ATI Radeon 9600 Pro vs. nVidia FX 5700LE

[PigCake]

i am in the middle between these two graphic cards. i have looked up the specs on each of them and they appear to be identical. i was hopeing someone on here can give me some advice on which one is better or which one i should get. please help. thanks.

[saphalline]

Haha, no comparison here. The 9600 Pro blows the 5700 LE away! The truth is in the speeds. The 9600 Pro has 400MHz core speed and 600MHz RAM speed. The 5700 LE has 250MHz core speed and 400MHz RAM speed. Other than that, you are correct, the two GPUs are on par with each other. And when they look the same on paper, speed wins.

[PigCake]

one thing though, the nVidia has 256mb and the ATI has 128mb of memory, does this make a difference at all

[ski]

Typically, more memory enables a video card to display higher resolutions.
But if the speed of its chipset and memory are slow, as pointed out by saphalline, then running games at higher resolutions will produce choppy performance.
Also, most of today's games do not require 256 MB of video RAM.

[Bullman]

I don't want to hi-jack Pigcakes thread, but the answers to this question may help us both to make this decision. I have been looking at these cards also and found this (http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=14-125-161&depa=0) Gigabyte version of the 5700LE. It has numbers closer to the 9600Pro, and is a little less expensive. Why does this 5700LE have higher numbers than most of the others, 400/500 versus 250/400? Would this card perform near the level of the 9600Pro? Also, in my case, this Gigabyte version comes bundled with a $30 game that I am going to purchase anyway. That would put the card for me at around $60 bucks. I am wanting to replace the graphics for my two sons (one is integrated video and other is gf2mx440 64sdram) and if this is a good card/buy I may just buy these. :)

[ski]

If that card in fact has core/RAM speeds of 400/500 MHz, then theoretically if all else is the same(CPU, MB, etc.) it should perform almost as fast as the 9600 Pro(400/600 MHz core/RAM), since their pipeline architecture is the same.
But in reality, it also depends on the game that's being played, as shown here:
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/graphic/20041004/index.html

But the 1st "if" is a big one -> Will it have those claimed speeds, and not the slower 250/400?
And if it comes with the slower speeds, then can the card be overclocked?

Your call.

[PigCake]

So is the answer ATI or Radeon?

[ski]

If you mean ATI or Nvidia, I would go with ATI.

Personally, I do not trust a supplier who advertises speeds that are greater than what is considered normal for a specific video card.
For example, this supplier advertises a $76 5700LE that has the same speeds as the 5700. But what is the buyer really getting?
http://www.gameve.com/gve/store/productdetails.aspx?sku=VC-AOPEN-026
However, the buyer can check the speeds with a program, like Everest, after the card is installed, and if they're lower than what's on the card's documentation, then the buyer can demand a replacement card that has the advertised speeds. But this can be a frustrating and time consuming, if not futile, process if the supplier is less than reputable.

Plus, ATI cards in that price range are typically faster when AA and AF are enabled.

[PigCake]

yes i did mean ATI vs Nvidia, sorry. thanks for all of your help, i think i have concluded to get the ATI Radeon 9600, even though the nVidia has more memory, i think it all comes down to the chip speed. thanks again.