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The Radeon 9500 has 4 (out of 8) pipelines disabled in the GPU - the 9500Pro uses all 8 - so the fill rate is double on the Pro
The 9500 generally benches a bit lower than a Ti4200 - the 9500Pro benches somewhat higher (Not including DX9 benches i.e. 3DMark2k3 where both Radeon cards would score quite a bit higher with hardware DX9 compatibility)
the 9500 is a much better card as it comes from the factory, however:
there is a software mod available for the 9500 non-pro to enable all 8 pipelines - this would turn a 9500non-pro 64MB into a 9500Pro 64MB...in addition most 9500non-pros are made on 9700PCB's with a 256bit memeory bus - so if you get a 9500non-pro 128MB (you need 128MB's of memory to utilize the 256bit bus) & do the software mod - you end up with a 9700 Radeon:thumb:
the downside of this is that if you buy a 9500non-pro with the intention of modding it to a 9700 - about 1 in 4 cards have severe artifacts once the extra 4 pipelines are enabled - sometimes tweaking will make this go away - but some are forced to undo the mod...you're still left with the card you payed for though - and if you want to pay the restocking chardge, you could get another one and try again.
Yer in the long run the radeon 9500 is better than the ti 4200 in the long run and the pro is even better.Over here the radeon also has the advantage of being cheaper.:D
Ones I've moded my 9500 into a 9700 will I be able to push it even further by OCing it? I heard the Sapphire cards have a unlocked bios, is this an advantage? If so... I'm going to get one thursdays .
I know the ATi BBA 9500Pros's have a locked bios (i.e no OC'ing) - but there are ways to get around that:D
I'm not sure about PBA card's - I know at least some of them are OC-able
Some guy send me his original BIOS ROM file and my card is working ones more! I even managed to activate the other 4 pipes with the drivers I linked above. My Sapphire R9500 non-pro allready seems to have a unlocked bios, so I'll be OC-ing my card in a few moments. I'll let you know the results.
Let my mistake with flashing my bios be a warning for everyone!
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