There won't be a bottleneck strong enough to justify going with slower cards.
That being said, a good 9550 can save money and do the same job after overclocking.

Putas wrote on 2026-04-19, 19:03:

There won't be a bottleneck strong enough to justify going with slower cards.
That being said, a good 9550 can save money and do the same job after overclocking.

Just make sure to get a 128bit variant.

tehsiggi wrote on 2026-04-19, 20:14:

Putas wrote on 2026-04-19, 19:03:

There won't be a bottleneck strong enough to justify going with slower cards.
That being said, a good 9550 can save money and do the same job after overclocking.

Just make sure to get a 128bit variant.

Is this a good one?
https://ebay.us/m/Y2eXfv

Demonslayer2103 wrote on 2026-04-19, 23:47:

tehsiggi wrote on 2026-04-19, 20:14:

Putas wrote on 2026-04-19, 19:03:

There won't be a bottleneck strong enough to justify going with slower cards.
That being said, a good 9550 can save money and do the same job after overclocking.

Just make sure to get a 128bit variant.

Is this a good one?
https://ebay.us/m/Y2eXfv

It is hard for me to read the memory marking. Looks like a 1,5 ns latency, which would be an incredibly fast module. Easy to add a fan.

You came along with some "unicorn" 😉

This card most likely has DDR2 memory. As for 9550, this is totally fine - its 128bit and that's what matters. The passive cooler is nice and large, mounting holes standard in case you want to replace it with another cooler. I think this is a pretty decent 9550.

About the price, I can't tell. I'm not in the US market.

Iirc that ATI era was plagued by many models with the similar naming, but huge differences in performance, regardless of the supposedly "128MB" video ram.
When updating my Pentium 3 build some years ago the choice was between a 9000, 9500, 9700 or 9800, either pro or std. I've ended up with a 9000 as the other models were either unavailable by that moment, or ridiculously expensive. The ATI choice was imposed by Nvidia cards priced for crazy money, which was NOGO for me.

Iirc (again), there was some tweak specifically for the 9500 to overclock it to a 9700.

Unfortunately I do not remember any of the 9550 details, tbh I didn't even remember it being a thing until by reading this post. What I'm sure is 9600 sucked, and likewise anything in between 9000 and 9500 - I think they made 91x0 92x0 and 9400 with fancy heatsinks and marketing, but Low end cards. Not sure about 9300.

fix_metal wrote on 2026-04-20, 07:01:

Iirc that ATI era was plagued by many models with the similar naming, but huge differences in performance, regardless of the sup […]
Show full quote

Iirc that ATI era was plagued by many models with the similar naming, but huge differences in performance, regardless of the supposedly "128MB" video ram.
When updating my Pentium 3 build some years ago the choice was between a 9000, 9500, 9700 or 9800, either pro or std. I've ended up with a 9000 as the other models were either unavailable by that moment, or ridiculously expensive. The ATI choice was imposed by Nvidia cards priced for crazy money, which was NOGO for me.

Iirc (again), there was some tweak specifically for the 9500 to overclock it to a 9700.

Unfortunately I do not remember any of the 9550 details, tbh I didn't even remember it being a thing until by reading this post. What I'm sure is 9600 sucked, and likewise anything in between 9000 and 9500 - I think they made 91x0 92x0 and 9400 with fancy heatsinks and marketing, but Low end cards. Not sure about 9300.

The Radeon 9000 (RV250) is based on the Radeon 9500 architecture (R200) and therefore purely directX 8.1 - 4 pixel pipes, nothing to write home about. A solid entry level DX8.1 card that if had cheap, isn't too bad.
The Radeon 9100 (R200) is based on the Radeon 8500LE and just a rebrand. It is usually faster than the Radeon 9000. If you fancy DX8.1 games only and find one for a cheap buck, not too bad either.
The Radeon 9200 (RV280) is a chip refresh of the 9000 (RV250) - nothing really special, it has AGP 8x though - which doesn't really matter in that performance range. There was the standard edition and the SE - the standard with 128Bit was on par with the 9000, the SE however had half the memory bandwidth with 64 bits and is therefore terrible. Most people associate the Radeon 9200 with the SE variant and are therefore no fans of that card whatsoever. As non-SE it's just as good as 9000.
The Radeon 9250 (RV280) is nearly the same as the 9200, but clocked 10MHz lower. Those cards came in the era of "cheap DDR1" - thus having often 128MB with 64bit of memory bus (SE variant) or 256MB with 128bit of memory bus (normal variant).
For both the 9200 and 9250 there was no pro version released, unlike the Radeon 9000. So a Radeon 9000 Pro will always outperform any 9200 or 9250. All of them have 4 pixel pipes + DX8.1.

