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ATI Rage Fury MAXX Review
Johan Jonasson writes "There's an excellent review of the ATI Rage Fury MAXX over at Tom's Hardware. For those unfamiliar with the product it's a monster graphics board with two Rage 128 PRO chips, each with isolated 32MBs of memory per chip which adds up to 64MB on one board. There's another review of the same board at Sharky Extreme. I've got to get me one of these. "
"It offers instant gratification for the games that are out now. When T&L-enabled titles start hitting the shelves later in 2000, ATi's next generation chip should be ready for them." - Sharky Extreme
This review seems almost as biased as the last one based on the board before it was released. Do they think that nVidia will be sitting around and not have something better by the time ATi release their next generation chip? If I'm going to spend upwards of $250 on a graphics card, I don't want to be shelling out for another card later in the year to get the new features. Stupid reviewer! The ATi card is no cheaper than the geForce DDR, but with lower performance and fewer features. It's obvious which card to get when chosing between the two. Besides, who cares about the hi-res results: no serious gamer would play at 1280x1024, the framerate is half what I consider the miniumum for games like Quake 3 - where the difference between 50 and 60 fps is noticeable, let alone playing at 30 fps! - and with Quake 2 I would suggest that there is no need to go to resolutions above 640x480 or 800x600 as there is no real gain.
The cheapest Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro (geForce DDR) is available for $233, according to computers.com (can't find the MAXX yet):
Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator Pro, sorted by price
Sure, you can buy a MAXX product for $200~250 and have yourself a kick-ass video card. Or, you could shell out $200~300 for a GeForce-based card and get a kick-ass video card that might just have a longer lifetime in it.
S3's and nVidia's new chipsets support hardware transformation and lighting--done right on the video card, instead of the CPU (which would be software). 3dfx's and ATI's new products don't. Now, it depends on game developer's support for this new technology, but chances are good that many games in the coming couple years will count on offloading these calculations to the video card in hardware T&L enabled cards. If that happens, then owners of these cards will experience serious performance boosts or be able to run games their non-T&L-card-owning bethren can't.
Don't be fooled by the 64 Megs of RAM on the MAXX, either. It doesn't increase the total textures the card can handle, because each chip has to keep track of (almost) all the textures simultaneously. The RAM on this video card is not a particular selling point compared to other 32M cards.
One point ATI might be able to score on is price. The MAXX is expected to retail for less than GeForce products, and may offer a better deal. Only time and the market will tell.
Of course, MAXX products will really succeed in the OEM market, where ATI's strength is. And when (if) this technology gets ported to the Mac, it'll be a major boon to Mac gaming. Given ATI's current stranglehold on the Mac 3D video card market, I expect this card will find it's way there soon enough.
Jonathan Pearce jonathan@pearce.name
3EAAFB2A http://www.jonathan.pearce.name/
ATI seems to have a very definite anger in its product names.
*Rage* 128 *Fury* - whoa!
*Rage Pro* (how to be professionally mad?)
Is the next board going to be a buget version?: *Rage 128 Mildly-Upset*
And of course dont forget their next board:
*RAGE 256: HOMICIDAL MANIAC*
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.