SPBHM wrote:

unless you are talking about 9550s (which are downclocked 9600s), the 9500s even required an additional power connector, and they tended to be somewhat sensitive to cooling when OCing, making it clear that they are probably running near the limit most of the time, the stock cooler used to be considered not good for most Radeons at the time.

No, I have two actual 9500s. They do have the dinky little floppy power connector, but still don't get too hot. Maybe I'm just lucky. 😀
(I never overclocked either of them)

This is not my picture, but they are exactly this card: http://www.ixbt.com/video2/images/r9500/r9500-scan-front.jpg
(with missing RAM chips because they're 64MB only)

stamasd wrote:

SPBHM wrote:

unless you are talking about 9550s (which are downclocked 9600s), the 9500s even required an additional power connector, and they tended to be somewhat sensitive to cooling when OCing, making it clear that they are probably running near the limit most of the time, the stock cooler used to be considered not good for most Radeons at the time.

No, I have two actual 9500s. They do have the dinky little floppy power connector, but still don't get too hot. Maybe I'm just lucky. 😀
(I never overclocked either of them)

Lately I've seen a 9500 heatsink basically not connected to the R300 core for old thermal paste. Maybe the heatsink is cold and the back of the pcb is not. The R300 is definetely a big core for its time (even today maybe?).

386SX wrote:

Lately I've seen a 9500 heatsink basically not connected to the R300 core for old thermal paste. Maybe the heatsink is cold and the back of the pcb is not. The R300 is definetely a big core for its time (even today maybe?).

They're not cold, they're warm but not overly so. On both sides. Besides, I've been using both cards since about 2007, one of them quite intensively. I think if the cooling was off, I would have noticed problems by now.

TBH they weren't used in PCs but in Macs (I flashed them with Mac BIOS). I wouldn't think this would make much of a difference though.

stamasd wrote:

No, I have two actual 9500s. They do have the dinky little floppy power connector, but still don't get too hot. Maybe I'm just l […]
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No, I have two actual 9500s. They do have the dinky little floppy power connector, but still don't get too hot. Maybe I'm just lucky. 😀
(I never overclocked either of them)

This is not my picture, but they are exactly this card: http://www.ixbt.com/video2/images/r9500/r9500-scan-front.jpg
(with missing RAM chips because they're 64MB only)

this is the exact model I had in 2003, but with the vantec cooler I linked earlier, it gave me a great time with OC and the pipeline mod, after removing the shim, using a good thermal paste and using the vantec linked earlier + a case fan under it I could run the core all day long at 370MHz+ with the 8 pipelines running, the only downside was 64MB memory, but it was really fast on most games from 2003 and earlier.

386SX wrote:

Lately I've seen a 9500 heatsink basically not connected to the R300 core for old thermal paste. Maybe the heatsink is cold and the back of the pcb is not. The R300 is definetely a big core for its time (even today maybe?).

I think this is possible, the shim on the R300 + custom coolers might have worked poorly (the contact) I remember it being fairly common with the OC crowd to remove the shim, which is what I did and gained over 30MHz of OC, but, at the same time I replaced the thermal paste and reinstalled the cooler, so who knows exactly what the shim removal itself gave me.

maybe I should remove the shim on my current 9500PRO to test it, but I really don't feel like damaging it! and I'm quite happy with keeping it at 330MHz only nowadays.

edit: for what is worth I compared the 9500PRO with my EVGA 8400GS G98 PCI:

Pentium 4 Northwood 2.4GHz @ FSB166 (3GHz) 768MB(3x256) DDR @ 333 CL2.5 Asus P4PE (845PE) Samsung Hard Drive DVD drive Radeon 95 […]
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Pentium 4 Northwood 2.4GHz @ FSB166 (3GHz)
768MB(3x256) DDR @ 333 CL2.5
Asus P4PE (845PE)
Samsung Hard Drive
DVD drive
Radeon 9500PRO 128MB Catalyst 10.5 @AGP4x stock
Radeon 9500PRO 128MB Catalyst 10.5 @AGP4x OC (330/305)
Geforce 8400GS 512MB G98 PCI 33MHz Forceware 257.21 (567/500)
Windows XP SP2

Bios screen
9500PRO - 112W
8400GS - 104W

Windows idle
9500PRO - 84W
9500PRO OC - 88W
8400GS - 70W

rthdribl
9500PRO - 157W (32FPS)
9500PRO OC - 160W (37FPS)
8400GS - 141W (39FPS)

Crysis Demo Benchmark GPU (800x600 low)
9500PRO - 148W (31.7FPS)
9500PRO OC - 152W (34.8FPS)
8400GS - 128W (19.1PS)

Aida CPU test (CPU+FPU+Cache)
9500PRO - 141W
8400GS - 126W

Crysis is not very representative due to the low performance, idle (and CPU test) is perhaps unfair because of the idle power optimizations newer cards had, but if you look at rthdribl they have close enough perf and the 9500 makes the system use at least another 16W; so 18W total for a 9500PRO at least would be very unrealistic, I would guess the 8400GS is using at least 10-20W, which makes me think as high as near 30-40W draw is realistic for a 9500PRO, the 9500NP with half the pipelines will use less I think, but as low as a 9600PRO?

stamasd wrote:

386SX wrote:

Lately I've seen a 9500 heatsink basically not connected to the R300 core for old thermal paste. Maybe the heatsink is cold and the back of the pcb is not. The R300 is definetely a big core for its time (even today maybe?).

They're not cold, they're warm but not overly so. On both sides. Besides, I've been using both cards since about 2007, one of them quite intensively. I think if the cooling was off, I would have noticed problems by now.

TBH they weren't used in PCs but in Macs (I flashed them with Mac BIOS). I wouldn't think this would make much of a difference though.

Cause I remember a 9500 Pro I had (lucky L shape ram 😁) was a bit more than warm. But considering number of transistors, core size, fdd power supply and technology involved.. well..

For the heatsink protection, well I prefer the 9500 one over the 9600 XT that had no protection on the side with the heatsink moving and risking the angles. 😉