Ati mobility radeon 9600 or Ati FIRE GL T2

[pug77]

I'm getting an IBM T42 and going to use it to play some FP video games.

Of the 2 notebooks I have to choose from, one has a ATI radeon 9600(64mb) and the other has a ATI FIRE GL T2(128mb). I heard that the FIRE GL T2 is considered more of a CAD video card.

So which video card is better for gaming?

[smugiri]

Some links to help you make your own conclusions:

link 1
link 2
link 3

I have the 9000 with 64mb: it plays Quake 3 with no issues @ 1024*8000 ( its the SXGA+ ) and installed and tried out the Doom 3 demo a while back, it was not too bad at low resolutions but 1024*800 sucked ... but I know nothing about the Fire GL

[nirvana0001]

T2 = FireGL = for graphing
9600 = OpenGL = for gaming

[darrenf]

Having owned both -- the chipsets are identical from what I'm told, but the FireGL2 is available with 128M or RAM vs. 64M with the 9600. The 9600 was very capable but I was always working around the 64M limit, especially in BF2 so I upgraded to the FireGL2 and everything runs a bit smoother now. I think my framerate in the CS:S video torture test went from ~40fps to ~60fps with identical settings (I don't remember the settings right now). BF2 will also play smoothly with maxed video quality settings, although I don't think I run with AA turned on.

Both the FireGL2 and 9600 OC to about the same speeds and this further supports the claim that the chipsets are identical.

I expected to have to play around with the video driver to game on the FireGL but I haven't touched the drivers that I installed for my 9600 (probably Omega) and they have worked great -- it picked up the new card type and it shows as a FireGL2 everywhere, but the games kept running without a driver change.

If you game a lot it is probably worth stepping up to the FireGL2, even at the usually steep price. If you're a casual gamer you might be very happy with the 9600 and appreciate the $$s that you keep in your pocket by not having to purchase a p-model.

-darren

[IR0NMAN]

The FireGL is the same as a 9600, but with more ram, and clocked a bit lower. The FireGL also comes with certified drivers and profiles for maximum stability and speed in 3D graphics applications such as 3D Studio Max, Maya, etc. If you want maximum performance in video games, just use a 3rd party driver (such as the Omega's) and overclock your card to match the 9600 clock (or more).

Between the two cards, you will perhaps see a 15% performance increase in memory intensive games such as Battlefield 2 and Doom3, but they will perform the same in regular games (Civilization 4, Battlefield 1).

If you can affort it, get an FireGL T2, but if you can't, a 9600 will do just fine!

[dr_st]

IR0NMAN pretty much said it all. It's the same chip, and whether the extra RAM on the FireGL is worth the extra cash is up to you to decide.

[Esben]

The FireGL V3200 in the T43p has double memory bandwidth compared to the Radeon 9600, which in turn has higher memory bandwidth than the X300.

[dr_st]

The FireGL V3200 in the T43p has double memory bandwidth compared to the Radeon 9600, which in turn has higher memory bandwidth than the X300.

Still, don't expect double the performance from the V3200/X600 over the T2/9600. The extra 64MB of RAM will make bigger difference there.