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ATI Radeon 9700 Pro
Author: Daniel Topler
Date Posted: February 18th, 2003
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| 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
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Conclusion:
The 9700 Pro, like I said, is no doubt the most powerful video card on the market right now. But also, as I said, this review was meant to focus on anti-aliasing and antistrophic filtering.
The 9700 Pro was tested with 2x AA and 8x AF, as well as 4x AA and 16x AF. Any video card will lose performance when advanced features are enabled like this are enabled. The question that needs to be asked is; how much will it lose?
The 9700 Pro lost a lot of performance when the above advanced features were enabled. But, it lost much less (percentage-wise), then any other video card out there, making it the best choice for a video card when you are looking at performance with AA and AF enabled.
But, I was still confused about my low performance in many of the benchmarks. Although it is probably my hardware holding the card back, my results in many of those tests were very low, something that should not happen. But, since not many people experienced this problem, I cannot hold it against the card. I'm still trying to find out what the problem is, however.
Not only did it perform extremely well compared to other cards during AA and AF tests, but it also performed remarkably during tests when these features were not enabled, providing gamers top-of-the-line performance, no matter whether AA/AF is enabled or not.
We've made it clear that the 9700 Pro is the king in both AA/AF performance, but also performance when these features are enabled. The next question to ask is whether it's worth the money or not.
I'd have to say no at this point, for now. There's no question that this card is excellent, and if I were reviewing it 3 months ago, I'd give it a 9.5/10. But, that's not the situation. With the upcoming releases of the ATI R350 and the GeForce FX, I can't see a big reason to upgrade now, with these new cards that will be costing the same price as the 9700 Pro Retail version, but performing drastically better.
As soon as the new R350 and GeForce FX are released, the 9700 Pro will plummet in price, making it a great value. There's no reason for anyone to have the most expensive, highest performing video card all the time. It simply doesn't make sense to shell out $400+ every 6 months when a new video card comes out. The 9700 Pro is sure to last for quite a while, and I'd recommend picking it up after the release of the R350 and GeForce FX. It's not as if the card will not work in a year. Its DX9 capabilities will make sure it lasts for quite some time, considering there's not one DirectX9 game out yet.
Overall, I was impressed with the 9700 Pro and its performance with AA and AF enabled, and significantly out-ran any other video card out right now, making it a great card, no matter what the benchmark was. But, yet again, I have to stress the point that the card is simply not worth purchasing just yet. Waiting two months makes all the difference.
Pros:
- Fastest Card Out There
- Excellent AA/AF Performance
- Excellent Drivers
- Frequent Driver Updates
- Component and S-Video Cables Included
Cons:
- Expensive
- Will be Outdated Very Soon
- No Software Bundle
- LOW Results on Many Benchmarks
SLRating: 8/10
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