Installation

Video is outputted by a couple of methods. You have your standard VGA, DVI , or the s-video-out connection with RCA adaptor. How to use the VGA connection, well I'm sure that we don't need to write a chapter on this one. If so, maybe you should think of changing vocations or give your computer for a charity donation. :P

The 9600 Pro comes with a video output cable that plugs directly into the s-video adapter that you have to plug into the graphic card. This cable is used to output video on your TV set or VCR. If your television support s-video, use it, as it gives better quality then RCA.

For the software setup, everything gets set in the advance display proprieties, dual display Television and DVI.

Software

Only one CD came with the Radeon 9600 pro, it included the ATI drivers and Win DVD software. This makes the 9600 Pro a light software package, but in my point of view that is for the best because with no games included in the software bundles it makes card a little less expensive.

Win DVD

We can't say much about Win DVD; it's a DVD software player, standard and useful.

Drivers

As we all know, even if the driver CD comes with the card, we prefer go online and download the latest drivers.

Test Setup

ABIT NF7-S v2.0: AMD Barton 2500+, 2 x 256MB Corsair TWINX PC3200 Ram, FIC A96P Radeon 9600 Pro, 80GB Western Digital, Windows XP SP1, ATI Catalyst 3.6.

ABIT NF7-S v2.0: AMD Barton 2500+, 2 x 256MB Corsair TWINX PC3200 Ram, XFX FX5600 Ultra, 80GB Western Digital, Windows XP SP1, Detonator FX 45.23.

Test Software will be:

Code Creatures
Unreal Tournament 2003
Jedi Knight 2
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Splinter Cell

The comparison video card will be the XFX FX5600 Ultra. Benchmarks will be shown with and without AntiAliasing and Aninsotropic Filtering. We'll also be covering image quality and over clocking after the gaming benchmarks. All benchmarks are run at high quality, "Balanced" in the control panel settings.

Code Creatures @ 1024x768

This is a DX8 benchmark. Given that the 9600 Pro is a DX9 part, we can get an idea of how it will handle an older video shader specification.

Code Creatures @ 1280x1024

In the Code Creature tests, the FX5600 seems to be falling a step behind. The differences aren't that drastic though, and it's just by a couple frames per second. Both cards do struggle at AA/AF settings above 2xAA and 8xAF though.