Great post, I am glad someone is verifying that the extra RAM on the 9400GT is not a waste and actually does affect performance. PCI needs all the help it can get, so when the gig of RAM is proving to be working, then I say keep it coming and hopefully with DDR3 next time.

64-bit cards on PCI bus type is brutal. PCI doesn't need anything at all to handicap it and the power of 64-bit cards is generally half of it's 128-bit equivalent. Big difference between a 8400GS PCI (64-bit) and a 8500GT PCI (128-bit) and since prices have come down a lot with the release of the 9400GT, I say don't settle for less than a 8500GT. Just wish they would release the 9500GT because I don't want to settle for the 9400GT while I find a way to get a better rig.

Designing a modern 128bit PCI card would be a waste because the increased bandwidth that 128bit would bring about would be wasted on the 133MB/s PCI bus. The 64-bit 9250 likely performs very similar to yours. Would 128-bit be nice to have if it were the same price? Sure, but it doesn't warrant a sizeable increase in price.

Really? Did you test a 512 or 256MB version of the same card right before or after? Probably not. So how do you know its "using all its mem"? If you had tested it with a control (a cornerstone of experimentation) I'd be willing to bet the results would be the same if not minuscule in difference. All true experimentation I've seen shows that that much extra memory only comes in to play in high-end games at very high resolutions, and this is on the high-end of cards. With a 94/9500 GT, you're getting into the GPU's limitations before you reach any level of antialiasing or resolution where extra memory would matter.

But its your money, go ahead and spend almost double for memory that all or the majority of the time will be of no use.

The PCI slot is 133mb/s no matter what, but 128bit/64bit is the bitrate between your GPu and Mem on the card, it doesn't really affect the PCI slot much, i have tested both the 128 bit and 64 bit 9250 and my 128bit smoked the 64bit. Also i did test both 9400GT's, i bought the 1gb version and my cousing bought the 512mb before me. Mine ran at high resolution better, and averaged about 15 to 25 FPS more, so again your wrong. At leaast i test things before i say it

If you have the 9400gt pci , can you post your gpu-z shot?

I am buying the albatron 8500gt or 8600gt or 9400gt or 9500gt pci card early next month, depending on what i find first. I really want one of those albatron cards tho, their design looks cool

The system i was using the 9400GT on has been gone now for almost 3 weeks, i was upgrading my cousin's friendss PC, he has a Dimension 3000(PCI only) SO i got him the best, but my cousin also has a 300 and had less money so he bought the 512mb version, they both came on same day, and i bech marked them, i should hav taken a screen shot. I am about $20 away from getting my new one for this board, should have it in a week or two, i will post one then. I fyou would like i can post my 9250 and x1550 if you want to see them, most of you don't seem to use those anymore.

Oh its cool. I am buying a new rig um tomorrow or early next week, but i will also be picking up a new video card for it early to mid next month, i may end up buying that Jaton 1GB/128bit 9500gt PCI card. Its the only 9500gt version around, so it will make sense to buy it.

Your paying $60 for 8 more shader processors, believe me if you have been getting by on 64bit 8400GS cards and the 64bit HD2400, the 1gb Sparkle 9400GT will blow your mind, and i hope it will help your new sytem as much as it helped my friends, and as much as i hope it helps mine, i would wait and see what sparkle does, i might email them tyo see if they will ever release the 9500GT in the US.

Ohh heres the x1550 screen shot, for some reason, i belive power supply the stock Memory Bandwith is at 3.1gb/s, but in my other PC it ran at the standard 6.3gb/s, i will c what a new PSU will do :

No Overclock


Overclock to heck on the memory


Haha 90nm, so old, but that 9400GT should be running like 65nm if i remeber right and just for fun here maybe the 9250 (may not work)
[IMG]C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\My Documents\My Pictures\radeon 9250.gif[/IMG]
SO ther you go, i will post my 9400GT when i get it, any other Screen shots would be cool to see, exspecially Genrals array of PCI cards

Yeah 9250 didn't work ohh well

Check out the stats for the Jaton 9500GT 1GB with GGDR3 Memory
http://www.gpureview.com/GeForce-950...-card-610.html
WOW, thats clearly the fastest card out for PCI

I don't know how much the Jaton 9500gt cost, i have to wait and see. But most likely i will buy the 9500gt.

If that is the x1550 pci, those stats are wrong. This is the correct stats:

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards....rd1=506&card2=

Something is wrong with your card.

