Advantages: Price, value for money, performance
Disadvantages: Not for the advanced gamer

...Introduced as one of radeons mid-high end products, the Radeon 9600xt was originally aimed at the user on a budget, who still required good performance out of moderate applications. Featuring exactly the same functionality and system performance as the 9600 PRO, XT is based on the RV360 chip. Coupled with cooling, and superior memory, ATI's major downfall came with the memory speed of only 300MHZ. Although to be fair, they have laxed this and allowed 25MHZ increases only recently. Using the latest and fatest AGP 8X, the most can be experienced from some of the latest games. After an attempt running DOOM3 with the card, I experienced VERY smooth gameplay, however there are slight stutters when it comes to large open environment rendering scenes, for example 9600XT has a hell of a hard time trying to keep up with Far... Read review

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Advantages: Great Value, Relaible
Disadvantages: No as good as 9800 series

...I wanted to buy a video card that could handle cames such as Call of Duty and NFSU2 easily with a bit to spare. I didn't want to break the bank, and although I was tempted by the 9800 series I opted to go for a sapphire 9600 pro(256mb). I must emphasize the importance of purchasing a pro model as opposed to a standard 9600. Although the pro is not as good as the xt, the price increase from the standard 9600 was minimal(a mere 2 pounds in my case!), so the performance upgrade was well worth the bit extra. I was constrained by the fact that I didn't have a pci express port only an agp, but I have been assured that I do not lose out by buying agp compatable technology at this stage. It is recommended to use this card with an 8x agp slot but using a 4x is fine. The all important core clock speed of the 9600 pro is 400mhz, compared... Read review

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Advantages: Cheap, Fast graphics, ATI are a trusted graphics chipset maker
Disadvantages: Still just a budget card, 9600 a bit out of date, driver issues

...The review is on my Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9600 256MB, which I purchased from Ebuyer. It’s a Graphics Card, or Video Card; some might like to call it, which is a computer component, which goes inside a computer and it lets you connect your monitor to your computer so that you can see what you’re doing. Sapphire Technologies is simply a company that uses the ATI chips on their graphics cards. Some computer motherboards have on-board graphics so you don’t even need to buy one these unless you wanted your computer to have more powerful graphics capabilities but my AsusTek P4C800-E Deluxe (see review *wink wink*) doesn’t, so it was necessary to purchase a graphics card. The Atlantis 9600 is an AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port) graphics card, which is the most common type but there PCI versions available, but they are not as fast... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Good solid midrange card that won't let you down with some overclocking potential.
Disadvantages: A little bit too middle range given superior competition for less.

...the marketing, it seems as if we are getting a second edition card based on the Radeon 9800 architecture which can yield the best performance. However, this card is no 9800XT but rather a brutally maimed and slower version. These 'maimed' cards might not perform the best, but they do deliver performance for a considerably lower price than the top-of-the-range cards. So, the question everyone has to ask is whether this card is just another way to get more people to buy a card with false promise, or does it actually surpass its other similar midrange rivals such as the ATI 9600XT and the NVIDIA 5700 ultra. Architecture: Architecture is the cornerstone of any piece of computer hardware in terms of how well it performs. Since this is a 9800SE, it features many similarities in terms of board layout as the proper 9800 as the picture above shows... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Good performance, respected brand.
Disadvantages: Due for replacement soon.

...As the last time I posted the same review for the same product, albeit being listed seperately, I got a ticking off from Trampus, I'll write a seperate one. In case you haven't realised by the amount of different manufacturers offering Radeon branded cards, the graphics chips are made by ATI and then sold onto other manufacturers to actually make the cards that feature the graphics chips. This allows for brands to carve a niche for themselves as either performance brands, budget brands, or or just good value brands. Sapphire is a performance brand that also offers good value. If you are considering buying a Sapphire card look carefully as for a while they were sold with a voucher that will get you Half Life 2 for free when released. Due to the delay in Half Life the offer was extended to a full Steam account. That means Half Life... Read review

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Advantages: Full Direct-X 9 and advanced pixel shader support, great bang-for-buck
Disadvantages: If you must have the fastest available look at higher priced options

