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Radeon 9700 Pro: ATI Ahead

Posted by Hemos on from the battle-rages-on dept.

Keefe writes "The epic battle between ATI and Nvidia wages on. While Nvidia awaits arrival of their near-fabled NV30 for redemption, ATI conquers all by introducing the fastest and most advanced graphics card to date. The next-generation ATI Radeon 9700 Pro marks the second time Nvidia cedes the performance crown to ATI (the first time being the brief glory when the ATI Rage Fury beat the Nvidia TNT). See how the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro stacks up at Techware Labs."

16 of 362 comments (clear)

  1. Who would spend ... by carlcmc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    3-500 dollars today for a card that will be severely outclassed by a card in a few months. There are no new games that demand a card this instant. I personally plan on buying a new computer and geforce fx when doom3 comes out. Unless you have to buy a new system in the next 3 months why not wait?

    1. Re:Who would spend ... by Dark+Paladin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is the main reason why I haven't upgraded my PowerMac yet (and I'm sure Doom III will be out for it...) and the biggest reason why I'm a console guy these days (having converted back with the PSOne hit $99 and I was suckered into playing Final Fantasy VII).

      I'm still working on a backlog of games - Alice, Suikoden III, Halo, Metroid Prime, No One Lives Forever 2 (on my PC - the only thing it runs is games these days), and I'm just not as "upgrade conscious" as I was the time I bought a new computer because it didn't run Wing Commander III. (And with games like Ultima VII and the like becoming Open Source projects, I've got an ever bigger backlog ;.)

      --
      52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
    2. Re:Who would spend ... by handorf · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If I recall correctly, some of the GEForce FX previewers were expressing doubts about the GEForce MX being much faster than the ATI 9700 Pro.

      Apparently the way nVidia was quoting it's memory bandwidth numbers was EXTERMELY misleading (like, electically impossible) and, if ATI quoted it's numbers in the same fashion (it was based on some compression, IIRC, which is already in the 9700 Pro) ATI's card was still faster.

      Still, there's no reason NOT to upgrade now. This card will run Doom 3 just fine when it comes out (not that I care) and it runs all my current games quite well. There's always something better right around the corner.

      --
      -- IANAEG - I am not an elder god.
    3. Re:Who would spend ... by fault0 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > Oh and I have news for you as well, there will some other product few months after the release of GeForce FX that will badly outperform it

      Yep, and who is to say that ATI themselves won't put out a card that outclasses the FX at it's launch time.

      > Normally I try to skip a at least two releases of the latest graphics card, unless there is some great leap in technology, or I have extra money...

      Yep, same here.

      Voodoo2->ATI Rage 128->TNT2->Geforce 1 DDR->GeForce3 200->GeForce4 4400->Radeon Pro 9700

      I went from my gf3->gf4->rad9700-pro (one generation to the next to the next) because I had extra money :P

      Doom3 will probably run fine on the 9700 pro, so I don't think I'll upgrade until the successor to the successor to the 9700pro/gf-FX comes out.

  2. thats the point by Ojamin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I think the point the author is trying to make is that the card has been out for months, and Nvidia STILL hasn't released their next big thing. Look what happened to 3dfx when they where slow out of the gate with next gen cards.

    1. Re:thats the point by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful
      I think the point the author is trying to make is that the card has been out for months, and Nvidia STILL hasn't released their next big thing. Look what happened to 3dfx when they where slow out of the gate with next gen cards.

      Let's not forget that 3dfx was also embroiled in a legal battle with Nvidia and had recently purchased it's very own video card manufacturing company AND alienated all of the companies which had been using 3dfx chips before they became competitors.

    2. Re:thats the point by MisterFancypants · · Score: 4, Insightful
      This is quite a different situation. As others have mentioned, since there won't be any PC games that really take advantage of DirectX 9 level features for months yet, ATI's "lead" is purely imaginary at this point and only of interest to the frames-per-second monkeys who think getting 400 FPS in Quake3 timedemos means something over getting 300 FPS (despite the fact that their monitor is generally going to render only 85 of those frames per second anyway).

      Also keep in mind that Nvidia has been making the (painful) switch to 0.13 Micron for the GeForce FX. In a few months, ATI is going to be stuck in a situation where it needs to make this switch as well to stay competitive, and then we'll see how good each company's timing is.

      And timing really is the important thing. Consider Saturn vs Playstation 1 or Dreamcast vs Playstation 2, in the console world. In each case, Sega had a BIG lead-time advantage over Sony with (at-the-time) "next generation" consoles, and each time Sony came out on top. "First mover" advantage isn't all it was cracked up to be in the .com era if you actually look at the history of such things.

