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ATI R300 and R250V
Chuu writes "The ATI R300 (Radeon 9700) and R250V (Radeon 9000/Radeon
9000 Pro) reviews are out, at all the
usual suspects, but the one you want to
pay attention to is over at anandtech.com, since somehow Anand got permission to publish his benchmark results for the R300
while the other sites were stuck with whitepapers. The results? The R250V is a GF4MX killer, which is not saying much. On the other hand, the R300 absolutely trounces the GeForce4 Ti4600, running
54% faster in
Unreal Tournament 2003 and 37% faster in Quake 3 at 1600x1200x32 on a Pentium4 2.4ghz."
Drivers have been good, well since they released the catylyst set. Took them 2 days to fix a fog table problem in GTA 3.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
The page you really need to go is this. It talks about not just raw FPS, but about running UT2003 with 4X Anti Aliasing enabled at 1600x1200x32. This is where ATI trounces Nvidia with a whopping 251% faster performance.
Though the framerates at 1600x1200 on UT2003 are not exactly playable (there goes my hopes of running DoomIII at 1600x1200 on this baby) ATI has finally produced a card worthy of their name.
Nvidia has atleast six months to go before they can have something to show. And running the 927 leaked build of UT2003 on a GF4 Ti 4600, you dont get playable framerates beyond 1024x768 with every detailed notched up.
Rapid Nirvana
The Raven.
The Raven
If you think the Radeon 9700 is amazing, just wait till ATI produces the R300 chipset in the 0.13 micron process version and cranks up the graphics card clock speed to likely way over 400 MHz.
:-)
Slow it definitely won't be.
What we need to clue into is that due to marketing reasons ATI wanted to get the chip running at 300mhz. They didn't care about the possible performance loss, all the marketing assholes want is a high MHZ and they had to take a "different approach" (meaning, shittier design) to reach the 300mhz mark.
The sooner the average joe can accept that MHZ no longer equals performance... the better off chip design will be.
The Pentium 4 basically is less efficient than a pentium 3, however 2ghz makes morons happy. So 2ghz whatever the cost!
Noodle.
I thought this might help those people who dont want to take the time to calculate the FPS from the earlier article Anandtech did.
Unreal Tournament 2003 (DM-Antalus) 1024x768x32 High Detail Settings
Radeon 9700: 130.4
GF4 Ti4600: 94.5
Parhelia: 54.4
Radeon 8500: 57.6
Unreal Tournament 2003 (DM-Antalus) 1280x1024x32 High Detail Settings
Radeon 9700: 87.8
GF4 Ti4600: 59.3
Parhelia: 35.1
Radeon 8500: 37.9
Unreal Tournament 2003 (DM-Antalus) 1600x1200x32 High Detail Settings
Radeon 9700: 63.3
GF4 Ti4600: 41.1
Parhelia: 24.6
Radeon 8500: 25.2
Unreal Tournament 2003 (DM-Asbestos)1024x768x32 High Detail Settings
Radeon 9700: 210.3
GF4 Ti4600: 178.2
Parhelia: 100.4
Radeon 8500: 91.1
Unreal Tournament 2003 (DM-Asbestos)1280x1024 High Detail Settings
Radeon 9700: 144.3
GF4 Ti4600: 115.4
Parhelia: 65.5
Radeon 8500: 58.9
Unreal Tournament 2003 (DM-Asbestos)1600x1200 High Detail Settings
Radeon 9700: 104.1
GF4 Ti4600: 82.0
Parhelia: 46.9
Radeon 8500: 42.0
Jedi Knight 2 'demo jk2ffa' @ 1600x1200
Radeon 9700: 124.3
GF4 Ti4600: 113.0
Parhelia: 65.9
Radeon 8500: 93.2
Serious Sam 2: The Second Encounter 'Little Trouble' 1024x768x32
Radeon 9700: 115.2
GF4 Ti4600: 100.2
Parhelia: 67.4
Radeon 8500: 58.2
Serious Sam 2: The Second Encounter 'Little Trouble' 1280x1024x32
Radeon 9700: 102.6
GF4 Ti4600: 72.9
Parhelia: 49.5
Radeon 8500: 45.3
Serious Sam 2: The Second Encounter 'Little Trouble' 1600x1200x32
Radeon 9700: 77.6
GF4 Ti4600: 51.7
Parhelia: 37.3
Radeon 8500: 32.1
"Im drowning here, and you're describing the water!"