...The Sapphire radeon 9600XT is firmly sat in the "middle" of the mainstream - it isn't going to set any benchmarks alight (especially 3D Mark 2004), but it will give you decent and dependable performance, whilst support ing the latest technologies and at the most affordable price too. My trusty old Geforce 2 just didn't cut it in modern games any longer (in fact it didn't run a lot of the newer games which required DX9 support for pixel shaders etc), so I needed something that would be able to handle the latest technologies without breaking the bank. I went with the 9600XT as although it's a mainstream card, it supports all DX9 features, is fast enough to handle anything you can currently throw at it, and more importantly, was very affordable! Sapphire's version of this card is slightly tweaked, in that the memory is overclocked... Read review

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Advantages: Nicer graphics than your last one
Disadvantages: Disappointing performance for the midrange

...I needed something worthy to replace the mighty 3DFX Voodoo 3 to play the latest games that required all those fancy Pixel Shaders and Lighting Transformers. Avoiding the budget range of nVidia's FX5200 cards I put the biggest budget yet on the 9600XT specification of Mac(intosh) daddy graphics maker ATI. Build ------- Differing from ATI's reference board colour red, this is orange. One of the nicest heat sinks architected (with a slanted carving of 'ASUS') span over not just the graphics processor but the topside memory as well. Don't get your hopes up for overclocking the memory because it has a heatsink on it though as there are memory chips uncovered on the other side of the board as well. I think of ATI's designs as more efficient than nVidia's, this is because ATI don't need external power from the system's main power supply... Read review

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Advantages: It's got a fan, and a heatsink, and it's red, and it's fast, and it's cheap
Disadvantages: I've already got a better graphics card, lacks extra features

...was a relatively simple task. Switch off the power from the mains, disconnect the monitor, open up the case, unscrew the screw that's holding the old graphics card down and then remove it. After extraction of the old graphics card, insert the new card and make sure it slides down completely. When you're sure it's in screw the screw back in then, plug the floppy drive power connector into the card, close her up, plug the monitor back in and switch her on. Should boot up no problems! What's this card again? It's the Sapphire ATI RADEON 9800SE Atlantis graphics card that comes with 128MB of DDR video RAM, AGP 8x, TV-out plugs to connect to a TV or VCR, 1x normal monitor connector and 1x digital monitor connector. Basically anything that has a screen capable of displaying my special movies this graphics card will work on it. So what the hell does... Read review

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Advantages: Extremely Fast,Over clocks well,GDDR 3. Great image quality
Disadvantages: Not DX10 compatible, does not have the newer crossfire bridge, Loud Fan

...speed: 625 MHz 16 pixel pipelines 256 MB GDDR3 memory Memory Clock: 1800MHz Memory Size: 256 MB Memory Interface: 256-bit GDDR 3 DirectX 9 Maximum Resolution: 2560 x 1600 Dual DVI connectors VIVO port Integrated TV encoder S-Video Socket Pros: Extremely Fast. Over clocks well. Runs most games on the market today. GDDR 3. Great image quality, cooler reacts to UV Cons: Not DX10 compatible, does not have the newer crossfire bridge ( makes crossfire a little more tricky), Loud Fan In The Box: Radeon X1950XT 256MB Driver Disk HDTV Cable VIVO Cable 2 x DVI to VGA/D-sub Adapter Price: Around £85 (depends where you shop) Overall I think that this card is a good card for almost any gamer, extreme gamers may want to go for the new DX10 compatible card now available from both NVIDIA and ATI. Although if you want... Read review

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Advantages: Great performance
Disadvantages: Better cards now available for just a little more

...Ever since the release of the original GeForce graphics processor several years back, Nvidia have been the manufacturer to beat. After a couple of years in the technological wilderness, ATI came back with a new range, the Radeon range, and did beat them. The Radeon 9600 is the mid range ATI chip. This means that it will offer far greater performance than the bottom of the range cards, currently the 9200 series, but not as much as the normally rather expensive 9800 series. Each ATI chip comes in several versions. Originally there is the normal version, in this case it would have just been the simple Radeon 9600. This is then followed up by a faster version, called the Pro. Then after that is a slower version called the SE. And finally, we have this one. The XT. The XT versions, no matter whether it is the 9200, 9600 or 9800 XT... Read review

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