Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: bmwgs on April 03, 2009, 06:17:43 AM
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My G Force 7950 went south, so I had to reinstall my original G Force 8300. Frame rate went crazy and had to lower the settings. I would like to get another video card for this computer, keep in mind I plan on having a gaming computer built in the near future, so I don't want to do any crazy modifications to this one.
My power supply is 350 watts, and I would like to get the best I can for this system without having to resort to changing the power supply or adding additional cooling. I went to newegg and see if I could find another 7950, but after getting bug eyed looking at all the numbers I didn't find one. I would like to try something else anyway, just for a change. I also noticed I have on-board sound. I am thinking about installing a sound card. Would this help? Any recommendations for a video card? Remember I'm not a computer geek, but I have installed a video card before. Keep it simple please.
My system is a Dell XPS 410
Physical Processors: 1
Logical Processors: 2
Processor Vendor: Intel(R) Corporation
Processor Name: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6600 @ 2.40GHz
Additional Name: x86 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 6
Popular Name: Core 2 6600
Frequency: 2520 MHz
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ATi - X1950 Pro
Nvidia - 8600GTS or GT
Ati card draws almost 110 watts
Nvidia's draw about 70.
Also, it depends on what your 12v rails are running. You should be able to safely run these.
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Was that 7950 factory installed? Through some Googling, I found that 7950 GT to have PSU requirements from 400-450. Inadequate power supplies can damage cards.
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giving us your PSU info like make mod seiral number watts whole nine yards i am sure on of us can look it up and find out what your 12v rail is. should be a lable on your Power Supply Unit (PSU). get that info in here and watch the magic work in this post
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ATi - X1950 Pro
Nvidia - 8600GTS or GT
Ati card draws almost 110 watts
Nvidia's draw about 70.
Also, it depends on what your 12v rails are running. You should be able to safely run these.
I think the 8600's have gone away replaced by the 9600's.
I'd try a 9600 GT or 9500 GT 512 depending on budget and power requirements. Look for (in order of preference):
High DRAM bus (i.e. DDR4/DDR3/DDR2)
Fast memory clock
More pixel pipelines
Fast core clock
If you go ATI look for the same things.
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9500 GT 512 depending on budget and power requirements.
Any reason why you single out the 9500 GT 512? I only ask because I was just in my local Best Buy about 30 minutes ago and they had both the 9500GT 512 and the 9500GT 1gig in stock. The 1gig version was only $10 more.
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I think the 8600's have gone away replaced by the 9600's.
I'd try a 9600 GT or 9500 GT 512 depending on budget and power requirements. Look for (in order of preference):
High DRAM bus (i.e. DDR4/DDR3/DDR2)
Fast memory clock
More pixel pipelines
Fast core clock
If you go ATI look for the same things.
Good point, thanks for the "addendum". Makes his job clearer. :rock Bald
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My power supply is 350 watts, and I would like to get the best I can for this system without having to resort to changing the power supply or adding additional cooling.
Reasonable choice:
ATI: HD4830
NV: 9800GT
If you want to maximise the match between your CPU and GPU
ATI: HD4850
NV: 9800GTX
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Reasonable choice:
ATI: HD4830
NV: 9800GT
If you want to maximise the match between your CPU and GPU
ATI: HD4850
NV: 9800GTX
ATI: HD4850 - 450Watt minimum w/ a 6-pin PCI-e
NV: 9800GTX - 450Watt minimum
These two cards using his current PSU will be destroyed by being underpowered.
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Was that 7950 factory installed? Through some Googling, I found that 7950 GT to have PSU requirements from 400-450. Inadequate power supplies can damage cards.
No it was not factory installed. I bought it second hand. Thats probably why it went kaput.
Fred
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The 9500GT runs on 350watts, but it needs 18Amps according to the specs.
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giving us your PSU info like make mod seiral number watts whole nine yards i am sure on of us can look it up and find out what your 12v rail is. should be a lable on your Power Supply Unit (PSU). get that info in here and watch the magic work in this post
OK, here it is.
PSU
DEL PIN KH624
Model: L375P-00
Output 375w I thought it was 350. I put my glasses on this time.
P/N:PS 6371-1DF2-LF
Serial # !B! 00647812
Level 3
Input 100-120v-9A
Hope this is enough?
