Forget Nvidia! Here we go ATi!!
Written: Feb 23 '01
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Incredible DVD playback and outstanding 32 bit performance!
Cons: Drivers are a bit buggy...
The Bottom Line: With superb DVD and awesome 3D, the Radeon performs like a champ!
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| civic2000's Full Review: ATI Radeon 64MB DDR |
Among the various graphic card manufacturers, Nvidia and 3dfx were the leaders in 3d graphic performance. ATi tried to enter the market with the Rage128 chip, hoping to compete with the bigboys. ATi was always know for their amazing video features that they incorporate into their cards, but never for 3d performance...until now that is. Enter the Radeon chipset, the latest graphics unit developed by ATi. Here are some specs:
64MB of DDR RAM running at 183MHz
RAMDAC: 350MHz
1.1GTexel/s - 366MPixel/s Theoretical Fill Rate
~27 Million triangles/s
Optional VIVO (included with retail card)
3D Resolutions up to 2048x1536
AGP Universal Bus (2x/4x)
Optional DVI Interface powered by integrated TMDS transmitter
HDTV Ready
DVD Playback
Installation
Just like any other video card, uninstall the old drivers and take the old card out. Then replace it with the Radeon, and load up the new drivers. Simple enough!
Image Quality
Wow! It is like buying a brand new monitor! The 2D quality of the Radeon is a lot better than the Geforce based cards. The text is sharp, even at high resolutions. Colors are vibrant and vivid. There is no picture distortion or fuzziness present on the screen.
Rating: 10 of 10
3D Performance
Having previously used older ATi cards, I was not sure of what to expect when it comes to 3D performance. However, the Radeon did not let me down. Framrates were pretty high and smooth, even at high resolutions. Although not as good as a Geforce 2 GTS, the Radeon still has a fairly incredible framerates. Who needs 120 frames per second?? I think that 80 frames per second is substantial for gaming. I was surprised to see awesome 3D from an ATi card!!
Rating: 9 out of 10
Features
Where can I start? First, like all ATi cards, the DVD playback is superb! DVDs play like a dream! Colors are vivid and sharp. Since the Radeon supports hardware decoding, the CPU is freed up to do other tasks when you play DVDs. The retail version of this card, which I have, comes with VIVO(Video In/Video Out). You can do some basic video editing with this card as well. The Video In chip, known as the Rage Theater, is nice. Quality is fairly good and displayed nicely on a monitor. All these features are definitely pluses!!
Rating: 11 out of 10(added another point for DVD!!)
Drivers
Now, here is where ATi is lacking...driver support. The drivers for Win98/ME are pretty good and stable, but drivers for Win2K are horrible. You do not get the good performance with these drivers. Also, the drivers provided by ATi are buggy and often delayed. They really need to provide better drivers. Also, there are some incompatibility issues with VIA chipsets, which may make other look the other way...
Rating: 2 out of 10
Overall, the Radeon is an awesome card. For about $180, you can get a card that has incredible 3D, DVD, and Video features. There is no other better card on the market at this price!!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 180
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Epinions.com ID:
civic2000
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Location: West Orange, NJ, USA
Reviews written: 24
Trusted by: 18 members
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