Radeon 9500 Pro

[Alan]

What 3D Mark score would you expect from a 9500 Pro?

I removed my Radeon 8500 but just before, I tested it and it scored 9,779 with the CPU at 2.66GHz and OCZ DDR400 RAM running at 384MHz

I replaced the 8500 with a new 9500 Pro and under the same circumstances and settings, ran 3D Mark. The score was 11,113.

Now, given that the 8500 was broadly on a par or slower than a GeForce ti4200 and the 9500 Pro is broadly faster than a ti4600, should I not have expected more than a 13% increase in the score?

Or am I being greedily unrealistic??

[Herminator]

what drivers are you using? also can you tell me if the memory chips are all along the top edge or are two along the right side edge and two along the top?

[Alan]

The latest ones from the web and I think the configuration is two along the top, two on the edge

[Herminator]

sounds like the one I got last friday, which is good news, first of the drivers that come with it are a little old, go get cat3 and DX9, that'll give you about 1500 extra points for a start. Then you should either go here http://www.maxdownloads.com/~ian/wizzard/
and DL the right driver hack and follow the instructions, get the latest drivers at the same time, so you know they'll work, or look for the new RivaTuner which has a beta version of another driver hack and an overclocking feature built in. You can also use Rage3d Tweak to overclock the card. By doing these two things I've managed to turn on the 8pipelines, making it a 9700 and then overclock the card to 9700pro levels, been running games fine.

As for which card it is I'm a bit confused, the 9500pro is meant to be built on a new pcb, whith all four mem chips along the top, but the 9500 was built on the 9700 series pcb since the new one wasn't ready, so basicly the 9500 was a underclocked and slightly disabled 9700, the new pcb used for the 9500pro has a different structure meaning it doesn't have the extra bits to open up. Unless Connect3d made a few early 9500pro's on the old pcb we must of both recieved 9500's, possibly a mix up at Kustoms suppliers, whatever happened it's a much faster card if the end. There is another thread i started in the overclocking section, which notes a few problems there may be.

BTW. I started with 10970 marks, I've now managed 15615

[Fireblade]

11k+ ain't a bad start Alan, that's fer sure :D

Did the card come wi' software, coz there's usually a tweaker included t' help ye get the best outta the card... safely?

[Alan]

Creepy, I read your post and got the new drivers from the web.

Herminator, as I understand it, the 9500 pro has a lower clock speed and the memory interface is 128 bits instead of 256. Otherwise, in all other features and abilities, it is identical to the 9700 pro.

The 9500 non pro has a lower clock speed, 128 bit memory interface AND it has only four rendering pipelines to the pro version's eight.

I've seen a picture of the 9500 Pro in a magazine and it has the four along the top you suggested. I'll have to wait to look at my card again.

[ling_thing]

this is my udnerstanding

9500 [64MB] has 128bit bus and 4 pipelines enabled
9500 [128MB] has 256bit bus (probably only using the 128 though) on it and 4 pipelines enabled
9500 Pro has 128bit bus and 8 pipelines

9700 is 256bit with 8 pipelines in use
9700 pro is 9700 at faster speeds

even though the 9500 non-pro's only use 4 pipelines, all 8 are on the board, you just need to enable them

you can unlock the 64MB 9500 to a 64MB 9500 Pro but using the extra 4 pipelines
unlock the 128MB 9500 to a 128MB 9700 again by usign the extra 4 pipelines

[Herminator]

Ling summed it up pretty well there, by unlocking the 4 extra pipelines on the 128mb 9500non-pro you also enable the 256bit bus. I you look at the 9500 pro next to a 9500non-pro or 9700 you can easily see there are a lot less traces, since it needs half for 128bit.

[Alan]

So what you guys are saying is that ONLY in the 9500 Pro are there no physical connections for the 256 bit memory interface. Three other cards have them but for the pro alone, they made a special pcb to remove them?

[ling_thing]

yup so it seems
:)

[Alan]

It turned out that I didn't have a 9500 Pro but a 9500. Thanks to Graeme for finding out and arranging an exchange.

Special thanks to Thomas who was persuaded to fit my Zalman ZM-80-HP to the video card when I visited the shop. (They were'nt busy and I did try to be persuasive!)

Back to benchmarks, on my previous post I showed 3D Mark results where the only change was the graphics card.

Radeon 8500 9,779

Radeon 9500 11,113

and now,

Radeon 9500 Pro 12,225

I was expecting a bit more but the real difference was in games.

I had tried maximum graphic detail on Moto GP with the 9500 and the result was fine. Going to 2 or 4 times AA was a no-no.

I ran the 9500 Pro from first attempt at 4 x AA and it was spot on.

[Graeme*Kustom*]

a lot of people would have got the wrong card - I *think* I've tracked down all the 'wrong' orders now, but if anyone hasn't recieved a mail from me yet regarding this - please email me with your order or invoice number and I'll look into it.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused...