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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."

9 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.
  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 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.

    2. 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...

  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. 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.