ATI RADEON 9600 XT, (128 MB) AGP Video Card

Pros: The prices are dropping, giving great midrange performance for under $150.
Cons: If you spend $40-50 more, you can get much better with better software bundles.

I recently wrote a review on the eVGA.com 5900SE video card, in which I said it was the best bang for the buck in the sub-$200 category. Since that time, ATI has released a 9600XT with 256MB of DDR, so the pricing on their 128MB model has dropped ...

Pros: Pure Value.
Cons: Fair Performance On Latest Games.

Overview Looking for a decent, brand-name video card that meets the standards of recent computer games? You've wound up at your final stop, the ATI Radeon 9600 XT. Rumored to be as fast as the ATI Radeon 9800 PRO 128MB and favored as one of the ...

Pros: good anti-aliasing, FULLSTREAM video deblocking, great game performance.
Cons: cooling solution a little wimpy.

The ATI RADEON 9600xt is ATI’s offering to the mainstream market. It claims to offer great gaming performance at a mainstream price. Does it deliver? The answer is a wholehearted “yes.” First lets get the specs out of the way. This card comes with a ...

Pros: It works OK.
Cons: Hassles, poor help, sketchy performance.

I used this card for about a year. Here are some random notes I collected along the way. Without asking my permission, on installation, they replaced my file assignments from Windows Media Player to the ATI media player. I didn't like its looks and ...

Pros: This is the all around greatest video card for its price range!!
Cons: Nothing at all

The ATI RADEON 9600XT has an exceptional combination of power, performance, and price. With Microsoft DirectX 9, 8xAGP 128MB, super fast clock speeds, and gorgeous graphics this is the ultimate gamers card under $200. All of my games I’ve played on this card have doubled in performance in every aspect. The 3D performance of this card is absolute outstanding I can’t be happier. The card is also very quite due to the cooling fan and it requires no power cable. The ATI RADEON 9600XT is a beautiful card I highly recommend this card to every gamer out their looking for superior performance and value.

Pros: Priceworthy
Cons: Awful Linux support

I agree with most reviews, that it's a priceworthy card and performs well considering the price... as long as you stay in Windows. For Linux users I can only recommend two things. Stay away from ATI and go with nvidia. ATI's linux support is dreadful, with a lot of gaps to fill. So if you intend or even may consider trying Linux out, don't buy this card, or any ATI product.

Pros: -Great performance at a small price
-Price
Cons: -Laggy on some specific games

This card replaced my old nVidia GeForce 2GTS. Now I'm just amazed. Even though I know there are much better cards, this one is really great for such a small price. I can run Need for Speed Underground at 25-30FPS, 1280x1024, all setting high, except no motion blur. On my GeForce 2 GTS, I didn't even see any reflections on the cars... Now I play most games at a high FPS. But if you play games like FEAR, don't get this card. That game kills this card at 640x480, lowest detail... But it's great for any other game. I highly recommend this card to anyone on a tight budget. Although it is a little slower in games like Halo. My friend has a GeForce FX5700 Ultra, (the same card level as a 9600XT), and Halo runs a little smoother on his computer.

Pros: Has full DirectX9 support GPU Core is fast
Cons: Memory is awful Overpriced 6600GT gave it a grave

I bought this card a while back. It was said to be very good at shading and was going to be faster than the 9700 Pro. This card is not good at all unless you like 800X600 with no amneties at all. Might as well get the 9200 I replaced this with and play at 640X480. I have a P4 3.2 with 1 gb of Dual Channel (Dual Channel helps out the P4 alot) so it wasn't my system that was the bottleneck. Just buy the GeForce 6600GT or the 6800 I replaced it with, which neither were available when I bought this. The core is awesome on this card, and could've performed as good as these tards said. Fast and very advanced, but the memory is on a 128 bit bus and it's slow too. You can't overclock the memory at all (maybe 5mhz), not to mention ATI puts a lock on it(can be bypassed). High res and AA kill this card. All it needed was the 256 bit bus or faster memory. There hasn't been a 200 (150 now)dollar card that has ever been this poor.

Pros: Compatible with 4x/8x AGP and HDTV YPrPb output through a ATI Adapter.
Cons: DDR Ram, Only 4 rendering pipelines, needs to be kept very cool.

ATI makes great products. In it's day, this was one of them.

I bought this card from ZipZoomFly.com knowing that this was a economic value based on previous reviews and there were better cards available. If you are looking to keep an older system running as I was, this is a good replacement card.


It has locked up a few times at 1600 X 1200 UXGA Resolution. The card does come with a heatsink and fan, however, I added fans to my Micro-ATX Case to keep it cool and it has not crashed since.

This card does operate two monitors at once and has S-video for TV display.

I have few regrets buying this card. If you can afford a better one, and/or are building a new system, think about a higher ATI series with more rendering pipelines, 256 MB GDDR3 RAM or more and 256-bit memory data width or higher.

John K.