Differance between Radeon 9500 and 9500Pro?

[StylinLP]

What is the differant between getting a Radoen 9500 128meg and a Radeon 9500 Pro 128meg? I read the reviews on how much better the pro is vs a 9600 Pro so I want one. Is there a chart somewhere that shows the speed comparisons?

The 9500 Pro is $175 and the plain 9500 is $130

 

[hi_tech_hate]

yea the 9500 pro does perform better than the 9600 pro. the 9600 pro is also about $30 less than the 9500 pro. personally i'd go with the 9600 pro because ive heard that it's a mean overclocker (but so is the 9500 pro) : /

but hey, if your good with soldering in a very small area, and can get ur hands on a 9500 (non-pro) with the L-shaped memory configuration, you have a brand new $130 9700 pro

...that can't be good

 

[Crashman]

The 9600 Pro and 9500 Non-Pro have 4 piplines, while the 9500 Pro has 8. In effect, the 9500 pro is like a 9700 with half the memory bandwidth (128-bit instead of 256-bit data pathway), and a 9500 Non-Pro also removes half the pipes. The 9600 has some enhancements and a greater clock speed so that it won't be as handicapped as the 9500 non-pro.

That thing he was saying about making a 9500 Non-Pro into a 9700...you don't need soldering skills, you can modify the driver and make it work like a 9700. Lots of places for info on that. The scoop is, some 9500 NON-pro's with 128MB RAM sit on the 9700 PCB, which means they have 256-bit memory like the 9700. So modifying the driver on the 256-bit RAM versions results in a "free upgrade" to 9700 standards. Modifying the driver on the 128-bit version makes the 9500 into a 9500 Pro.

Newegg.com still sells some of the 256-bit 9500 Non-Pro 128MB cards, under the Saphire name, the red ones are 256-bit and the black ones are 128-bit.

So the red ones are faster but the black ones look cooler!

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>

 

[cleeve]

Note that the 9500 mod fails quite a bit of the time; don't buy a 9500 for modding to a 9500 PRO or 9700 unless you can live with the high chance of failure...

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Radeon 9500 w/256 bit memory bus @ 367/310
AMD AthlonXP 2000+
3dMark03: 3439