Outed RADEON 9600XT goes reviewmungus

THE BFG BRIGADE'S expensive toys of choice, like the ATi RADEON 9800PRO or NVIDIA's 5900 ULTRA mostly make the noisy graphics news, but in the real world it's products around the 100 squid mark that sell in much greater volume.

So, as we predicted, ATi's latest entry in that class the RADEON 9600XT is launched today and the officially sanctioned noise seems to have started at HEXUS.net.

Even being one of the very first to page with this product wasn't enough to tie the Hexers down, ‘cause those bad-boyz even compare it to the forthcoming NVIDIA NV36 aka the GeForce FX 5700! Here's the L'INQ of the day.

Considering the comparative numbers HEXUS achieved under Futuremark 3DMark 20001SE 330 and 3DM 2003, it looks like NVIDIA may be finally giving ATi something to think about. But without ‘Application Specific Driver Optimisations' do the Aquamark3 numbers tell the real story?

Here's Kylie's take, where (s)he mentions that, for your American dollars, you'll get a copy of the elusive Half-Life 2 with your card, ATi and Valve seem not to have coughed as to when that may be, however.

Typically detailed analysis of the 9600XT can be found at ‘Shader' Dave's here.

While the Spodesters are reminded of XT gone by over here.

Here's Beyond3D's take on the matter.

And here's Hothardware's.

Oh, and the 9600XT ASUSTeK sourced ‘NDA Breaker', we reported on yesterday has popped back up again at Digit-Life here.

For a really trusted review, turn to Mod MoFos' Bit-Tech.net to see if running Corsair Micro Ads on their site affects their editorial integrity. Here's out their showdown between PC4000 DDR modules from Corsair and Geil. µ