There is no 9300 and no 9400.

The Radeon 9500 (R300) is based on the DX9 architecture of the R300 chip series. There were two versions: Pro and standard.
The Radeon 9500 Pro had 8 pixel pipes + 128MB 128Bit memory. Fairly decent.
The Radeon 9500 non-Pro came in two variants: 128MB with 256Bit memory (same as the Radeon 9700) but with 4 pixel pipes OR 64MB with 128Bit memory with 4 pixel pipes.
Only the 128MB 256Bit Memory version could be soft-modded into a Radeon 9700 and enable the missing 4 pixel pipes, giving it 8 pixel pipes.
The Radeon 9700 (R300, pro and non-pro) had 128MB of memory with 256Bit bus and 8 pixel pipelines. Difference was only in memory and gpu clocks.
The Radeon 9800 (R350/R360) was a refresh and improvement on the 9700 - it was available as SE, standard, PRO and XT. All having some differences. Apart from the SE, all of them have 8 pixel pipes (the SE having 4). Most cards had 256bit of memory bus + 128MB memory. However there were cards having 256MB + 256bit or 256MB + 128bit while still going as Pro models. ATI wasn't very strict there. So you'll have to check what you get.
The Radeon 9600 (RV350/RV360) comes in SE, standard, Pro and XT. There was a wide variety of memory speeds and buses, however usually it is: SE has 64 bit of memory bus - all others 128bit. There were variants with 64 (SE) to 256 MB of memory, speeds may vary. All of them have 4 pixel pipes. It's effectively a halfed 9800.
However! The RV350 and RV360 were exceptional good clockers. The Pro variant having already 400MHz of GPU clock and the XT even 500MHz. That sort of compensated for the lack of pixel pipelines / memory bandwidth compared to the plain 9500.
The Radeon 9550 (RV350/RV360) is the even more budget variant of the 9600. Same weird options with memory bus width, speed and amount. SE variants usually have 64bit and 64/128MB of memory. They share the same core as the 9600 and thus are good clockers as well, most of them easily reaching 9600Pro clock for the GPU without issues.

Rating wise for performance I'd say roughly:

Radeon 9000
Radeon 9200/9250 (all)
Radeon 9000 Pro
Radeon 9100
Radeon 9550 (Std/SE)
Radeon 9600 (Std/SE)
Radeon 9500
Radeon 9600 Pro/XT
Radeon 9500Pro
Radeon 9700 (Std/Pro)
Radeon 9800 (Std/Pro/XT)

So I'd refrain from saying the 9600 sucked. It depends on your variant. If you got a Radeon 9800SE, it may have sucked as well, though being a R350 card.
For 98 + early XP, I think the 9550 128Bit is a solid choice without breaking the bank. Crank up the GPU to 400+MHz if not enough and you'll be fine.

It's also important to add that those cards did not release all at the same time, there was a grouping for the 9000 series, roughly:

1. Wave 2002
9000, 9500, 9700

2. Wave 2003
9200, 9600, 9800 (you see, basically a "refresh" of every previous variant. The 9600 being a bit cheeky)

3. Wave 2004
9250, 9550

tehsiggi wrote on 2026-04-20, 07:23:

The Radeon 9250 (RV280) is nearly the same as the 9200, but clocked 10MHz lower. Those cards came in the era of "cheap DDR1" - thus having often 128MB with 64bit of memory bus (SE variant) or 256MB with 128bit of memory bus (normal variant).

There was even 9250 with 128MB DDR and 128bit memory bus - from Sapphire at example: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/235196321180

Normal 9600XT outperforms stock 9500 Pro. Almost twice the GPU core clock, better memory bandwidth and some minor architecture improvements shared with R350 core.

Ydee wrote on 2026-04-20, 08:00:

tehsiggi wrote on 2026-04-20, 07:23:

The Radeon 9250 (RV280) is nearly the same as the 9200, but clocked 10MHz lower. Those cards came in the era of "cheap DDR1" - thus having often 128MB with 64bit of memory bus (SE variant) or 256MB with 128bit of memory bus (normal variant).

There was even 9250 with 128MB DDR and 128bit memory bus - from Sapphire at example: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/235196321180

That's why I said often. There is such a wild mix of cards, you can't give a definitive answer. I have one from HIS with 128/128 as well.

ive got a powercolor 9550 unfortunatley artifacting its 256mb 128bit, someone on here mentioned flashing a radeon to a different model and i wondered if i could do the same, thanks to the pics on retroweb it seems the powercolor 9600 pro has the exact same pcb as the powercolor 9550, ram brands seem to vary even on the 9600 pro and both RV350's.
so flashing a 9600pro bios should unlock extra power. the powercolor 9600XT has a different pcb and BGA memory so not the same , im guessing they sold the 9600pro cards as 9550's at a lower price and reduced the performance to reflect that or just to be assholes, if we have to lose out customer does too.🤣

the card op linked has BGA memory that must be a good sign right? price isnt unreasonable, id want it for half that since im a cheap bastard, as they come in 256mb 128bit variants thats what i'd look out for, if not the one you linked will do just fine.