Thanks,
Fred
By the way Kilz, Im going to be in Fairbanks in eary July. We need to get together for a beer.
I'll buy.
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i was reading and alot of the XPS 410's came with 7950 GX2's was your a GT or GX2
also the price on those are outrageous? 150-250 for one a GT and 200-600 for a GX2..
you can get a new power supply with 6-pin and a better card for that ..
my HD 4850 was only 121.00 at newegg
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Near as I can tell, your power supply would support 18Amps.
http://www.txcesssurplus.com/servlet/the-3495/Dell-Dimension-Precision-Power/Detail
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i was reading and alot of the XPS 410's came with 7950 GX2's was your a GT or GX2
also the price on those are outrageous? 150-250 for one a GT and 200-600 for a GX2..
It came with the 8300 I'm running now. I bought the 7950 GT second hand and installed it. It worked great for the last year, but went south last week.
Fred
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Near as I can tell, your power supply would support 18Amps.
http://www.txcesssurplus.com/servlet/the-3495/Dell-Dimension-Precision-Power/Detail
Thats the one I have.
Fred
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Well, you should be ok to run an nVidea 9500GT without replacing your power supply. I just saw the 9500GT at Best Buy this afternoon. The 512mb model was $129, the 1gig model was $139.
However, I have no idea whatsoever if that would be better or worse then what you had, or what you are running at the moment.
I am pretty sure it's better then what I am running though, and I may buy one for myself.
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<snip>Input 100-120v-9A
Geez. Either that is one very inefficient power supply or it is very underrated. 9A @ 120V = 1080W
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Geez. Either that is one very inefficient power supply or it is very underrated. 9A @ 120V = 1080W
Don't know but its whats on the label, just like the one PFactor posted the link to ???
Fred
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http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=48&page=3 (http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=48&page=3)
EVGA GeForce 9500 GT 01G-P3-N959-TR Video Card - Retail
GeForce 9500 GT
1GB GDDR2
PCI Express 2.0 x16
Newegg has this one for $69.00 with a $15.00 rebate. Sounds to cheap to be a good card. This is a DDR2 . There are other brands of the 9500 GT that are a DDR3 for about the same price. Is higher the DDR better or worse? Should I stay away from certain brands? Opinions?
Man I didn't know there were so many friggin cards out there. I just want to buy a dog gone card that's better than what I got that will work with my current system. I'm starting to get a headache and it only Friday. :)
Fred
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http://www.txcesssurplus.com/servlet/the-3495/Dell-Dimension-Precision-Power/Detail (http://www.txcesssurplus.com/servlet/the-3495/Dell-Dimension-Precision-Power/Detail)
18A on the 12v rail. More than likely, the card went due to being underpowered.
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Any reason why you single out the 9500 GT 512? I only ask because I was just in my local Best Buy about 30 minutes ago and they had both the 9500GT 512 and the 9500GT 1gig in stock. The 1gig version was only $10 more.
Yes. A 32 bit O/S will only see somewhere under 4Gb (3.25-3.75) of addressable memory. This includes video memory. The system also has to allocate memory to the motherboard and any peripherals installed.
Adding VRAM over 512 in a 32 bit system won't really add much if anything to video performance, which is more dependant on memory speed (bus and clock) than total memory, so all you're really doing is limiting the amount of regular memory available to the system.
BTW, you can get a 9500GT for well under $100 at newegg (closer to $70 IIRC).
[EDIT] I should have added that as long as you're never going to put more RAM in your system than 2Gb then the 1Gb card won't hurt but then I went to EVGA's web site where I saw this:
GPU 9500 GT 9500 GT
GPU Speed 550Mhz 550Mhz
Pixel Pipelines 32 32
RAMDAC Speed 400 400
RAM 512 1024
RAM Type DDR2 DDR2
RAM Speed 1000Mhz (effective) 800Mhz (effective)
Memory Bandwidth 16.0 GB/s 12.8 GB/s
Max Refresh 240 240
Max Resolution Analog 2048x1536 2048x1536
Max Resolution Digital 2560x1600 2560x1600
Note that with the higher RAM speed/memory bandwidth the 512 card will outperform the 1Gb card.
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http://www.txcesssurplus.com/servlet/the-3495/Dell-Dimension-Precision-Power/Detail (http://www.txcesssurplus.com/servlet/the-3495/Dell-Dimension-Precision-Power/Detail)
18A on the 12v rail. More than likely, the card went due to being underpowered.
