Card Appearance
The R9500 Pro is very similar in appearance to its brothers. The main differences between the 9500 and 9700 are the revised positioning of the RAM and the location of the external power supply connector. The eight ram chips are placed in two groups of four, one group on either side of the PCB. We have seen significant improvements in the ability to overclock the RAM on the 9700 Pro by adding RAM sinks to disperse heat. The 9500 Pro looks ideal for adding a single long heatsink to the RAM as the chips are all in a line. Unfortunately the addition of two large resistors in-between the RAM chips would prevent this - a real shame.
| 9500 Pro | 9700 Pro (With added Ram sinks) |
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Like its big brother the 9500Pro needs additional power. This is provided by plugging the board directly into one of the PSU's floppy drive power leads, or by using the supplied Molex converter. Although the connector is the same as the 9700, the connection point has moved from the top right to the top middle. Why? who knows, but it does mean that the power lead has a little further to reach which may cause minor problems for some people.
The heatsink and fan seem to be exactly the same as the 9700's. This consists of a very lightweight black aluminum heatsink with a sunken fan sitting directly over the core. The heatsink is fairly effective, although not exactly ingenious. Despite being a small fan turning at high speeds noise it not of concern unless you are looking for an exceptionally quiet machine.
In common with the whole Radeon 9000 range the 9500Pro has three connections on the face plate permitting output via DVI, AVI and S-Video. The best picture quality is achieved by using the DVI connection, if your screen has the ability to use it, as the signal is transmitted as digital. AVI and s-video have digital to analog conversion required which may cause a small loss of clarity and speed. The s-video connection allows the R9500Pro to be connected to a TV screen, ideal for playing back DVD or DivX files on a wide screen television.