Your Stats are also off, your 9500GT that you get from Jaton only has DDR2 max of 800mhz mem probabely. I know that my cstats are wrong, i ised it on my power efficent Compaq Duak core (uses less power then my older P4 sytem) Both are running on 250watt PSU, i need like a 350watt PSU or 400watt, this little bugger is power hungry, but thats some high clocks for PCI 550mhz with 800mhz RAM, until i OC's it then it was 920mhz RAM. I am buying a new PSU anyway for the 9400GT cause it also wants a 350watt PSU, only the really old cards don't want power. I can get 6.3gb?s on that sustem but i have to only use 1 IDE device, and unplug all my unimportant fans and lights. With your 9500GT your still only getting 8 or 16 more shader processors for $60!!! thats a lot. but no matter what you do the 9400GT or 9500Gt will blow the socks on what you have sitting around right now.

ohh yeah the Jaton is $140 supposedly, but Newegg will prob sell it for like 120 or 110 or maybe less

I was saying the x1550 stats seem to be incorrect, because the bandwidth is suppose to be 12.8GB, and the memory at 450.

Nevertheless, um i don't believe the stats on your gpu has anything to do with your psu. I am using a 90watts PSU for a 350watts card. aLSO about the 9500gt being inaccuate, well i don't know what the real stats are for the 9500gt, just have to wait and see. I was just posting the link from gpu-review.

peace

I'd forgotten how frustrating it is searching for PCI cards.

You end up with a search string like :

PCI -PCI-E -PCIX -PCI-Express

and still you get hits for PCI-E cards described as PCI .


Has anyone seen any UK sellers of the 9500GT cards ? The two distributors listed on the sparkle site for the UK don't seem to stock them .

It's interesting that you don't think the extra 16 shaders is good value but the gig of memory is. I think the extra shaders will help even more than the extra memory most likely. I agree though that $140 dollars is waaaaaaay too much to pay for this. $100 dollars should be the limit on any PCI card because of the performance you actually get compared to the same card on PCI-e which goes for around $50 dollars. BTW, I found several online retailers for this card and it is going for about $100 dollars before shipping.

This new Jaton card makes the Sparkle 9500GT obsolete as the Sparkle card has a slightly slower Shader Processor. Great find General BTW. Also, don't believe what the Jaton site says about this card needing 400W of power, that's just nuts IMO. No PCI card is going to be a huge power draw and if so then why doesn't the Sparkle cards require just as much power? Even the General should be able to use this card, just don't OC it whatever you do. A lot of PCI-e cards with the extra power connectors don't require that large of a PSU and I haven't seen a PCI card yet that has a power connector, so why would so much power be necessary?

It says 50w on gpureview. 200 or 300 should be just fine. I am buying a new rig um was today, but i have to buy it monday evening. I will look into buying the jaton 9500gt for my new rig early next month.

I am very curious about those stats tho, interesting it says the bandwidth is at 25gb, is this even possible with PCI?

EDIT:
http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards....=610&card2=574

I think the stats on the PCI are wrong. Just have to wait and see i guess.

They have the memory clock of the PCI-e version mistakenly typed there. You have to click on the "-" button next to "Mem:" to adjust it to it's correct value which is 400 not 800. The PCI card has dual RAMDAC of 400 not 800. For some reason, every PCI card I've seen has the Mem clock capped at 800. I suppose they think that that is all the PCI bus can handle, but when you OC the Mem clock, it does go a long ways in improving the performance. So why can't they just do that at the factory?

Um not really look:

Someone on youtube has this card, he OC it too
http://gpuz.techpowerup.com/09/02/21/96p.png
http://www.evga.com/products/moreInf...eries%20Family
I would of bought this version of the 8400gs series if it was sold in stores. But the bfg is fine.

I think they just don't want to do it , not that they could. I know people said pci cards are bottleneck, but after using that celeron, i don't think that was the case, pci cards are less powerful then pcie true, but bottlenecks, nah

Okay here a quick lesson so you all may kinda get this, it seems like most of you don't, if you do, well then this doesn't really help you. The memory bandwith on the card, doesn't affect the PCI badwidth or use it,at all, its the transfer speed from the GPU (not CPU) to the memory. You could have a 9800GT with 1gb of DDR3 clocked at 1600mhz, and get a mem bandwidth of 48gb/s,, or more. But PCI becomes a bottleneck in the fact that the PCI bus can't send the GPU enough info to keep up with it's processing power, it would work great but you just can't compare to the GB/s that PCI e and AGP have, plus there's aren't shared. I f you are gonna be stuck with PCI or enjoy them like tha General, try and find a board with more than one PCI/USB bus, some have PCI pro that each slot has its own independent 64biut bus, but you can use 32bit normal cards in. So you can see why they only put cheaper GPU's and DDR2(800mhz is about the limit on DDR2 in video cards i believe) on these cards, do i think that DDR3 would be nice, yeah, increasing the bandwidth to about 20gb/s wouldn't hurt anything, and would help alot. But they would charge us PCI users over premium for that. Also if you overclock your FSB you open up more PCI bus or make it faster i can't remeber, but my freind over clocked his old P3 mobo to 157FSB and his PCI was also at 157 mb/s, not a great improvment but every last bit(pun inteneded) helps.

Don't forget this is the Albatron 8600gt gddr3 pci gpu-z shot

http://www.wakuwakuwaniland.com/zakk...600gt_gpuz.jpg