Yup, I'm really surprised he didn't suffer from reboots during gaming.
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http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=48&page=3 (http://www.newegg.com/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=48&page=3)
EVGA GeForce 9500 GT 01G-P3-N959-TR Video Card - Retail
GeForce 9500 GT
1GB GDDR2
PCI Express 2.0 x16
Newegg has this one for $69.00 with a $15.00 rebate. Sounds to cheap to be a good card. This is a DDR2 . There are other brands of the 9500 GT that are a DDR3 for about the same price. Is higher the DDR better or worse? Should I stay away from certain brands? Opinions?
Man I didn't know there were so many friggin cards out there. I just want to buy a dog gone card that's better than what I got that will work with my current system. I'm starting to get a headache and it only Friday. :)
Fred
Don't buy the 1Gb version. See my post above. Get the 512. Yes, faster memory = more memory bandwidth = better.
In order these are the three fastest 9500's on newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121267 $69
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125260 $60
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150332 $74
Personally I'd skip the ASUS and the Gigabyte and go with the XFX just because they have been building Nvidia cards for a long time where the other two are relative newcomers to the video card world but that's up to you.
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Don't buy the 1Gb version. See my post above. Get the 512. Yes, faster memory = more memory bandwidth = better.
Getting ready to order it. A couple of last questions. I do have 4g of ram in the computer. I understand XP only shows like 3 or something. Does that make a difference?
Now for the final question. I was thinking about a sound card. I think I saw where a sound card will help in running the game. Now I am hard of hearing and can not really hear stero, so when I talk about sound cards, I don't need or could use a high end card that has surround sound and such. I was just looking to take some load off the system. Any last suggestion concerning should I invest in a sound card?
Thanks to all for the help so far.
Fred
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I just edited my last post. Look above for card recommendations.
Yes, since you have 4Gb of RAM you'de lose 512 more mb using the 1 Gb card vs the 512.
As to sound cards if you go too cheap it won't really help. If you can afford it get a Creative X-Fi. If not then get a Creative Audigy but the X-Fi will take a bigger load off the CPU as it has its own RAM and processor.
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I just edited my last post. Look above for card recommendations.
Yes, since you have 4Gb of RAM you'de lose 512 more mb using the 1 Gb card vs the 512.
As to sound cards if you go too cheap it won't really help. If you can afford it get a Creative X-Fi. If not then get a Creative Audigy but the X-Fi will take a bigger load off the CPU as it has its own RAM and processor.
Just ordered the card. I went with the first one on the list, since you suggest it may be the better one.
Thanks,
Fred
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ATI: HD4850 - 450Watt minimum w/ a 6-pin PCI-e
NV: 9800GTX - 450Watt minimum
These two cards using his current PSU will be destroyed by being underpowered.
Depends very much on the rest of the system. If you have a ridiculously overclocked I7 CPU, multiple harddrives, a hungry mainboard etc. then maybe 450W is needed to feed the videocard. An E6600 at stock clock has TDP of 65 W, the 4850 110W. Thats 50% of the PSUs rated for the 2 most demanding components. The remaining 50% will cover the rest with ease.
For reference, I have a similar system with a E6700, 2 GB ram, 1 HD and a 350W PSU. I am running a overclocked HD3870 and the manufacturer also recommends a 450 W PSU for the video card. But guess what, my PSU does not even sweat. I can run all kind of stress tests and benchmarks all day long and the system is rock stable.
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Depends very much on the rest of the system. If you have a ridiculously overclocked I7 CPU, multiple harddrives, a hungry mainboard etc. then maybe 450W is needed to feed the videocard. An E6600 at stock clock has TDP of 65 W, the 4850 110W. Thats 50% of the PSUs rated for the 2 most demanding components. The remaining 50% will cover the rest with ease.
For reference, I have a similar system with a E6700, 2 GB ram, 1 HD and a 350W PSU. I am running a overclocked HD3870 and the manufacturer also recommends a 450 W PSU for the video card. But guess what, my PSU does not even sweat. I can run all kind of stress tests and benchmarks all day long and the system is rock stable.
Again, one of the cards required a 6 pin PCI-e connector. If said PSU doesn't have one, the point is moot. I'd rather have too much power, than "not enough/barely enough" and risk a failure due to that. Also, you do not get to use 100% of the PSU.
