Help Identifying Old Graphics Card

[Absaltual]

Was going through some stuff in my basement when I came across this old beast (probably wasn't but one can dream lol) and it's just been eating away at me for what it could be. I don't have a system with and agp port, so I can't exactly just gpu-z it or anything. The strangest part was the crucial sticker on the fan, which really got me curious about what this could possibly be. So I went googling just about every string of characters that was on the pcb, sticker or not, and still nothing popped up. The closest result was from when I tried on the bottom right of the front, PN 109-A034GN-00C, but that gave results that obviously weren't this card. I got desperate so I popped the cooler off, and the die was illegible. So now I turn here! To see if any of you know anything about this mystery card.

[Roswell]

It's hidden in the product code that you see on the card in different spots.

 

A96P = ATI 9600 Pro

[Absaltual]

1 minute ago, Vitamanic said:

It's all over the card in multiple spots. 

 

A96P: AMD Radeon 9600 Pro

Oh, awesome! Thank you very much

[Roswell]

5 minutes ago, Absaltual said:

Oh, awesome! Thank you very much

No problem! As for the fan, it was actually pretty normal back then for manufacturers to just use off the shelf fans and slap them on the cards to save money. Gaming cards were a super niche item back in like 2002 or so when this card was made so they didn't invest a ton of money into the aesthetics or branding.

 

I'm also sorry if my post sounded douchey, I didn't mean it to come off that way but looking back at it... it sounds like it. My bad.

[WhitetailAni]

Do you have any use for it?
If not, I would like it.

I have a motherboard with an AGP slot.

[Absaltual]

2 minutes ago, Vitamanic said:

No problem! As for the fan, it was actually pretty normal back then for manufacturers to just use off the shelf fans and slap them on the cards to save money. Gaming cards were a super niche item back in like 2002 or so when this card was made so they didn't invest a ton of money into the aesthetics or branding.

Neat! I'm looking up benchmarks and reviews of the guy, and he seems to have been a pretty competitve budget to midrange option for $175, cool little niche piece of history!

[Absaltual]

1 minute ago, ragnarok0273 said:

Do you have any use for it?
If not, I would like it.

I have a motherboard with an AGP slot.

If you want it then be my guest! I'll have to figure out a way to re-attach the cooler, I'm thinking about burning the plastic bits down to seal it like how it was before I took my exacto  to it lol, and I can put on new thermal paste if you'd like

[dilpickle]

Ah yes the good old days. Single slot. Tiny heatsink and fan. There was a time when GPUs and CPUs even didn't have any cooling at all!

 

Notice that this one has a place for external power connector but it wasn't used here. Those were just starting to happen in this era. The very first one used a floppy power connector then they had Molex. Eventually PCI-E had a new connector.

 

I still remember when Nvidia released the first dual slot card with a vacuum cleaner cooler. It was endlessly ridiculed. The feeling was it was just a one time thing because it was an overclocked version of an existing card. Who knew it would become standard. And now we are getting triple slot...

[Absaltual]

1 minute ago, dilpickle said:

Ah yes the good old days. Single slot. Tiny heatsink and fan. There was a time when GPUs and CPUs even didn't have any cooling at all!

 

Notice that this one has a place for external power connector but it wasn't used here. Those were just starting to happen in this era. The very first one used a floppy power connector then they had Molex. Eventually PCI-E had a new connector.

 

I still remember when Nvidia released the first dual slot card with a vacuum cleaner cooler. It was endlessly ridiculed. The feeling was it was just a one time thing because it was an overclocked version of an existing card. Who knew it would become standard. And now we are getting triple slot...

What I would give to have been able to be apart of computer history during this time lol, it's always so interesting to read about old cards like these!

[dilpickle]

Also funny how they are starting to re-use the old model numbers,

[Action_Johnson]

I had one of those! Came with Half-Life 2! Or was it the 9600XT? 

 

What a great card, I remember when the Radeon 9700 Pro came out and everyone was like "HOOOOLY SHIT!!!!" What a time it was to be alive. Pixel shaders were in their infancy, Morrorwind was one of the only games with water effects and it was pretty mind blowing to all of us. Way better than hardware T&L from the GeForce 2 and GeForce 4MX cards. 

 

Nvidia botched the release of the GeForce 5800 Ultra pretty bad back then to try and compete with ATi. Nothing could touch Radeon back then. 

 

In 10 years, we'll think back on Ray Tracing with the same nostalgia, and I can't remember a time when a Radeon card was truly that competitive. X800 XT maybe? 

 

My last ATi/AMD card was the HD 5770. I can't remember anything at all about what gaming on that thing was like. 

[WhitetailAni]

8 hours ago, Absaltual said:

If you want it then be my guest! I'll have to figure out a way to re-attach the cooler, I'm thinking about burning the plastic bits down to seal it like how it was before I took my exacto  to it lol, and I can put on new thermal paste if you'd like

Thank you!

I've been looking for AGP cards everywhere (e.g. e-waste bins and relative's attics), but can't find any.

I personally would like it disassembled (repairing things is fun for me), but if you would like to reassemble it, be my guest.

Do you live in the US?

Maybe we live across the street.

[Absaltual]

16 hours ago, Action_Johnson said:

I had one of those! Came with Half-Life 2! Or was it the 9600XT? 

 

What a great card, I remember when the Radeon 9700 Pro came out and everyone was like "HOOOOLY SHIT!!!!" What a time it was to be alive. Pixel shaders were in their infancy, Morrorwind was one of the only games with water effects and it was pretty mind blowing to all of us. Way better than hardware T&L from the GeForce 2 and GeForce 4MX cards. 

 

Nvidia botched the release of the GeForce 5800 Ultra pretty bad back then to try and compete with ATi. Nothing could touch Radeon back then. 

 

In 10 years, we'll think back on Ray Tracing with the same nostalgia, and I can't remember a time when a Radeon card was truly that competitive. X800 XT maybe? 

 

My last ATi/AMD card was the HD 5770. I can't remember anything at all about what gaming on that thing was like. 

Man that sounds so awesome haha. I plan on picking up a 6800xt here if the reviews are good enough. Can't wait for amd to pull it together like they have for intel

[Absaltual]

7 hours ago, ragnarok0273 said:

Thank you!

I've been looking for AGP cards everywhere (e.g. e-waste bins and relative's attics), but can't find any.

I personally would like it disassembled (repairing things is fun for me), but if you would like to reassemble it, be my guest.

Do you live in the US?

Maybe we live across the street.

I do live in the US! My discord is Absaltual#1876 if you wanna continue the conversation there, I joined the forum yesterday so I don't know if there's a pm feature or not lmao, if there is and you wanna use that instead, go for it

[WhitetailAni]

Ok!

[WhitetailAni]

No getting my Discord.