Following up the recent release of the Radeon 9800XT, ATI has released a new mid-range card ? the Radeon 9600XT.  The 9600XT is the follow-up to the Radeon 9600 Pro which though it added in a lot of the new features from the Radeon 9800 Pro, the previous budget-oriented card ? the 9500 Pro ? was able to come out on top in most tests, putting the brand new 9600 Pro in a interesting position.  The pricing was adjusted but the 9500 Pro was still what people were wanting simply for some better frame rates.  With the release of the 9600XT, ATI is completing the refresh of its line of cards and will be working on getting the next generation of cards out.

The 9600XT should be a popular card, as most people are not going to empty their wallets for one of the 9800XT?s.  Another huge selling point is that Half-Life 2 is supposed to be coming with the 9600XT and 9800XT.  With all of the delays and rumors of delays of this game, it probably won?t make it into the boxes of the new Radeons in any form other than a coupon redeemable when the game does come out.

For now, ATI is still sitting at the top of the hill when it comes to graphics cards but rival Nvidia will be coming back later this month with new releases to compete squarely against the new XT offerings from ATI.  Today we are going to take a look at the performance of the 9600XT and compare it with its older brethren the 9600 Pro and 9500 Pro, as well as the competition?s 5600 Ultra.  Who will come out on top?  Keep reading to find out.

The Card:

 

Radeon 9600XT Front

 

Radeon 9600XT Back

As you can see, the Radeon 9600XT doesn?t have the really nice looking heatsink like its big brother the 9800XT.  For one, it doesn?t need the cooling of a copper heatsink and a larger fan.  Second, I?m sure other vendors will come out with a flashier looking heatsink of some sort.  One thing you may notice that was the same with the 9600 Pro ? there is no auxiliary power connector like there was on the 9500 Pro.


Overdrive?

The Radeon 9600XT comes clocked at 500MHz Core speed and 300MHz (600MHz DDR) Memory speed.  One of the new features for both the Radeon 9800XT and Radeon 9600XT is ATI?s Overdrive technology.  What Overdrive does is basically overclock your video card without voiding your warranty, based on what you are doing.  The current Catalyst 3.8 drivers do not enable Overdrive for the 9600XT however, but the Catalyst 3.9 drivers will.  When Overdrive is engaged, the Core speed will be increased from 500MHz to 513MHz and then up to 527MHz for the fastest setting.  It isn?t a whole lot, but it?s something and it won?t void your warranty which is rather nice for cautious overclockers.  This feature definitely isn?t for those of you out there you do voltage mods to your clock radio to make it run better.

Compared to the Radeon 9600 Pro, the 9600XT?s core is clocked 100MHz faster ? quite a big jump for the card.  The memory is still the same at 300MHz for both cards.

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• Test Setup / Benchmarks (1 of 4)
• More Benchmarks (2 of 4)
• Final Benchmarks (3 of 4)
• Conclusion (4 of 4)