You don't seem to understand the direct relationship between MHz and pixel/texual fill rates in video cards.
The Parhelia gets beaten in DX8 bechmarks by the GF4Ti because of the difference in clock speeds. If the 9700/10000 wants to compete with the NV30 at the top then raw MHz is needed - the DX9 specs state that both cards need 8 pixel pipelines for compliance (and both ATI and Nvidia say their next-gen cards do). This means whoever has the highest clock rate will have the highest pixel fill rate. Need to wait and see if the NV30 has more than one texture unit per pipeline, the R300 only has one (for a total of 8 texture units) which means if the NV30 has two or more for each pipeline, then it will beat the R300 in texel filrates by architecture alone (though for more than one texture unit per pipeline will need HUGE amount of memory bandwidth which is not likely to happen until DDR-II is utilized).
So MHz does equal performance... which can mean a marketing success or failure. Parhelia is not grat for gamers (other than TripleHead) due to low clock speeds. Nvidia have delayed the NV30 to make use of the 0.13u process to get higher clock speeds (rumoured to be 400+) and ATI plan on releasing the Radeon 10000 next year based on a 0.13u process as well to try and beat the NV30 if it proves to outperform the 9700.... which is expected to happen.
- HeXa
The picture on Anandtech clearly shows a pass through connector with a floppy power connection in the middle. So that should solve that.
Honestly though, the past few power supplies I've bought did have a 2nd floppy connector on them. Never figured out what the hell they'd be used for until now though.
I believe you read the numbers for the R9000 Pro (270/275) as being for the 9700... I don't recall seeing references to 9700 numbers anywhere in the R9k review (but I'm not going back w/ a fine toothed comb now either).
All the rumors for the R300 indicated a GPU clocked at 300+ MHz, with 315, 325, and 350 being the most bandied about numbers.
He thinks the R300 is sweet (not his exact words but similar meaning). He also stated that the ATI 8500 and GF4Ti cards would play DOOM 3 fine, just at medium quality levels or so.
The big difference is the memory your card has, 64MB cards won't be great performers for high texture settings due to a statement about DOOM 3 having about 80MB worth of textures to be loaded onto the card at any one time.... 128MB cards will be needed for maximum eye candy.
- HeXa
Some Firewire cards have a power connector to provide power over the bus... I've seen one or two use the floppy style power connector and a couple using the hard drive style power connector. I also think the Sound Blaster Audigy Platinum (both the regular and the eX models) use a floppy power connector to provide power for the FireWire ports...
My older computer power supplies don't have two floppy power connectors, but my newer machine does.
We, 3dfx owners know how a company they are... Since we are without new drivers since nvidia bought 3dfx.
No need to describe, I guess 3dfx owners with a clue understood what kind of a company they are... In hard way...
Oh me? When it ships (or shipped already), I am buying it... I won't buy from a company which left me in "digital cold" just because they bought my card/chip maker...
mod me as you wish, I couldn't stand not saying this stuff...
You've not got the slightest idea what you're talking about. Nvidia did not buy 3dfx. They bought the intellectual property of 3dfx. They bought most of the 3dfx design work, technology, patents, etc. They didn't buy any of the office space, manufacturing plants or employees. They bought the IP because they thought that there was something in it that would be useful in their future chip designs.
3dfx Interactive is still a company and is still in business, in a manner of speaking. If you want more info on the nVidia purchase of 3dfx IP, you can read about it here, here, or here. But don't go blaming nVidia because your favorite graphics card company stopped producing and supporting your product.