Radeon 9700 reviews

R

ram

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I consider Wavey's review the best, so far. [H] is not too interesting, and THG isn't anything to write home about, either.

ta,
-Sascha.rb
 
Add ExtremeTech to the mix. Here's a quote I thought was spot-on:

Given the ongoing dearth of DX8 content that really leverages vertex/pixel shaders, the ability to run at very high resolutions like 1600x1200 with features like FSAA and AF enabled becomes the primary benefit of owning these high-end cards today.
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Well I must say given the timeline Wavy Dave had with the card and the unfortunate heat spreader incident :p that his review was the best I've read so far.
There is also some surprises Wavy had with the PS/VS2.0 info that alot of other sites overlooked and also why I wished there was a ATI presence on the infamous Reverend Cinefx preview.

Congrats on a good review Wavy and the spell checker :p
 
:rolleyes:

Man.. Even when Anand is trying to be 'nice' to ATI he still comes across as so biased.

The chip was very NVIDIA-like in design, employing an architecture very similar to NV30.
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and

What we can't offer a recommendation on however, is what to do when the issue of NV30 comes into the picture. If NVIDIA is able to meet their schedules, NV30 will be out around December and at a price competitive with the Radeon 9700 Pro.
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*EDIT*

A regular Radeon 9700 would be an interesting competitor to the GeForce4 Ti 4600 as it could offer somewhat higher performance at a much more competitive price to the now sub-$300 Ti 4600.

ATI already announced that the Radeon 9700 Pro would run at a core clock of 325MHz with 310MHz DDR memory (effectively 620MHz). If you remember back to our original piece on the R300, these are the exact same clock speeds we tested with.
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Uhm, how a 25Mhz core clock and 10Mhz Memory clock difference between the regular version and the PRO version makes the GF4 ti4600 suddenly competitive with the 9700 regular version boggles the mind....

*/EDIT*

Considering the NV30 is *possibly* still not even in silicon, wouldn't it be a more accurate statement that the NV30 is very similar to the R300, since the R300 is coming out much earlier?

And since when does a reviewer say "Well, if you wait at least 6 months, there will be something that could be price competitive and possibly as fast or faster. But it could go even longer if they're not on time. But trust us! 6 months!"

Ah wells. I just find it funny that in an R300 review he can't help but slant the review towards the NV30....

It's so sad that sites like Beyond3D aren't "big" like Anandtech and Tomshardware. We need quality reporting on a mass scale like what we get here.....
 
i'm interested if he make same comments towards r350 in the nv30 review -> bet are accepted now ;)

i say no.
 
References to the NV30 aside, what I can't figure out from Anand's review is why his "Aniso + AA" comparisons used the GeForce4 at 4X Aniso, and the Radeon at 16X?
 
Joe DeFuria said:
References to the NV30 aside, what I can't figure out from Anand's review is why his "Aniso + AA" comparisons used the GeForce4 at 4X Aniso, and the Radeon at 16X?
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In addition, I'm also interested in how he's finding the GF4's 4x OGMS to have an IQ matching the 9700's 4x RGMS, especially when other reviewers are clearly disagreeing.
 
Right. I am still disappointed that apparently, nobody did this:

1) Set a base-line quality mode on one of the chips: say 4X AA and 8X Aniso on the GeForce4.

2) TWEAK the Radeon 9700 settings so that subjectively, the quality of edge and textures are as close to the base-line as possible. They likely won't be idenetical, so comment on which chip looks better.

3) Run the bechmarks.

At least the OTHER sites appeared to use the same sample settings when coparing aniso and AA, which is at least somehwat reasonable. I don't know what Anand was thinking.
 
Quite possibly the most hilarious line from the "review":

For synthetic performance we chose 3DMark 2001SE with the latest 330 patch applied. We don't put much weight on the 3DMark tests but we can get some useful information out of them:
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LOL since when??? :rolleyes:
 
I don't know what Anand was thinking
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I have 2 answers for this. Either
a) he wasn't - not likely, as he's not a stupid person...
b) he knows where his bread is buttered....... :rolleyes:
 
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