Which of these midrange passive cards is the best?

mfc2 · Post by **mfc2** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 8:49 am

Which of these midrange passively-cooled cards is the best for my computer? The computer is used for Photoshop, not so much for games. I need to power a 21 or a 24 inch LCD, plus a second CRT monitor.

Sapphire Radeon 9600XT Ultimate (128) $178 AGP
Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro Ultimate (128) $224 AGP
Gigabyte 6600GT GV-NX66T128VP (128) $220 PCI
Gigabyte 6800 GV-N68128DH (128) $279 AGP

The speed ranking would be 9600XT < 9800 Pro < 6800 < 6600GT

The 9800 is much more powerful than the 9600XT, but people have said that the 9800 runs very hot and could use a supplemental fan. It also uses the most power for the four cards. The 6800 is nice, but it is the most expensive and it is actually slower than the 6600GT card.

My concern is that these passive cards will just require the case fan to speed up, negating some benefit of passive cooling, and that the high temperatures will cause these cards to fail.

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 10:35 am

Is there a point to using any of these video cards aside from 3D games?

The answer to your question, restricting to your selection, would be the 9600XT Ultimate.

A better answer would be: Something else.

Radeon 9600 non-Pro would be even better. Possibly a Matrox solution would be even better than that (I say possibly, because it looks like you might run into a few resolution limits).

mfc2 · Post by **mfc2** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 12:50 pm

Most of the reviews and comparisons I have read show that, while these cards are targeted at gamers, they also offer faster 2d performance as well. Am I wrong in thinking this? Wouldn't Photoshop benefit from a faster card even if that card was targeted at gamers? I really don't know the answer to this. Most of the reviews focus on games and not 2d performance.

Why I did not include Matrox cards:
The Matrox cards are at the bottom of the list in terms of performance. I have a Matrox 450 in my current workstation and it does not perform very well. Also, a Matrox P650 costs around $150, which is only $25 less than the 9600XT. The P650 is the fastest passively cooled Matrox card, but it only supports up to 1600x1200 resolutions (according to their Web site). My monitor's resolution is 1680 x 1050.

Wedge · Post by **Wedge** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 12:55 pm

Yeah if gaming is not something you'll be doing (much?) then a passive 9600XT would be the choice from that list. Otherwise, go matrox as mentioned.

And I beg to differ on the 6800 vs the 6600GT. I think the 6800 will outperform the 6600GT if you turn on AA and AF. I'm basing that off a review I read a while back. Otherwise, the 6600GT does outperform the 6800 in certain games (new games).

The 6600GT is definitely the best price-to-performance card.

I have a 9800 with the Arctic VGA silencer and I truly cannot hear it unless I stick my head under my desk with my ear 4'' from the case (having my PC on carpet makes my machine inaudible while sitting at my desk - I have accidentally left that PC on several times now because I thought it was turned off. It is necessary for me to look at the power LED). I have the Arctice VGA silencer on "low" fan setting, gaming or not.

If you want a card that can seriously push out the pixels, don't go 9600XT -- choose from the other 3 you mentioned.

If you play mostly DX games, I would go with the 9800. Generally speaking the ATI cards outperform Nvidia in DX9 games (not across the board, however).

If you play mostly OpenGL games, go with one of the nvidia cards (and of the two, I would grab a fanless 6800 if it were me).

mfc2 · Post by **mfc2** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 12:55 pm

A 9600 card would cost around $90, compared to the 9600XT which costs $178. I could save a lot of money if there really is no noticeable performance difference between these cards outside of games.

Wedge · Post by **Wedge** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 12:57 pm

mfc2 wrote:A 9600 card would cost around $90, compared to the 9600XT which costs $178. I could save a lot of money if there really is no noticeable performance difference between these cards outside of games.

Outside of games, there is no noticable difference. So, I guess the choice is easy.

mfc2 · Post by **mfc2** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 1:14 pm

I remember reading when the Apple 30 inch monitor came out that you needed the highest end card to power this beast. Can a 9600 power a 24inch LCD over a DVI connection? How about two 20 inch monitors (one LCD and one VGA)

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 1:14 pm

mfc2 wrote:A 9600 card would cost around $90, compared to the 9600XT which costs $178. I could save a lot of money if there really is no noticeable performance difference between these cards outside of games.

