Just got word Firingsquad's Brandon Bell has posted his RADEON 9500 PRO vs. 9600 PRO Shoot-out! Here's a snip.
As we discussed in our RADEON 9600 PRO review, the RADEON 9600 family was meant to address ATI?s need for a DirectX 9 part that offered RADEON 9500 PRO class performance, but at a lower production cost. In order to accomplish this objective directly, ATI has reduced the number of pixel pipelines from eight in RADEON 9500 PRO, to four in RADEON 9600 PRO, and shifted to a newer manufacturing process. The manufacturing process in particular is one of the most important changes from the overclockers? perspective. The RADEON 9600 PRO is ATI?s first graphics core to utilize TSMC?s smaller 0.13-micron manufacturing process. Besides lowering manufacturing costs, the smaller process also allows ATI to hit higher clock speeds. At 400MHz, the RADEON 9600 PRO runs at a higher core clock frequency than even the RADEON 9800 PRO!
When you couple this with the RADEON 9600 PRO?s dramatically reduced transistor count (roughly half the transistors of 9500 PRO) you?ve got a chip that generates considerably less heat. In fact, ATI borrowed the heatsink design from its older RADEON 8500/7500 family for the RADEON 9600 PRO. This is a dramatic contrast to the RADEON 9500 PRO, whose cooler was reminiscent of the RADEON 9700 series.
Overclocking Showdown: RADEON 9500 PRO vs. 9600 PRO
As we discussed in our RADEON 9600 PRO review, the RADEON 9600 family was meant to address ATI?s need for a DirectX 9 part that offered RADEON 9500 PRO class performance, but at a lower production cost. In order to accomplish this objective directly, ATI has reduced the number of pixel pipelines from eight in RADEON 9500 PRO, to four in RADEON 9600 PRO, and shifted to a newer manufacturing process. The manufacturing process in particular is one of the most important changes from the overclockers? perspective. The RADEON 9600 PRO is ATI?s first graphics core to utilize TSMC?s smaller 0.13-micron manufacturing process. Besides lowering manufacturing costs, the smaller process also allows ATI to hit higher clock speeds. At 400MHz, the RADEON 9600 PRO runs at a higher core clock frequency than even the RADEON 9800 PRO!
When you couple this with the RADEON 9600 PRO?s dramatically reduced transistor count (roughly half the transistors of 9500 PRO) you?ve got a chip that generates considerably less heat. In fact, ATI borrowed the heatsink design from its older RADEON 8500/7500 family for the RADEON 9600 PRO. This is a dramatic contrast to the RADEON 9500 PRO, whose cooler was reminiscent of the RADEON 9700 series.
Overclocking Showdown: RADEON 9500 PRO vs. 9600 PRO
