Asus 9600 XT

We have two Radeon 9800 XT reviews in this issue, but here we are looking at that chip's baby brother, the Radeon 9600 XT, which is more an upgrade to the 9600 Pro than a new product.

So, ATI has upped the speed of the VPU to 500MHz and has the 128MB of DDR memory running at 300MHz. Unlike the 9800 XT, though, this card only has a 128bit memory interface. While the 9600 XT doesn't have the performance of its faster relation, it's still no slouch.

Running at 1,024 x 768, our 3Dmark 2001 test gave us a score of 13,406, while 3Dmark 2003 gave us 3,831. The card suffers at high resolutions with 4x anti-aliasing turned on, shown by our Unreal Tournament test. At 1,024 x 768, the card managed 81.89fps. Upping the resolution to 1,600 x 1,200 and turning 4x anti-aliasing on dropped the frame-rate to 23.86fps.

So it's not an ideal card if you want games to look their best and maintain the frame rate. If you don't mind games without the advanced features, this is a speedy card at a reasonable price.

The Asus 9600 XT generates little heat and is cooled by a single small fan, keeping noise to a minimum. It has DVI-I, analogue and S-Video outputs and all of the adaptors and cables to take advantage of them.

As with the 9800 XT, Asus provides the same bundle of software. Considering the card is less than half the price of the 9800 XT it offers amazing performance for the money.

Contact: Overclockers
www.overclockers.co.uk

Specifications:

• 500MHz VPU
• Ramdac (400MHz)
• 128MB DDR running at 300MHz)
• DVI-I, analogue, S-Video
• DirectX 9
• AGP 8x
• Media Show SE 2, Powerdirector ME, Ulead Photo Express