Only the XT reports temperatures, as only XT provides support for the Overdrive panel in the ATi drivers, and that's where you A) control clock speeds and B) check temps.

At least officially.

-Ed

mfc2 · Post by **mfc2** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 1:18 pm

Wedge wrote:And I beg to differ on the 6800 vs the 6600GT. I think the 6800 will outperform the 6600GT if you turn on AA and AF. I'm basing that off a review I read a while back. Otherwise, the 6600GT does outperform the 6800 in certain games (new games).

I sorted the performance rankings based on this fairly comprehensive site. I am not sure if the guy that put together that site was looking at real-world performance, or the specifications of each card.

Wedge · Post by **Wedge** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 1:46 pm

Well, the 6600GT has a higher fill-rate than the 6800, IIRC. Also, the 6600GT has the GDDR3 RAM and the 6800 does not. But in real world performance the 6800 comes out ahead when you begin tinkering with image enhancing settings because it uses 256-bit memory versus the 6600GT's 128-bit. The 6800 also has a 12 pixel pipelines whereas the 6600GT has 8.

But again, it depends on which video settings you prefer to use. Raw performance probably goes to the 6600GT, but using anti-aliasing and aniso-tropic filtering gives the 6800 the edge.

EDIT: thanks for the chart, great reference tool.

SometimesWarrior · Post by **SometimesWarrior** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 2:13 pm

It would probably be a good idea, too, to get the Radeon card manufactured by ATI, and not by another company that could skimp on the 2D display elements.

Re: 2D Performance, that won't affect the processing speed of Photoshop, which is limited by your CPU and quantity of RAM. It could affect the redraw rate of window elements, so if you drag a window around on-screen it could be a bit smoother on a faster card. I think that's all that distinguishes video cards' 2D performance. More important is the quality of the display rendering elements, where a lot of people rank Matrox 1st, ATI 2nd, and nVidia 3rd. I don't have any opinion on 2D quality rankings--all modern cards look fine to me.

Oh, and almost all modern videogames can be played smoothly on a 9600XT, if you keep resolution at a reasonable level and disable full-screen antialiasing. So I think it's a fine card for occasional gaming.

mfc2 · Post by **mfc2** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 2:25 pm

SometimesWarrior wrote:It would probably be a good idea, too, to get the Radeon card manufactured by ATI, and not by another company that could skimp on the 2D display elements.

I read somewhere, perhaps Tom's Hardware, that Sapphire makes the ATI cards that are sold under the ATI brand name.

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 2:50 pm

mfc2 wrote:
SometimesWarrior wrote:It would probably be a good idea, too, to get the Radeon card manufactured by ATI, and not by another company that could skimp on the 2D display elements.
I read somewhere, perhaps Tom's Hardware, that Sapphire makes the ATI cards that are sold under the ATI brand name.

As far as I can tell, that is correct. Also, from my own experience, the BBA cards have relatively poor filtering components, no better than Sapphire or many of the other ATi chipset card makers--certainly incomparable to Matrox.

Edward Ng · Post by **Edward Ng** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 2:52 pm

SometimesWarrior wrote:It would probably be a good idea, too, to get the Radeon card manufactured by ATI, and not by another company that could skimp on the 2D display elements.

Re: 2D Performance, that won't affect the processing speed of Photoshop, which is limited by your CPU and quantity of RAM. It could affect the redraw rate of window elements, so if you drag a window around on-screen it could be a bit smoother on a faster card. I think that's all that distinguishes video cards' 2D performance. More important is the quality of the display rendering elements, where a lot of people rank Matrox 1st, ATI 2nd, and nVidia 3rd. I don't have any opinion on 2D quality rankings--all modern cards look fine to me.

Oh, and almost all modern videogames can be played smoothly on a 9600XT, if you keep resolution at a reasonable level and disable full-screen antialiasing. So I think it's a fine card for occasional gaming.

Certain 2D features dramatically affect performance, regardless of overall card performance; for example, my Matrox G550 doesn't, for some reason, fully support alpha blending acceleration in 2D, so when working with stuff that has alpha blending in Photoshop CS, I get severe slowdowns (like dragging layers with translucent objects)--Parhelia and Millennium P-series cards supposedly don't suffer from this problem. I know the 6600GT and the Radeon 9600 don't suffer from this issue, either. It's quite the irony that a Matrox is the one with the issues, particularly when higher-end cards don't have the same problem. It's almost as if it's an incentive to upgrade to a more expensive Matrox adapter...

