Crucial Radeon 9600 Pro Videocard Review
I bet
this holiday season quite a few of you out there are going to be getting new
videocards. After all only videocards (aside from maybe a new processor) can
dramatically increase your gaming enjoyment.
While
Crucial is not a name you'd think
of when purchasing a videocard, they've been selling their own branded cards
for the last year or so. After some initial teething problems, Crucial now
sells some of the best high end ATi videocards on the market. Team that up with
Crucial's excellent level of customer service and it's not hard to see why their
cards are gaining so much popularity! Now Crucial are offering some options for the budget/mainstream
market as well.
Today
we're
going to check out one of Crucial's mainstream cards; the Radeon 9600 Pro. While the
9600XT has been released, it's only marginally faster than the older 9600 Pro
due to the higher core speed. What is
more significant is that the release of the 9600XT causes the prices of other cards, such
as the 9600 Pro to drop! This is especially important as videocards are hitting all time pricing highs.
For $230 CDN ($175 US) you can get
the Crucial Radeon 9600 Pro and all its goodness. The card comes with all
necessary cables, (S-Video to S-Video, S-Video-Composite and
Compsite-Composite) to take advantage of the VIVO feature. There's also a DVI-Analog
Adapter if you want to use two analog monitors, a users manual and
a copy of WinDVD.
The Crucial Radeon 9600 Pro uses a red PCB and is
based on the reference Radeon 9600 Pro design set forth by ATI. The card
appears to have been produced by FIC, given the "A96P" lettering on the
PCB, and benchmarks which identify the card as a FIC descendent. FIC OEM a
lot of products to other manufacturers, so this is not too
surprising.