size of the fan. Also this fan is very quiet and not a noisy annoyance like in the GeForce 5900.
This card is a little slower than the top end cards, BUT also much less than half the price, it does support DirectX 9.0 and and all the latest shader etc. technologies. The perfomance differences are not noticeable to the average user unless you are a top end gamer. Therefor the excellent performance right at the top end together with the ease of installation makes this my top choice for other-than-hard-core-gamer machines. There is nothing like it available elsewhere. Install is a snap: First unistall all your previous drivers, reboot and install teh latest driver suite from ATI.....and voila ....a whole new world of graphics is open to you. HINT: You GOT TO download some of the DirectX 9.0 demos from ATI's web site !!! Don't miss them !!

I had a measely ATI Rage 128 card before I bought this one. Suffice to say I noticed a massive difference in quality. I now play Unreal Tournament 2003 at 1024 * 768 with all detail settings maxed, and it plays so smooth!!
The Anubis map looks amazing!!

When I was getting around 2-3 FPS (frames per second) in games like Unreal2, Im now getting 100's of FPS.

My setup: P4 2.4Ghz, 512Mb PC2700 RAM.

I get around 11,000 3DMark2001 and 3300 in 3dMark03. ...

Installation:
No problems here. Removed old drivers, removed old card, installed new card, popped in CD which came with card, and I was gaming in about 15 mins.
There can be problems with installation however, with both NVIDIA and ATI cards, and so follow the instructions VERY CLOSELY.

I would recommend the Radeon 9500 Pro for people with a 300W+ power supply however. This card is a Radeon 9700 clone and uses the same PCB. It became to expensive for ATI to manufacture for a mainstream price (150-200$) and so it is now discontinued. It is still available at some online stores and so get it while you can.

The 9600Pro doesnt require connection to your internal power supply and so I bought it, since I have a 250W PSU.
One can run even the 9700 or 9800 on a 250W PSU, but its a risk I didnt want to take.

The 9600 is also fully DX9 compliant (in hardware) and so you should be all set to play games like Half-life2 and Doom3 which make use of DX9.

There are no real competitors in the NVIDIA product line, and while the FX5600 comes close, the 9600 beats it in most tests.

This card can play all of todays games at full detail level comfortably.

In short, if you are willing to spend [the money] on a card, try the 9500 first, else get this card.

Enjoy

In approaching an upgrade for my default dell graphics card I admit that, being a thrifty, stingy kinda guy, I was tempted by several different 3rd party cards, most of which weighed in around the $100 mark. In a titanic battle of instinct vs. cashflow I eventually decided to suck it up and get this card, which has been favourably regarded in most reviews. I'm no great computer whizz, so I can only review this from a user perspective - you can always check ATI's site for power and framerate specs.

The intsallation was pretty simple even for a scaredy-cat like moi - I followed the instructions closely, and didn't have any problems. All the new drivers worked fine, and its nice to have a greatly expanded menu of graphics options, included as software with the card.

I can honestly say that this card is the single biggest performance upgrade I've made, surpassing extra RAM by a mile. I had a blast running my newer games (Call of Duty, Battlefield 1942 etc) on higher resolutions than I thought I'd ever seen on my P4 1.4, and it really has opened my eyes to the potential of a quality card. I can only assume from my lack of problems that it runs cooler than my old card, and it's quiet too.

For those on smaller budget, eager to upgrade their graphics I highly recommend splashing out that little bit extra on this, or a similarly priced card. You really are getting what you pay for, and in my experience ATI has offered great patch support and a solid, well designed product. I guess the highest praise I can offer is that, for a lower end user like me, this card is simple, very effective, and the price is cheaper than I'd expect for these results.

Even though the 9500 Pro was a fluke and basically a detuned 9700 Pro the 9600 Pro is a fantastic card in it's own right. It runs MUCH COOLER and draws less power. It also comes with FULL DX9 support. I upgraded from a Ti4400 128meg card and the 9600 Pro does everything so much better including image quality. I highly recommend this card.

I brought this card to replace a Nvidia TNT2 card. First, it was a snap to install, literally, and it doesn't need a connection to the power supply of the computer. That was one of the biggest factos which influenced my decision, because I have a HP Pavilion computer and they use smaller towers that don't fit big powerful PSUs.

