Brilliant Card (3dfx read it and weep)
Written: Nov 13 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: excellent performance, good specs like 64Mb of DDR memory, quickest card available at the moment, cheaper than GeForce 2 and quicker
Cons: a little expensive because it's just been released
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| CyrixDes's Full Review: ATI Radeon 64MB DDR |
ATI have always had a reputation as the nearly boys of the video card market. They have always been able to produce reasonably cheap video cards, with excellent DVD playback and TV Out facilities, in fact the best video cards for DVD playback are ATI cards. However whilst releasing cards like the Rage Fury MAXX, theyve always been a couple of months too late in terms of releasing their cards in comparison with the competition. However I have it on very good advice that theyve made the break through with their new 64Mb ATI Radeon DDR. I have seen a number of interesting benchmarks pitting this card against the Voodoo 5 5500, a couple of GeForce 2's and a GeForce DDR 256.
Before summarising these results I ask you to remember that the ATI card is on its first release, non tweaked drivers, whereas the GeForce cards are using NVIDIAS release 5 I think it was, Detonator drivers.
Firstly I saw benchmarks in Quake 3. Here the Radeon is right behind by only 0.1 FPS in some tests and within a few fps in all of the Quake 3 tests. Certainly when updated Radeon drivers are released the Radeon without a doubt will streak ahead of the GeForce 2 GTS. A quick summary of results for the Quake test are as follows:
Elsa Gladiac GeForce 2 GTS
ATI Radeon DDR
Elsa Erazor GeForce 256 DDR
Voodoo 5 5500
Elsa Gladiac GeForce 2 MX
The remarkable thing about this first set of results are that the Radeon absolutely whips the Voodoo 5's ass whilst simultaneously gobbing in its face. Myself not being the biggest 3DFX fan, am glad to see this.
Onto 3DMark results:
ATI Radeon DDR/Elsa Gladiac GeForce 2 GTS (each wins 1 test)
Elsa Erazor GeForce 256 DDR
Voodoo 5 5500
Elsa Gladia GeForce 2 MX
Again the Voodoo 5 is embarrassed into 4th place out of 5.
Im sure you'll agree from the above benchmarks, there is a great deal of promise from this new card from ATI, as soon as its price drops after its been released for a few weeks, (although bear i mind ATI cards are normally very reasonably priced against the competition) id reccommend it as being the best video card out at the time, especially when ATI release more mature drivers. Definitely one to look out for.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
CyrixDes
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Member: Dale Warren
Reviews written: 56
Trusted by: 5 members
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