-Ed

Wedge · Post by **Wedge** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 3:19 pm

I'm not sure if Built-by-ATI matters or not when speaking of 2D quality. I can tell you that my BBA card is much prettier than my GF2 or GF4 cards (i.e., the color output looks more accurate and no "wavy lines" issues). It is much easier on the eyes.

Also, at Rage3D forums it has been said many times that Sapphire manufactures the Built-by-ATI cards. I've never verified this, but I never see anybody disagreeing with this statement. However, only BBA cards offer the 3-year warranty, only beaten by the lifetime warranties of Visiontek or BFG.

EDIT: I meant to add that SometimesWarrior is right. A 9600XT with low resolution and no AA or filtering should run modern games decently enough.

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 6:05 pm

mfc2 wrote:The P650 is the fastest passively cooled Matrox card, but it only supports up to 1600x1200 resolutions (according to their Web site). My monitor's resolution is 1680 x 1050.

This might be some interesting reading for you.

Wedge · Post by **Wedge** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 6:27 pm

How do you guys read text at extremely high resolutions? 1600 x 1200 or greater is far too small for my eyes to understand. Are you changing font size in order to see?

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Mon Mar 07, 2005 6:56 pm

Wedge wrote:How do you guys read text at extremely high resolutions? 1600 x 1200 or greater is far too small for my eyes to understand. Are you changing font size in order to see?

I can only speak for myself, but LCD monitors w/ 1600x1200 resolution look perfectly normal and not super small. The same cannot be said of my 19" CRT monitors that could do 1600x1200.

mfc2 · Post by **mfc2** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 7:26 am

sthayashi wrote:This might be some interesting reading for you.

Thank you for the link which shows that a Matrox card may be capable of the higher resolutions. However I remain skeptical. If their card was intended to perform at these higher resolutions, why don't they advertise that? There must be some reason. And I may be tempted by the 24inch Dell monitors within the next year.

wedge wrote:How do you guys read text at extremely high resolutions?

I have a 17inch Powerbook G4 with a resolution around 1440x920 and I find the text to be too small. A 20inch monitor with a high resolution should not be that bad. My new monitor is a 2005FP. It is still sitting in its box.

mfc2 · Post by **mfc2** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 7:45 am

So here is where I stand:
The Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro Ultimate is ruled out because it is power hungry and runs very hot, possibly requiring a supplemental fan.

The Gigabyte 6600GT GV-NX66T128VP is ruled out because it is too hard to buy. I did not find any reputable store that had this in stock. Otherwise it is probably a good choice for a PCI-Express card.

Since I ruled out the above PCI-E card, I also looked at the Sapphire Toxic X700 Pro, which sells for $200. It should be a bit faster than the 9600XT card. However, I am not all that enthusiastic about this card since the X700 cards never got good reviews in the magazines, and the Toxic fan cannot be controlled. So I ruled out the Sapphire Toxic X700 Pro.

The Gigabyte 6800 GV-N68128DH is semi-ruled out unless I can find it for a price much less that $279 (ebay).

Which leaves me with the Sapphire Radeon 9600XT Ultimate as the card I will most likely purchase.

I would like to thank everyone for their help.

Goodguy · Post by **Goodguy** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 10:05 am

I've read this thread with great interest.
Would be further interesting to see how power hungry each of those cards are.
The power hungryness should be related to how hot the card run, which is of great interest when trying to keep things quiet.
Anybody know about how much power those cards mentioned above need?
Thankyou.

sthayashi · Post by **sthayashi** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 10:25 am

Goodguy wrote:The power hungryness should be related to how hot the card run, which is of great interest when trying to keep things quiet.
Anybody know about how much power those cards mentioned above need?
Thankyou.

Yes, except for the Matrox card

mfc2 · Post by **mfc2** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 10:31 am

Goodguy wrote:I've read this thread with great interest.
Would be further interesting to see how power hungry each of those cards are.
The power hungryness should be related to how hot the card run, which is of great interest when trying to keep things quiet.
Anybody know about how much power those cards mentioned above need?
Thankyou.