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Depends very much on the rest of the system. If you have a ridiculously overclocked I7 CPU, multiple harddrives, a hungry mainboard etc. then maybe 450W is needed to feed the videocard. An E6600 at stock clock has TDP of 65 W, the 4850 110W. Thats 50% of the PSUs rated for the 2 most demanding components. The remaining 50% will cover the rest with ease.
For reference, I have a similar system with a E6700, 2 GB ram, 1 HD and a 350W PSU. I am running a overclocked HD3870 and the manufacturer also recommends a 450 W PSU for the video card. But guess what, my PSU does not even sweat. I can run all kind of stress tests and benchmarks all day long and the system is rock stable.
Unless you're running a Seasonic or something of the like with lots of amps on the 12V and a very high efficiency rating, why would you want to even go against the manufacturers recommendations? Just because you're not experience problems now does not mean you're not shorting the life span of your system, setting yourself up for an imminent failure.
Why run 87 octane in your Audi A8?
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No, I'm not running any fancy PSU. My 12V rail has 15A if I read correctly.
Manufacturers do very conservative estimates, because they need to have all circumstances and possibillities covered. Real world is often different.
The E6600 is not a demanding CPU in terms of power. Nor are the vido cards I recommended. A state of the art quad core will draw twice the power of the E6600, an overclocked i7, which most hardware test sites run even more than that. That alone leaves enough room to operate an E6600 and a reasonable midrange GPU ( i.e. a 4670) with power to spare for what it takes to power an OC'd i7.
As for the 6 pin connector, thats no big deal either. You can get adaptors for the normal 4-pin conncetors for a few bucks fifty. Everthing that draws more than the lowly 75W the PCIe port supplies will need the extra connector. That is no indicator for a particulary hungry video card. In fact the really demandig cards come with 2x 6pin, or even 1 8-pin and 1 6-pin soultions.
Too bad that bmwgs already ordered the 9500GT. It's not a good match for his CPU, nor the PSU. Both could take more of a video card.
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You are making a lot of assumptions about power supplies that are not accurate.
Every power supply manufacturer has its own idea of what overhead they should or should not allow. No one knows the exact number, except the manufacturer. You can get an idea of the overhead by looking at the rated input current rating and the rated efficiency of the supply. With that number reduced by around 20%, you have a good idea of what the static load the power supply will handle. Keeping in mind that will not take into account the power up load, which is substantially higher fr a very brief period of time.
If you exceed 80% (varies actually, but typically it is 80%) load on any rail, according to the rating of the supply, and the power supply fails, taking out various components with it, the manufacturer is free to invalidate your warranty.
Bottomline: It's not worth the risk.
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Skuzzy, I agree that noone should run his in PSU or any rail to its max. rated power for various reasons.
However, in this case we are well below that. My PSU can deliver max. 180 W on the 12V rail, while my 3870 draws 110-120 W under load. Thats 60-66% of the rails capacity.
bmwgs PSUs 12V rail is rated at 216 W, and a 4850 will at max draw 140W under load. Thats again just 65% of the rails capacity.
The 9500 GT that has been recommended draws about 40-50 W under load. Thats 20-25% of the rails capacity. That is so little, that the PSU is not even running in it's best efficency range.
Compared to the 9500GT, the 4850 is on average almost 3 times faster.
bmwgs wanted the fastest card his system can handle. I think it can handle a 4850 just fine.
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You are talking about the static draw and are not considering power up surge.
15% overhead is not much overhead. You cannot run a switching power supply passed about 80% of its rated capacity or you risk the power getting 'dirty'. At 65% you are pretty much at the maximum you want to draw from the supply and still allow overhead for startup surge.
I was not addressing this particular system. I was making some comments on what you had said.
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i used to work for this company that would get PSU's from china and they basically just asked us what stickers you want on the PSU. i would beware of any no name brand low priced PSU's as a caution. and i am not sure how many other companies do that
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Received the new card today, and what an improvement. The 9500 works better than the 7950 did. If a single mid range video card improves the games this much, can't wait until I get the new rig from TilDeath.
Thanks BE and all for the recommendations.
Fred
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Glad to help and happy to hear you're satisfied with it.
