GeXcube Radeon 9600Pro 128mb
EXTREME
November 20, 2003
Manufacturer: GeXcube
Introduction
The mainstream graphics card market is currently overflowing. That is to be of no surprise as this is obviously the most luxurious market when it comes to overall sales. No wonder manufacturers are growing in numbers literally by the day.
Until recently, there were two main cards vying for superiority in this field. NVIDIA's GeForce FX5600 Ultra and ATI's Radeon 9600Pro. Both cards offer, well, almost the same performance. Lately, both graphics giants introduced new graphics card to further their claim on the mainstream throne. NVIDIA released their FX5700 Ultra while ATI released their Radeon 9600XT. Both new cards are still not available to the majority of the public. This leaves enough time for the "old" mainstream cards like the FX5600Ultra and the Radeon 9600Pro to flood the market. Like with all new products, prices of previous releases goes down dramatically. This can only be good to us, the consumers.
Today, we will be looking at a special Radeon 9600Pro from GeXcube. They said all 9600Pros are created equal. Well, this card will try to disprove that. Let's find out how this card is different from all the rest. Introducing, the GeXcube Radeon 9600Pro EXTREME.
The GeXcube Radeon 9600Pro EXTREME 128mb
Who's GeXcube? They might sound like a new player to you but they are actually GigaXcube (GigaCube). They have since changed their name probably to avoid confusion with Gigabyte. We have done a review of their products in our Radeon Kings article and they have proven to be a very good contender in the ATI graphics card market.
The GeXcube Radeon 9600Pro EXTREME is your typical ATI 9600Pro reference card with a twist. Unlike most 9600Pro who uses 3.3ns or even 2.8ns memory chips, this unique 9600Pro version uses 2.5ns chips. Thus, the EXTREME monicker. Aside from that, there is no other difference. However, performance wise, we know what a big difference this will do for your gaming experience. Let's find out if this holds true...
Note: This 9600Pro EXTREME is not to be mistaken as a 9600XT card as they are totally different from each other.
Below is a table comparing the GeXcube 9600Pro EXTREME's default speed against a reference Radeon 9600Pro and its nVidia competition, the FX5600 Ultra. Note that the EXTREME's default memory clock is already 22% faster than the stock 9600Pro. An amazing 130mhz more over the reference one which should boost its performance quite considerably.
| Graphics Card | Core/Memory | Memory Interface | Memory | Maximum Bandwidth |
| GeXcube 9600Pro EXTREME | 400 / 730 | 128 bit | 128 mb | 11.7 Gb/s |
| Reference 9600Pro | 400 / 600 | 128 bit | 128 mb | 9.6 Gb/s |
| FX5600 Ultra | 400 / 800 | 128 bit | 128 mb | 12.8 Gb/s |