|
SL Newsletter
|
| Recieve bi-weekly updates on news, new articles, and more |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 |
|
 |
ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
Author: Daniel Topler
Date Posted: February 18th, 2003
| SLRating: |
 |
|
|
| Bottom Line: The Radeon 9700 Pro is the most powerful card on the market at the time this review was written, but is it worth purchasing, read on to find out. |
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
>> Discuss This Article |
|
|
 |
|
 |
In the Box:
There are many different versions of the card that are made by 3rd-party-manufacturers, such as Sapphire and PowerColor, but I decided to go with the bland "Built by ATI" version. There are not too many differences from version to version. Usually, all they change on the card is the fan and most likely the software bundle.
In my standard Retail Box I found quite a bit of stuff. Of course, there was the actual card, which was actually smaller then a GeForce4 Ti 4600, despite the fact that it is more powerful. I also found an instruction manual, a DVI to VGA adaptor (for dual-monitor displays if you have two VGA monitors), an S-Video cable, a Component Cable, a Driver CD, and finally, a piece of paper warning me to plug in the card to the power supply. It would have been nice for ATI to include a game or two, but I'm happy with anything that keeps the costs down.
Installation:
The card setup was like any other video card, except for the fact that the card requires a connection to your PC's power supply, very similar to the Voodoo 5. It's not too complicated, just plug in a power cable from your computer's power supply into the card. When I booted up the computer for the first time, everything went well. For some reason, Windows XP could not find the name of the card, but, it didn't matter because ATi's manual told me to skip all of the Windows XP dialog boxes.
I decided to use the 3.1 drivers from ATI.com instead of using the CD to set up my card. I've read in a lot of places that the 3.1's are better, especially when using DirectX 9.0, which was my situation. However, I had one minor issue installing version 3.1. The installation completed correctly, and at the end of the setup, a dialog told me my computer was going to restart, and then a one-minute testing program will load. My computer restarted, but a testing program was nowhere to be found. I didn't worry about it, however.
I went to my Display settings to set up my dual displays and change the resolution on my monitors. Everything was there, and it was all working correctly. So far so good.
Drivers:
I must say that ATI has done an excellent job with all of their drivers, as soon as I got them working. There were many settings available to change, and it looked like there was a lot more then nVidia's Detonator drivers that I have previously used. Everything was extremely simple to set-up and use, and I experienced no problems with them. ATI updates their drivers VERY frequently, and this is great for people who want top of the line performance.
  
The Direct3D and OpenGL tab's offer a lot of different settings that can be easily changed, such as Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic filtering. The display's tab make's it very simple to configure a dual-display setup, like mine.
Hardware
Reviews, Articles, News, All Reviews...
|
Gaming
Reviews, Articles, News...
|
|
|
|
Regular Sections
A Guru's World, CPU/Memory Watch, SLDeals...
|
|
SLBoards
Forums, Register(Free), Todays Discussions...
|
Site Info
Search, About Us, Advertise...
|
|
|
|
