Radeon 9550 ??

[Lexeus]

What the hell is this ?!?!

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=62209

Just another way of trying to confuse the customer ?

What is a Radeon 9550 ? Its in stock, is it a ebuyer screw up ?

Of course ebuyer tell you 'The SAPPHIRE RADEON™ 9550 delivers unprecedented realism and visual quality to the enthusiast ...' which is very helpful . Anyone heard of this ?

[MonkFish]

replacement for the 9200 series of cards

[silentphoenix]

Its not an ebuyer mistake mate - ive seen these in a few places, and I geuss what MonkFish sounds reasonable. Any ideas if these are just bad 9600 cores?

[malfunction]

Apparently they're 9600 cores paired with slow memory (like the 9600 non-pros) and may or may not have a 64-bit memory bus (making them like the 9600SEs which are to be avoided really). I'm waiting for sapphire to update their site to see if they're using a 64-bit bus or a 128-bit bus... If they're 128-bit then they ought to be bloody good for the price.

[Efaill]

Yep a very cut down 9600. Think I read there may be as few as two pipeline and only a 64bit memory bus too.

[Rave]

The core is the same as a 9600, same number of pipes, only the clockspeed may be different. It's intended to compete with the FX5200 which despite being crap has sold well because it's technically fully DX9.0 compliant, whereas the 9200 series is not.

Rich :¬)

[Mr Flibbles]

A bit off topic but is an FX5600 256mb any good? A friend has offered me one for 40 quid but I already have a 9500 so I didn't know if it was worth it.

[iMc]

I believe that a 9500 is better than a FX5600.

[Efaill]

A bit off topic but is an FX5600 256mb any good? A friend has offered me one for 40 quid but I already have a 9500 so I didn't know if it was worth it.

Nope don't do it. Your 9500 kicks bottom a lot better than a FX5600. It's bette than the 9600XT too which only catches up when overcolcked while the 9500 is at default.

[Mr Flibbles]

Thanks guy's, thats 40 quid saved.

[malfunction]

Sapphire have actually posted a page on the 9550 now which says the card has a 128-bit memory interface so it looks like these are basically 9600 non-pros for £57 (128MB version is £56.79 inc VAT). A good card for the money IMO - unless they've got REALLY slow RAM on them (I'm expecting 400MHz)...

[blockers]

Anything with a **50 from ATI related companies makes me a suspicicous (wish i could spell that word...) as they never seem to be any good.

Better getting the r9500's from retek arent you?

[Zathras]

Retek haven't any in stock at the mo, I rang them last night. Apparently it's going to be a week or so till they get any more refurbs in. Good thread, as I was contemplating a 9550. Could anyone state for definite where the 9550 stands in the ATi lineup, as in compared to a 9500NP, 9500 Pro, 9600SE, 9600, 96000Pro, 9600XT?

[malfunction]

Zathras - IIRC:

9500 based cards have 8 pipelines and a 128-bit bus (whereas the 9700 has a 256-bit bus). The 9500 pro was clocked at 275MHz core / 540MHz mem

9600 based cards only have 4 pipelines and a 128-bit bus (but are generally clocked much higher on the core and on the memory than the 9500s). 9600 non pro is clocked at 325 / 400 (core / mem), pro is 400 / 600 and XT is 500 / 600 IIRC. FWIW I've had a 9600XT that would happily clock up to 567MHz on the core and 740MHz (370MHz DDR) on the memory. I also had a 9600 non-pro at one point which would clock up to 575 MHz on the core with a passive cooler! Having said that though the non-pro was saddled with crap memory that only went up to 475MHz...

The 9600SE should be avoided like the plague as it only has a 64-bit bus (so half the memory bandwidth)

The 9550s seem to come in both 64-bit and 128-bit flavours. If they're 128-bit they they'll probably be on the same level as the 9600 non pro which means the 9500 pro would be a better buy - unless someone is nice enough to make 9550 with decent (faster) memory on it. Not sure of the clocks on the 9500 non pro but I suspect that would easily beat the 9550 too...

Edit: Basically the talk around the time of the 9600 Pro release was that at stock speeds it was slower than the 9500 Pro but when overclocked it actually overtook it. The cut down versions of the 9600 don't have much chance against the 9500s... Same goes for the 9550 - though I'd be interested to see what speed RAM gets stuck on these cards (and not just what it's clocked at by default)

Edit 2: Tweaktown review: http://www.tweaktown.com/document.ph...rticle&dId=649

[Rave]

Zathras - IIRC:

9500 based cards have 8 pipelines and a 128-bit bus (whereas the 9700 has a 256-bit bus). The 9500 pro was clocked at 275MHz core / 540MHz mem

The clocks are the same between 9500 non-pro and pro, but the 9500 non-pro has 4 of its 8 pixel pipes disabled; that's why it can sometimes be softmodded back to a 9500 Pro or 9700 (depending on its memory configuration). I have no idea whether the vertex parts are affected or how they affect performance though....

The 9550s seem to come in both 64-bit and 128-bit flavours. If they're 128-bit they they'll probably be on the same level as the 9600 non pro which means the 9500 pro would be a better buy - unless someone is nice enough to make 9550 with decent (faster) memory on it. Not sure of the clocks on the 9500 non pro but I suspect that would easily beat the 9550 too...

The 9500 non pro probably has similar processing power to the 9600 clock for clock- and they don't clock as high. However, 9500s with an L-shaped memory configuration have a 256bit wide memory bus which helps their performance as you can imagine.

Rich :¬)