ATI's "Athlon" of Video Cards
Written: Sep 16 '00 (Updated Sep 19 '00)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: The fastest card in 32-bit color, extra features
Cons: GeFoce2 GTS still the king in 16-bit color
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| KarsinTheHutt's Full Review: ATI Radeon 64MB DDR |
UPDATE! 9/19/2000 - Recently, a number of hardware test sites reported that OEM versions of the 64 MB DDR Radeon card are clocked at 166 MHz rather than the 183 MHz advertised on Retail boxes. For all the details, go here:
http://hardocp.com/articles/video/atieditorial/index.html
This only concerns the OEM 64 MB DDR cards, which cost roughly 30 $US less than their retail counterparts.
Right off the bat, it looks like ATI has a winner with the 64 MB DDR Radeon. And it comes not a second too soon. After all, do we really want nVidia to have a monopoly on cutting edge cards?
Some of you may have already read my review of the Radeon All-In-Wonder. I'm again reviewing the hardware features of the Radeon chipset for the benefit of those who are not familiar with it. Before I continue, I'd like to say that the Radeon AIW is good at games, but the Radeon 64 DDR borders on great.
The Radeon 64 MB DDR card provides nearly unbeatable gaming performance through several technologies:
1) Hardware Transform and Lighting (T&L) - Right now, this feature doesn't do very much, but software developers are producing games that will take advantage of it. T&L promises to free up CPU power for more frame rates and improved AI.
2) 64 MB DDR-SDRAM - Today's games require incredible memory bandwidth for fast frame rates. DDR, or Double Data Rate technology, allows SDRAM to transfer data on the rising and falling edges of a clock cycle, effectively doubling bandwidth.
3) "Hyper-Z" - This proprietary ATI technology reduces the memory bandwidth bottlenecks. Normal video cards uselessly render thousands of polygons that a person can't see - for example, the back of a rock, or parts of objects hidden by a rock. Hyper-Z prevents some of this wasteful rendering, thus allowing the card to render faster and with more detail.
In my review of the ATI Radeon All-In-Wonder, I stated that only the most demanding gamers would be dissatisfied. For those who absolutely MUST have cutting edge performance, the 64 MB DDR can deliver. Almost all gamers should be satisfied with Radeon's performance in games such as Quake 3 and Unreal tournament. The only caveat of this card's performance is rather lackluster 16-bit color performance. Users of this card should play games in 32-bit color, where the Radeon blows away most competitors in sheer speed. At higher resolutions (1024x768 or greater in 32 bit color), the 64 MB Radeon can even defeat the infamous GeForce2 GTS.
One nagging issue concerning gamers may be ATI’s past driver support. ATI has traditionally had terrible driver support for its video cards, resulting in products that did not perform as well as they should have. ATI has promised to be timelier with Radeon driver updates – but only time will tell if they can make good on this promise.
ATI is obviously targeting the 64 MB Radeon for high end gaming, but in no way does this focus distract ATI from it's traditional strength - features!
In addition to the Radeon chip, the 64 MB Radeon card includes a Rage Theater chip that powers a pair of video in/out sockets. The highly capable Rage Theater supports DVD decoding, MPEG compression, and HDTV! Gamers who are also multimedia gurus will almost certainly be impressed.
ATI, once known only for second-rate wannabe gaming cards, seems to have pulled an Athlon out of its hat. While the Radeon can't match the GeForce2 GTS in 16-bit color, it destroys the nVidia chip in high-res 32-bit color and supports numerous other features at the same time. For those who must have a zillion frames/sec, the GeForce2 may still be a better choice, but nVidia had better watch out - Radeon is indeed a formidable competitor.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 300
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Epinions.com ID:
KarsinTheHutt
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 - Top 1000 |
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Member: Karsin Eng
Location: United States of America
Reviews written: 83
Trusted by: 19 members
About Me:
I am a part time computer hobbyist and moderator at forum.thinkpads.com
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