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Dual GPU graphics solution from ATi?
Graphics Guru writes "Last week TweakTown posted an exclusive picture of the ATi Radeon 8500 MAXX with believable accompanying information also regarding the highly anticipated ATi R300. 3DChipset is today reporting that they have confirmation that the 8500 MAXX is indeed real and is due to be shipped fairly soon. Here's what someone from ATi told them: "The ATI Radeon 8500 Maxx is for real and the card is already in full production and about to be shipped soon. ATi has finally nailed certain issues with the dual chip. Final testings have been done and you should here noise from ATi regarding this offering." You decide if it is real or not, a solid dual GPU solution would surely rock the industry to massive proportions!"
This GPU plus those 8500 OpenGL drivers being paid for by the weather channel should make a kick ass system for Doom III.
The Nvidia Geforce 4 4200 generally runs most things about 50% faster than a radeon 8500 and costs less. It's definitely the best value gamer card on the market.
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Here's a good article with some benchmarks on this great value card.
http://www.hothardware.com/hh_files/S&V/abit_ti
This is a nice concept card, but it's not going to put ATI on top.
money for moogles
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I recently purchased Neverwinter Nights. Up until a couple days ago I was using an olrder ATI Rage-128. While not the highest end card it should have ben fine with the low settings. It wasn't. it was downright embarasing. On the least detailed setting it lagged. I've seen older games look better and have higher frame rates.
But, for various reasons I decided to replace the video card and went with an Nvidia Ti-4600. (wanted, and use the video-in), NWN now runs reasonably well with everything maxed. A suprise since my machine is a Pentium III.
While this should be just another, 'new video card solved the problem', it isn't. Nothing explains why the performance sucked as bad as it did except NWN being written for the latest and greatest Nvidia card. Disregarding other cards in the industry.
If it weren't for how horrible ATI's drivers are I would have bought a new-er ATI card. But, Nvidia owns the market, and ATI can't write drivers worth a damn.
Beliieve it or not, people actually may want both innovation and cooler graphics. Why do you think the two are mutually exclusive?
You know what the best card out there is? It might surprise you. At a low end price tag of ~$800 and up to nearly $6500 the Voodoo 5 6000 is one of the best cards out there. The price tag is that high because it is, unsurprisingly, a collectors item.
I've seen this card work. I runs fast and it looks gorgeous.
You know what the Parhelia tried to do? Fragmented AA? Voodoo could've torn that up years ago. The V5 6000 did 8x Full screen AA. Fast. At 1024. It's amazingly gorgeous.
Think about it. This card is 2-3 years old. The architecture is what matters. Not the amount of GPUs. The GeForce4 4600 can't even consider 8xAA. The V5 6K does, and it does it well. On 128M of SDRAM. I'd still maybe take the 4600 over the V5 6K. But it would be a hard decision. The 4600 with it's DDR memory and GPU can handle some things better. Some. Not all.
This card just proves that it really doesn't matter how much RAM or how many GPUs a card has. It's in the way the card is built. There aren't many cards I'd take over the V5 6K. If I could get one, for myself to keep, I'd pull me Geforce 3 out in a heartbeat. The GPU isn't a factor here. The RAM (DDR over SDR) isn't a factor. The V5 6K is just that well built, even 3 years later.
There. I've said my piece. After seeing the V5 in action, I don't care to get the least bit excited about the "latest greatest" graphics cards ever again.