Sapphire Radeon 9600 Pro ???

[fazi1985]

I've a great dilemma. I bought yesterday a Sapphire (ATLANTIS) Radeon 9600 Pro. It's pretty good, a way better than my old Ti4200, but there is a "tiny" problem: 3DMark2003 and other benchmark & test programs say that it runs at only 400/300 Mhz instead of 600/400 Mhz. Or is it only a normal 9600 not Pro???
(on its box it is stated that the card is a real 9600 Pro, but I fear it's not)

Anyone help, plzz!!!!

 

[benwalburg]

i would think maybe ddr so divide by 2..but 400x2 is 800 and thats to high..so hmm..try overclocking using powerstrip...see if it crashes past 500ish (memory)
also how much did you pay for it?

 

[fazi1985]

I'm from Hungary. Here it cost $230, approximately. I tried tweaking in PowerStrip, it crashes about at 490 Mhz. So any idea?
(The product no. on the box and on the card are the same, and Radeon 9600 Pro is written on the box.) ???

 

[fazi1985]

Well, I checked out clock freqys again and the fact is:
engine clock 400 Mhz
memory clock 300 Mhz.
Maybe you were right "benwalburg", 300 should be multip. by 2 = 600 Mhz. That's it, or not?

 

[Malibu Stacey]

ATi clocked the 9600 pro cores at 375mhz. Sapphire may be clocking them slightly higher at the 400mhz which your benchmarking programs are reporting. Memory is supposed to be clocked at 600mhz but I would assume since your benchmarking program(s) is reporting it at 300mhz I assume this is correct & the specifications are doubling the speed due to it being DDR memory (same thing as PC3200 DDR RAM being quoted at 400mhz but is in fact only 200mhz). You haven't been ripped off or anything this is just the way of IT these days. I have the same card as you & couldn't be happier with it (I upgraded from a Hercules 8500 which I put in my 2nd system so my brothers can play Counter-Strike & Championship Manager all day long without pestering me).

If you are really bothered you could try overclocking the GPU & RAM but make sure you do it incrementally & look up some guides on how to do it safely

 

[fazi1985]

I appreciate all your help. Now it's ok. Thx for everything. Bye

 

[benwalburg]

glad i could help