At first I was skeptical it would work ok, but when I put up GTA3 and cranked up the draw distance I didn't notice any flaws! WIth the TNT2 it stuttered, badly I might add, with the settings maxed out. So, I played and played and it performed admirably.

Now, it comes in handy to have one of these. This one is afforable and powerful, which puts them in demand. And it's Directx 9.0 compliant. You can play Half Life 2 with this card when it comes out!

I brought a 17" LCD monitor from ViewSonic and plugged it into this card and it displayed the full resolution and refresh rate without any problems. The monitor is analog, but the card also has a Digital connection if you need it, which is pretty good addition for a card like this. As for the TNT2, I doubt it could have handled 1280x1024 resolution.

My computer isn't a top-notch 3.2GHz Pentium 4, with 2GB of RAM or anything, but this video card has made all the difference when I play games and watch movies. It's such a good feeling to put up the graphics settings and enjoy a crisp beautiful image on the screen. If you're in the market for a new video card, and you're on a budget, this is the ATI mainstream card, and it's worth every penny. I'd recommend it to anyone.

If you have unlimited funds and don't need to be a savvy shopper, then by all means buy the best ATI or Nvidia video card on the market. But for the rest of us average joes, the ATI Radeon 9600 Pro is the smart choice for those that don't want to break the bank yet still appreciate superior PC graphics. I haven't always been a believer in ATI video cards. A few years ago, this brand was notorious for driver issues and other compatiblity problems but I'm pleased to say that after several months of gaming on many titles, I haven't had any video card related problems yet. That's not to say it doesn't happen but my experience has been fantastic thus far. What really surprised me though with my Radeon 9600 Pro is that I can play almost all PC games at their highest graphical settings (shadows, model detail and other aspects) and a 1024 x 768 resolution with little slow down. Now I do have a decent processor and more important, plenty of RAM in my desktop, but with the phenomenal success I've had so far, I wonder why people spend a few hundred dollars more on a better model. Honestly, you won't be missing much with a 9600 Pro. There are a few models more advanced than this card, but not many, and the visual performance advantages in those cards may not be worth the extra two hundred or so dollars you'll spend. Especially because software is always behind hardware. Some top of the line video cards don't even have games available yet that take full advantage of that model's power. If you're not computer literate, as much I have enjoyed this model, I might recommend you also look at its chief competitor, Nvidia, as that company's video cards still have less technical issues in general. Nvidia and ATI are also constantly at war and pay software companies to make their games play better on a certain type of video card. The good news for ATI owners is Microsft and ATI have become recent bed fellows and Microsoft makes one of the most important software programs in the gaming business - DirectX. Nvidia is still the king of video cards but ATI may replace it in the near future.

replaced my geforce4 mx 420 64mb agp card with this, and IT BLOWS IT AWAY.

I cant believe the efficency of this card. After playing Americas Army in like 4 FPS now i play it at 100 's Fps(Pipeline Looks Amazing). I would reccomend buying the 9500 ati radeon but since it was discontinued some stores still have it and get it while u can :D im totally satisfied even more than satisfied the only thing is that when i ordered it from here it said ships within 24 hours and it took like 3 days for it to ship.... well the wait payed off and now i have one of the best gaming computers. I just love it.
My setup: 1.80 Ghz 384 RAM AGP (8x)
Order now and play the games to come perfectly!

WOW! Could not be easier to setup, and could not be a better value. I could not believe what an improvement it made.

WOW!

This is my wife's account. I am just using it to write this review.
I bought this about 2 weeks ago and I am taking it back today. from the first time I installed it I had nothing but problems. When I first installed it the computer would not go to windows. Instead my monitor would show an "Out of range" message. After I finally got the card working it would randomly kick the driver out and refer back to 16 color 640X480. SO I would have to restart the computer. I finally found that if I remove the cover of my computer it would work a little better but still not the way it should. This card came highly recomended by the place I bould it from, a place I have been dealing with for a few years now because I am a tech. I can't say whether all of the ATI Radeon 9600s are garbage but the one I got is.