HardOCP reviews Radeon 9700 Pro on a 2.48GHz Athlon!

[Pradeep]

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MzQw

Very impressive performance, in particular a 1.5GHz Athlon system with Radeon 9700 Pro performs far better than a P4 2.5GHz with GF4 Ti 4600! Looks like an excellent upgrade.

Also looks like great news on the AMD front, with faster CPUs around the corner.

 

[Cliptin]

According to Tom's ATI currently has the lead against NV with the PIII, IV and XP.

 

[Mercutio]

Two things cross my mind:

1.) Anyone played a good DX8 game yet? Then why worry about DX9 right now?

2.) Notice they have to use the fastest CPUs known to man to even differentiate between ATI and nvidia offerings. Is there any compelling reason for this hardware right now?

 

[SteveC]

There's probably no need for it until Doom III, and who knows when that'll be out. The current video cards are already fast enough. I wish they would spend more time improving the quality of the game play than just improving the graphics.

Steve

 

[Pradeep]

Two things cross my mind:
2.) Notice they have to use the fastest CPUs known to man to even differentiate between ATI and nvidia offerings. Is there any compelling reason for this hardware right now?

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MzQwLDQ=

They are comparing a 1.5GHz Athlon (an entry level cpu nowadays) alongside the 2.53GHz p4 with GF4 Ti4600. With all the quality settings at high and FSAA and anisotrophic filtering on, the 1.5GHz Athlon rapes the far costlier p4.

The 9700 Pro is obviously aimed at hard core gamers / power users, who could do with the extreme fill rate etc, giving sufficient frame rates at UXGA resolution. If you are still using a 17" monitor then this is probably not the card for you. But the benefits of this release for everyone is that nVidia cards should drop in price, if you are looking for one. And competition is always a good thing for $$$/performance ratio.

 

[Sol]

From those bench marks, keeping in mind that Q3 is a pretty old game it looks as though most new games will be pushing the hardware to get >50FPS in 12X10 with AA and AF on. That sounds just about playable to me, and with a good 19" moinitor you would definatly notice the picture quality.
I'd say it will be another generation until we see cards that will handle Doom3 etc with anything close to ease.

 

[Pradeep]

Sol, will you be upgrading from your GF4 to a 9700 or waiting for the NV30?