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A 7950 GT should easily out handle a 9500/8500. I really think your PSU was not powerful enough for that 7950 and lowered its performance considerably and caused its early death.
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A 7950 GT should easily out handle a 9500/8500. I really think your PSU was not powerful enough for that 7950 and lowered its performance considerably and caused its early death.
No doubt. Just shows how little I knew when I bought it. Not that I know that much more now, but at least I'll post something on the forum and let others argue it out for me. ;)
I understand the 7950 should have been a better card, but to my old eyes this card seems to be better than the 7950. I have a solid frame rate of 60 at any resolution, and the picture quality seems to be much superior. My core temperature is around 41c on load with he other core being in the low to mid thirties. The 7950 wasn't overheating but the temps. did run a bit higher.
Thanks again.
Fred
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A 7950 GT should easily out handle a 9500/8500.
I'm not so sure about that. Here's a side by side comparison of a 7950 and the exact 9500 that he bought (I've bolded the differences):
Chipset
Chipset Manufacturer NVIDIA NVIDIA
GPU GeForce 7950GT GeForce 9500 GT
Core clock 565MHz(vs. 550MHz standard) 700MHz
PixelPipelines 24 32
Memory
Memory Clock 1430MHz(vs. 1400MHz standard) 2000MHz
Memory Size 512MB 512MB
Memory Interface 256-bit 128-bit
Memory Type GDDR3 GDDR3
3D API
DirectX DirectX 9 DirectX 10
OpenGL OpenGL 2.0 OpenGL 2.1
Ports
DVI 2 1
TV-Out HDTV / S-Video Out 1
VIVO No 1
General
Tuner None
RAMDAC 400 MHz 400 MHz
Max Resolution 2560 x 1600 2560 x 1600
SLI Supported Yes Yes
Cooler With Fan With Fan
Granted the memory interface on the 7950 is a big advantage but that ASUS 9500 looks to be a screaming little card.
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Yes, but that 41% higher memory bandwidth of the 7950GT is going to make a huge difference in the performance.
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Not always just the clock cycles that tell what's faster. Can be a clue, yes, but 9500s are low-to-mid range cards, 7950s the top of the line (for their time). There are benefits there.
Manufacturer: nVidia
Series: GeForce 7
GPU: G71
Release Date: 2006-09-06
Interface: PCI-E x16
Core Clock: 550 MHz
Memory Clock: 700 MHz (1400 DDR)
Memory Bandwidth: 44.8 GB/sec
Shader Operations: 13200 MOperations/sec
Pixel Fill Rate: 8800 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 13200 MTexels/sec
Vertex Operations: 1100 MVertices/sec
Max Power Draw: 82 W
Noise Level: Moderate
Framebuffer: 256,512 MB
Memory Type: GDDR3
Memory Bus Type: 64x4 (256 bit)
DirectX Compliance: 9.0c
OpenGL Compliance: 2.0
PS/VS Version: 3.0/3.0
Process: 90 nm
Fragment Pipelines: 24
Vertex Pipelines: 8
Texture Units: 24
Raster Operators 16
versus:
Manufacturer: nVidia
Series: GeForce 9
GPU: G96
Release Date: 2008-07-29
Interface: PCI-E 2.0 x16
Core Clock: 550 MHz
Shader Clock: 1400 MHz
Memory Clock: 800 MHz (1600 DDR)
Memory Bandwidth: 25.6 GB/sec
FLOPS: 134.4 GFLOPS
Pixel Fill Rate: 4400 MPixels/sec
Texture Fill Rate: 8800 MTexels/sec
Max Power Draw: 50 W
Noise Level: Moderate
Framebuffer: 128,256,512,1024 MB
Memory Type: GDDR3
Memory Bus Type: 64x2 (128 bit)
DirectX Compliance: 10.0
OpenGL Compliance: 2.1
PS/VS Version: 4.0/4.0
Process: 65 nm
Shader Processors: 32
Pipeline Layout: Scalar MADD+MUL
Texture Units: 16
Raster Operators 8
So the 7950 has significantly better memory bandwith, texture and pixel fill rates. The 9500 has more pipelines, but less processing units to USE said pipelines.
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I really wasn't expecting to see that large a difference in memory bandwidth. I'm convinced.
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for the money you got a good deal. the cost of replacing it with another 7950 wasnt worth it. though someone on craigslist was selling one for 50.00 used