In article ,
says...
Hi all,
in one of my PCs I still have my glorious 8500, which at the time I bought
it, costed me a lot of money (read: many many days of hard work).
Now I have a chance to swap it (for free) with a 9600SE, that as far as I
understood is the least performing card of the 9600 family. It has a 64bit
data bus, to be more clear.
I'd wish to ask you if you suggest me to do this swap, or to keep my old
8500 instead.

Pro the 9600SE there are a couple of points:

1) memory (128MB against the 64MB of my 8500)
2) modernity (it supports DX9 effects that my 8500 doesn't support)

in favour of keeping my 8500 instead there is:
1) 128bit data bus, against the 64bit of the 9600SE

What about performance? Is there any case where the 8500 is still superior?

I always and almost exclusively use the 1024x768 resolution, for gaming.

What do you advice me to do?

Thanks a lot,
Andrea


I can't answer directly, but I can tell you a story:

I too purchased the 8500, 128, quite some time ago and have always
loved it. When the fan died I sent it back to ATI and although it took
almost a month, they did replace it. It's fast, clear and crisp.

I bought a new system which came with the ATI 7200. It didn't compare
to the 8500 at all! It was slower and noticeably less crisp.

So I returned the 7200 and got the other option offered to me with the
new system: an ATI 9600 Pro. This beats the 8500 only slightly - speed
seems quite similar, but it is a little more crisp.

I guess I'm saying the 8500 is a good card -

Louise