    3. Re:thats the point by Toraz+Chryx · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "1) ATI has wildly unstable drivers."

      No moreso than Nvidia these days, unless you don't count nv4_disp.dll BSODS as "unstable" for some reason...

    4. Re:thats the point by Camulus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well first of all there is a difference, between the All In Wonder 9700 Pro and Just he 9700 Pro. The All In Wonder does video editing, has a built in TV tuner etc. However, $715 is a total rip off. On PriceWatch, the 9700 Pro starts for about $232. For a Geforce 4 TI 4600 (only fair since it is Nvidia's flag ship, yes the 4200 is much cheaper), it starts aroudn $220 (Prices are USD). Yes, the all in wonder is expensive as hell, but the 9700 Pro is pretty competative actually.

  3. How it stacks up ... by mustangdavis · · Score: 4, Insightful
    interest on my credit card!!!

    ... "how the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro stacks up" ...


    Hmmm ... lets see ....

    Nvidia GeForce4 TI : approx $100

    ATI 9700 : around $300

    Games or software that need 9700 over GeForce4 : 0

    Maybe I'll wait until the cost comes down and until there is a true need for that card .... other than to brag to people that I have more money to waste on a graphics card than they do :)

    9700 ... I'll pass

    --
    HallmarkOrnaments.Com
  4. ATI ahead? What? by koinu · · Score: 4, Insightful

    nVidia has convinced me with their FreeBSD drivers. Good work.

  5. Re:Open Source Suport by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    nVidia has an very non-annoying habit of shipping working drivers. ATi only ships binary drivers, and they are rather buggy so far. Given how most Open Source graphics drivers let you use about 50% of the a given chipset's performance, asking for specs just for the sake of being Open Source isn't worth much - there is no point in paying $100 for a card and getting $50 worth of performance or features.

  6. Radeon 9500 Pro by h0tblack · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Maybe this article about ATI's Radeon 9500Pro would have been a better one to link to. It shows how this cheaper R300 based product compares to other offerings and how it beats the Ti4200 hands down and often outdoes the Ti4600. It may not be the killer card that the 9700 is, and may not be a true entry level card, but for the mainstream gamer market it gives mighty fine performance for your cash.

  7. The speed doesn't matter if the drivers suck by supabeast! · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Two weeks ago, I bought a Radeon 9700 Pro. In that time, I have managed to get three out of my huge pile of 3D games to work with it, and only Quake III works well. ATIs driver coders are off in lala-land, and games can't cope with them. No two people seem to have the same problems with the Radeon 9700 Pro, which makes troubleshooting a nightmare. I would have been better off just getting an Nvidia card for half the money to hold me over until the next Nivida card came out.

    ATI cards are just not good for gamers. While Nvidia focuses on speed and stability, ATI focuses on cramming any possible feature they can into their All-In-Wonder cards, at the cost of a decent driver set for people who want a card that just attaches to a CRT and WORKS. I will NEVER buy another ATI card, and I will always remember why I ran all my systems on Nvidia for five years before screwing up and getting this fucking ATI card.

  8. That's always the way... by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You can wait for the day when there isn't a new piece of hardware on the way that'll toast your current kit, but then you just wait forever.

    I actually bought a 9700 Pro just the other day, to go in a new PC. All the parts for that PC were custom chosen, a few to have a good price-performance ratio (e.g., only an Athlon XP 2100+) and a few because they're the best around and I don't expect to upgrade them any time soon (the 9700 Pro).

    I've been watching the market for several months now, and AFAICS the 9700 Pro I bought is way cheaper than it was those few months ago when it came out, and is likely to be way cheaper than anything new by nVidia initially will be, if and when that comes out. The performance of the 9700 Pro is still way ahead of everything else currently available, so buying a new PC now, with games very much in mind, what would you have done? Saved a whole 25% and bought a Geforce 4 Ti4600 instead?

    --
    If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
  9. Re:How many of us Linux Zealots by Fizzlewhiff · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm a Windows zealot who keeps Linux around just to use as a cheap web and mail server. I could shell out some cash to support the platform I like and purchase a server license so I can run IIS but that doesn't make sense to me. Now if the shoe was on the other foot and I was a Linux zealot who only had Windows to play games then I think I would want the platform that gave me the most games. I wouldn't punish myself by limiting my choices to just a few that were native on Linux or ran "ok" under WINE.

    Sometimes you just need to bite the bullet and use the best tool for the job.

    I hammered nails with an ice cream scooper once but once I realized it was much easier to use a hammer I only use the ice cream scooper for dishing out rocky road.

    --

    'Same speed C but faster'