ATI DDR for the Masses!
Written: Dec 16 '00
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Fast , beautiful 3D / OpenGL at a great price
Cons: Installs could be work.
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| VagabondSteve's Full Review: ATI RADEON, (32 MB) AGP Video Card |
I won't bother with the technical specifications of this accelerator, if you need to see that, there's a link to the Manufacturers' Page already shown. This is about using the card. If you're reading this you probably have heard good things about this card, as I did.
Why
A real "bargain" price on the card pushed me over the edge to buy it. I purchased this card for a "song" because of a rebate that reduced the net cost to $150.
Who
If you run the latest 3D gaming software and like to see your desktop in high resolution and at high pixel rates, this may be the best value on the market. I run at 32 bit per pixel color and at 1024 X 768 as my normal desktop. For some games, and on other occasions I may even run at 1280 X 1024 or more. The higher these settings, the harder the video card has to work to keep it all smooth. And the harder you push this card, the more you appreciate it. I really couldn't tell much difference at lower settings from the old card I had, but when I took it up a notch, the difference was obvious.
Choice
I had read about the performance of the Radeon DDR 32MB but had dismissed it due to cost. Now, you can shop a little and find this card for $150 or even less. That price is what I have found to be the threshhold of real video performance. Spend much less and it is a large drop in performance, but to get much more performance, you have to spend a lot more.
Still I had a perfectly good Hercules Prophet II MX card running, that cost the same amount, and was happy with it. Why change? Is it worth the effort? I had read reviews, much like this one, that praised the performance of this card, but even more important, detailed the age of this card and it's competitors. The performance IS a notch above the Prophet II MX (which is a very good card by the way) and there are design improvements in the ATI that bode well for the future. A newer GPU and "soft" design will allow continued improvement in performance on this "new" hardware, while most of the competition is relatively "old" and may be nearing the end of it's life cycle. At least that was the logic I bought into.
System
I am using this card in an ATHLON based system. The original system was a 750 MHz Slot A, 256 MB PC133, Abit K7-100 (see my review!), ATA100 based system. I have recently upgraded again to an ASUS A7V and 1.1 GHz CPU (review coming soon!). The card performs well in both, but there were some installation issues in the Abit motherboard. Performance and stability has improved with the ASUS board.
Pros
Fast, very fast!
I ran the latest version of Wintune on this card at various settings for those who can relate. The 800X600 32bpp performance was 2D: 132.94 MP/s the Direct3D: 223.96 MP/s and the OpenGL: 162.68 MP/s These are very good numbers. Very good especially for a $150 32 MB card!
Gaming with Quake III Arena is smooth and vivid.
Phone Support
I called and got a question or two answered by a human being! The wait time was "just under" too long.
Cons
Installation in the Abit board was a chore. Brace yourself if this is your MB. No sweat on the ASUS, and I put one in a friends P3 based system without a bit of trouble.
Phone Support (yes it's a "Pro" and a "Con")
It's a call to Canada, and a long call there can get expensive. Hopefully I won't be calling there again. The solution provided had my card running at 1X AGP, and that was that for support. Not a good thing, but a problem specific to my system, so I won't be too hard on them. I did get it running at 2X AGP with some outside help. Thanks Sherman!
Driver
Had a little trouble with the driver, so do yourself a favor and download the latest from ATI before you start the install. Neither driver worked with the Abit board at 4X, bit the benchmark scores at 2X AGP were almost exactly the same as they are at 4X, so there was no loss. No such problems with the ASUS board, or in the P3 we set up.
Interface
Somewhere in the world is a well documented user interface.
This is not it. Settings that are technical and offer no clue as to use for us "little people" might as well be labeled "For use with Support Only". Except Support won't help you tune them either. Oh well. My opinion.
Summary
I could have gone back to the Hercules Prophet II Mx at any time, and didn't. So I sold it, and I'd do it again. If you do a lot of 3D hi-res work or play, this card will help. If you are only doing Office type work and email, skip it. That would be like having a Porsche you never took on the open road.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
VagabondSteve
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Reviews written: 3
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