Power Consumption of Contemporary Graphics Accelerators. Part I: Graphics Cards on ATI Chips

Power Consumption of Contemporary Graphics Accelerators. Part II: NVIDIA vs. ATI

Power Consumption: NVIDIA vs. ATI

Extreme Acceleration of NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT (page 3)

ATi's X800 Pulls Off Another Coup in the Graphics Performance War

Power consumption at idle (which is what I care about since I want my computer to be quiet when I am not using it)
Radeon 9600XT: 9.07W
Radeon 9800Pro: 30.51W
GeForce 6800: 16.96W
GeForce 6600GT: 18.47

Wedge · Post by **Wedge** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 11:04 am

For what it's worth, I have no heat issues with my 9800, but then again I use the Arctic VGA Silencer.

mfc2 · Post by **mfc2** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 12:25 pm

Wedge wrote:For what it's worth, I have no heat issues with my 9800, but then again I use the Arctic VGA Silencer.

Is that a 9800 or a 9800Pro?

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 12:52 pm

Hello:

mfc2 wrote:Why I did not include Matrox cards:
The Matrox cards are at the bottom of the list in terms of performance. I have a Matrox 450 in my current workstation and it does not perform very well. Also, a Matrox P650 costs around $150, which is only $25 less than the 9600XT. The P650 is the fastest passively cooled Matrox card, but it only supports up to 1600x1200 resolutions (according to their Web site). My monitor's resolution is 1680 x 1050.

Are you referring the the DVI resolution? Here's the page:

http://www.matrox.com/mga/workstation/3 ... s/p650.cfm

It is dual DVI with each at 1600x1200, and the analog resolution goes up to 1920x1440. They also have 10bit (per pixel) color.

I noticed also while I was on their site, I noticed they now have a 128MB PCIe P650 -- but it also has a small fan...

http://www.matrox.com/mga/media_center/ ... 0_pcie.cfm

The price is higher than the only other dual DVI 128MB card I know of (the XFX 6600GT), and they both have to have the HSF replaced...

Wedge · Post by **Wedge** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 12:52 pm

It is a Built-by-ATI 9800, the core is 325, memory is 290. It is MUCH more card than a 9600XT because it has a 8 pixel pipeline and a 256-bit memory interface.

The core overclocks into the 400's with no problem. Memory overclocks to the 320's (beyond 330 I get artifacting).

I keep it at stock speeds until gaming, then it automatically overclocks because I use Radlinker's ability to associate profiles with specific applications. But honestly, this card performs very well at stock speeds. It's a hell of a card. Runs Doom 3 beautifully at 1024 x 768.

The Arctic Cooler VGA Silencer stays on "low" setting always. No heat issues in my case. No artifacting of any kind. In my opinion, it's a good solution. Noise level is extremely low -- inaudible from my desk chair.

All that said, the 9600XT is still a capable card. I'm just letting you know that you can get great performance at a fair price with little noise should you desire a faster video card than the 9600XT.

Tephras · Post by **Tephras** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 2:17 pm

mfc2 wrote:So here is where I stand:
The Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro Ultimate is ruled out because it is power hungry and runs very hot, possibly requiring a supplemental fan.

The Gigabyte 6600GT GV-NX66T128VP is ruled out because it is too hard to buy. I did not find any reputable store that had this in stock. Otherwise it is probably a good choice for a PCI-Express card.

Since I ruled out the above PCI-E card, I also looked at the Sapphire Toxic X700 Pro, which sells for $200. It should be a bit faster than the 9600XT card. However, I am not all that enthusiastic about this card since the X700 cards never got good reviews in the magazines, and the Toxic fan cannot be controlled. So I ruled out the Sapphire Toxic X700 Pro.

The Gigabyte 6800 GV-N68128DH is semi-ruled out unless I can find it for a price much less that $279 (ebay).

Which leaves me with the Sapphire Radeon 9600XT Ultimate as the card I will most likely purchase.

I would like to thank everyone for their help.

I think you should take a look at the GeForce 6600 card and perhaps the plain X700.

mfc2 · Post by **mfc2** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 2:45 pm

Tephras wrote: I think you should take a look at the GeForce 6600 card and perhaps the plain X700.

I was only looking at passively cooled cards, which is why those are not on my list.

Tephras · Post by **Tephras** » Tue Mar 08, 2005 3:50 pm

Ah, ok. You mentioned a fan on that Sapphire Toxic so I didn't thought you had passive cooling as a requirement, but I see now that it's even stated in the post subject, somehow I missed that.