|
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 |
|
|
 |
|
 |
Let the benchmarking begin!
3DMark2001SE:
3DMark2001SE is probably the most known benchmark around, as well as the most widely used, despite FutureMark's (3DMark's creator company) release of 3DMark03.
Since 3DMark2001 SE is based on Direct3D, results are severely affected when FSAA and AF is turned on, and this is shown below very clearly. If you've read other reviews on the 9700 Pro, you'll notice that I am receiving much lower 3DMarks then others. This is most likely due to the fact that my hardware is limiting higher performance.
3DMark03:
3DMark03 will probably be the latest standard of computer graphics benchmarking, like its counterpart, 3DMark2001 SE. Although I am personally not crazy about it, I've decided to include it in this review. Since it takes advantage of DirectX 9 features on the Nature test, the 9500/9700 Pro cards are (as of writing) the only cards that will run this test. As with every new version of a benchmark, results will plummet drastically, and that is exactly what is shown here. While achieving 12689 points in 3DMark 2001 SE at 1024x768, I achieved just 4447 points when running 3DMark03.
Comanche 4:
Comanche 4 is a relatively new game, and was advertised for use with the GeForce4, since it supported advanced features such as pixel shaders. We tested it at 1024x768 and 1280x1024. Strangely, I received fairly low results, but the culprit is most likely my CPU, which is holding back the 9700 Pro. However, gameplay was smooth, and looked excellent. Direct3D games take a pretty big performance drop when AA and AF is turned on, and this is clearly showed in the chart below.
Quake III:
Quake III has been around for a long time now; I still don't understand fully why people still include it in reviews on video cards and gaming systems. However, since it is a standard for benchmarking, I've decided to include it. Yet again, just like Comanche 4, I received lower then normal results from benchmarking. This is also most likely due to my CPU holding back the 9700 Pro. The frame rates that the game does achieve, however, are all playable with no lagging, even with 4x AA and 16x AF turned on at both 1024x768 and 1280x1024. Since this is a Direct3D game, it takes a big performance hit when AA and AF is turned on. If it is on too high, performance will start to severely suffer.
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...
|
|
|
|