Yes, it seems to be a great specimen. Perhaps some volt mods might be needed to unlock the potential of that memory, but it should be able to go fast either way. Repaste, add fan, have fun.

Depending on the exact memory, it may run DDR2 with up to 400MHz, just like my 9600Pro with DDR2. It's not a bad card. Should be better than some of the 9550s with DDR1 that runs at 166MHz or so.

DudeFace wrote on 2026-04-20, 12:04:

so flashing a 9600pro bios should unlock extra power

Not sure what you mean by extra power? The cores are the same, so the only difference you might get are timings for the memory. Clock wise, you can also just use software to get the same GPU clocks.

tehsiggi wrote on 2026-04-20, 13:01:

Depending on the exact memory, it may run DDR2 with up to 400MHz, just like my 9600Pro with DDR2. It's not a bad card. Should be better than some of the 9550s with DDR1 that runs at 166MHz or so.

DudeFace wrote on 2026-04-20, 12:04:

so flashing a 9600pro bios should unlock extra power

Not sure what you mean by extra power? The cores are the same, so the only difference you might get are timings for the memory. Clock wise, you can also just use software to get the same GPU clocks.

GPU and memory, the 9600 pro has an extra 150mhz on the gpu and an extra 100mhz on the memory over the 9550, can be overclocked with software but a permanent solution would be better.

DudeFace wrote on 2026-04-20, 13:38:

tehsiggi wrote on 2026-04-20, 13:01:

Depending on the exact memory, it may run DDR2 with up to 400MHz, just like my 9600Pro with DDR2. It's not a bad card. Should be better than some of the 9550s with DDR1 that runs at 166MHz or so.

DudeFace wrote on 2026-04-20, 12:04:

so flashing a 9600pro bios should unlock extra power

Not sure what you mean by extra power? The cores are the same, so the only difference you might get are timings for the memory. Clock wise, you can also just use software to get the same GPU clocks.

GPU and memory, the 9600 pro has an extra 150mhz on the gpu and an extra 100mhz on the memory over the 9550, can be overclocked with software but a permanent solution would be better.

Memory will depend on the actual type of memory installed on the card. Often it's 200 or 250MHz at max.

tehsiggi wrote on 2026-04-20, 13:53:

DudeFace wrote on 2026-04-20, 13:38:

tehsiggi wrote on 2026-04-20, 13:01:

Depending on the exact memory, it may run DDR2 with up to 400MHz, just like my 9600Pro with DDR2. It's not a bad card. Should be better than some of the 9550s with DDR1 that runs at 166MHz or so.

Not sure what you mean by extra power? The cores are the same, so the only difference you might get are timings for the memory. Clock wise, you can also just use software to get the same GPU clocks.

GPU and memory, the 9600 pro has an extra 150mhz on the gpu and an extra 100mhz on the memory over the 9550, can be overclocked with software but a permanent solution would be better.

Memory will depend on the actual type of memory installed on the card. Often it's 200 or 250MHz at max.

the pics on the retroweb show the powercolor 9600 pro with ram from elixer, mira, infineon and samsung, my 9550 has the exact same samsung chips so should work at the same speed if i can sort the artifact problem, it had a cap that had exploded, i replaced it with what i had on hand, not the correct type and it made no difference, i think it needs a full recap.

I ordered the 9550 from ebay. I wasn't sure if it was 128bit interface at first but glad it was. will wait for it to arrive and report back!

For my looking at another card like this one on ebay I think the memory chips model is HYB18TC256160AF
Or HYB18TC256160BF

I just grabbed a Radeon X700 Pro recently, and was pleasantly surprised with how closely it performs compared to a 9700/Pro. Clock speed brought on by a smaller process node largely makes up for a narrower memory bus, and it works just fine in an AGP 8X slot for me. If you see a good deal on one in AGP format rather than the more common PCI-E, it may be worth considering!

tehsiggi wrote on 2026-04-20, 07:23:

1. Wave 2000 9000, 9500, 9700 […]
Show full quote

1. Wave 2000
9000, 9500, 9700

2. Wave 2003
9200, 9600, 9800 (you see, basically a "refresh" of every previous variant. The 9600 being a bit cheeky)

3. Wave 2004
9250, 9550

Wave (?)

🤣
^That's X1050 AGP I own, BTW 😉