9600 vs. 9650 vs. 9600 XT? Please help.

[typecase]

After switiching with a Mac Mini and really loving it, I recently decided to get a dual PM G5. I agnonized over the choice of the video card after reading poor reviews of the 9650 here and here . Deciding that the 9600 was faster and cheaper, I didn't bother upgrading to the 9650. After receiving the system, System profiler lists my card as 9600 (no XT) with the RV351 chipset even though 9600XT appears on my invoice. I confused as to whether this is faster or slower than the 9650 since reports state that the 9650 is a 9600 (RV351) with more VRAM. Did I make the right choice? Should I have anted up the $50 for the 9650? Is there anything I can do now? Any help appreciated.

 

[Capt Underpants]

AFAIK, the Radeon 9650 has two differences from the 9600. (1) It has Dual-Link DVI, which is only useful if you are using a 30" Cinema Display, (2) It has more VRAM.

 

[ChrisFromCanada]

The 9600, 9600 XT, and 9650 perform so similarly that there is no point in comparing them unless you plan on powering a 30" cinema display.

Any one of those could come up as a 9600 in system profiler.

 

[dmw007]

I had the same thing happen to me. I ordered my Power Mac G5 w/ the 128MB DDR ATI Radeon 9600 and on my invoice it said that I had the 9600XT. Apple System Profiler says that I have a 9600. Just seems to be some confusion at Apple HQ.

 

[Xephian]

I think some of the major differences are:

• More vRAM
• Support for Apple's 30" CD
• Slower Speeds which makes it worse then the 9600
• Dual Dual Link DVI rather than one DVI and Analog

 

[quagmire]

Normally on the PC side ATI has normally made the ??50's slower like the 9250. While here, the 9650 is really a 9600 XT. The 9600 is 13 billion or million pixels per second or something and the 9600 XT and 9650 is 16. The 9650 is pretty much a 9600 XT with 128 MB more VRAM and the dual link.

 

[BlizzardBomb]

You can turbo-charge your graphics card with this nifty bit of software http://thomas.perrier.name/software/ATIcceleratorII.html. Just remember that overclocking generates more heat and if you go too high, it'll get damaged. 0 - 25% should be fine. This piece of software is frequently used by Bare Feats (http://www.barefeats.com/radx850.html, example of them using it), a reputable site with lots of benchmarks and tests. Just be really careful when you use it (if you use it) and gradually overclock them. I'm not sure if this voids your warranty though.