ATI Radeon 9700

[ATIRadeon9700]

What does anyone think of this new Graphics Card??
It really looks like a Nvidia Killer for now..
Then again What about the NV30, has anyone seen any specs on this up and coming card?

ATIRadeon9700

 

[10GHZ]

the 9700 is defitnitly in a class of its own atm, and it looks like ATI has fianlly crippled Nvidia for now. below is a quote from AtomicPc

"Well that was until last week at least, when pretender to the throne, ATI, threw its DirectX9 hat into the ring a few months early with the unveiling of the RADEON 9700, which has made a big effort to suck the wind out of NVIDIAs sails, despite a preemptive launch of the nForce2 chipset the day before ATI's big launch. The problem is that the whispers around the industry are that NVIDIA is still a fair way away from having working sample boards of its next generation NV30 GPU. This is due to the need for a 0.13micron fabrication process, something which fabrication partner TSMC is rumoured to still be having problems with, and time spent dedicated to work on the XBox GPU, which threw NVIDIAs famous six month product cycle out of whack.

Just as ATI's RADEON 9700 announcement took some of the wind out of the sails of Matrox's recent Parhelia Launch, NVIDIA is obviously confident that it is onto a winner with NV30. So confident in fact that ahead of this week's SIGRAPH conference it has done the almost unprecedented thing of releasing a marketing speak laced PDF outlining some of the features of the NV3X architecture, which has been apparently been internally dubbed 'CineFX' (it is a sad sad day when even the engineers start speaking marketease), due to its ability to produce cinematic quality 3D. "

ATi however is going 2 release a cut down version of the 9700 , no , not the 9000, but another version of the 9700 with slightly lowered clock speed. it's goin 2 be called 9500, the core is goin 2 be working at around 300-315, while the memory is yet to be decided. the card is going 2 cost around $199 us... how sweet, now all we ocer can oc our way to 9700. hehhehehe.
Atm, the brief outline of NV30 makes it sounds like its gonna kick some major ATI ass ,see below.
http://www.pcpop.com.cn/view.asp?type=news&id=7529
it's all in chinese, so let me translated 4 ya.
basically, it says "murdering ATI now is the only thing that Nvidia wants 2 do, and NV30 is going 2 achive this by using the new CineFX engine. compare with NV2x, NV30's archtecture is a breakthrogh, the working frequency of the core is of coz higher then the R300, and it's going 2 imploy 0.13 micron process.

from the table it can be seen that NV3+ will have Vertex displacement mapping and Geometry displacement mapping.
it will also use vertex shader 2.0, the max instruction will be 65536!!!! compare with R300's 1024, that's a HUGE difference. static instruction will be boosted to 1024 as well as added static flow control and dynamic flow control.
now NV30 is said to support 128bit pixel shader, and we are not even sure if R300 support 64bit and finaly, NV30 will do 16texture maps and 1024 texture instruction.

all these data are still primitive, so dont count on it, but even if thoese data were true, when ATI moves to 0.13 micron, then we'll relly see some major competition between the 2.

 

[juin]

NV 30 is a Radeon 9700 killer


The day i meet a goth queen that tell me Intel suck.I turn in a lemming to fill is need in hardware.

 

[Oracle]

Don't be so quick on the trigger. The game is played in the arena, not on paper. Remember that nVidia's own nForce chipset was supposed to outclass everything on the planet and be lightyears ahead.
The fact remains that ATi's R300 will be widely available in a few weeks on the market, while nVidia will be watching the parade for the next few months.


<font color=red>A platform is not an oil rig.</font color=red>

 

[cakecake]

nVidia has turned into a power mongering, unfriendly business participant, it seems. Not just based on this article but the comments nvidia had the day the R9700 was announced. Most of it is probably hyperbole, remnants of the frenetic pace nVidia must be working to "try and make something better." You'd hope that somewhere in this there was some decency, but it seems that not for a long time will we fully understand the competitive situation between nVidia and ATi.

It used to be that nVidia was crowned king and did well with that. I never knew they absolutely *had* to be the best. For years ATi was like AMD, hiding in the shadows, playing almost exclusively to the budget market. For a 5 year period their stock barely budged.

They say competition is good, but I'm still worried about the social aspects of it. Apparently the economists from Chicago got everything down. They managed to get a nice system of controlling inflation and keeping unemployment low. But what about the social side of it?

The social side of it needs work, as we're now discovering. I have read through dozens of posts on multiple web sites that have people exclaiming that the R9700 is good, it will give nVidia reason to do better, and that it will create a giant war by means of competition, where the final prize will be much better products and services. After all, competition equals prosperity, right?

Unfortunately, I think people have been blindsided by this prosperity. Sure, competition can help. But the recent corruptions, scandals, and the overall uncompetitiveness that nearly all major corporations are guilty of is something no one understands yet or is even thinking about changing.

Am I anti-nVidia? I don't know. I really want to like them. But forgive me for turning this into a political rampage--I just think that sometimes when it comes to computer hardware there's more to it than the technical aspect. I think all of those AMD v. Intel arguments, all of those nVidia v. ATi arguments, and everything else are partly the result of this underlying political circuitry that is definitely running through our heads. Living in the year 2002 right now, in the midst of corporate scandals, I don't think we can deny its impacts on the computer industry any longer. If anything, the computer industry has been getting away with this kind of scandal and fraud for YEARS, all in the name of prosperity, riches, and development--and that's exactly what people expect from competition.

Perhaps we are willing to substitute some corruption for the good of the technology. But lately, with patent claims to standards as old as OpenGL and even JPEG images--that's right, a company claims to own all JPEG image formats--corporate fraud, the frustration from uncompetitive business practices, and the courts who are powerless to act on them, don't you think it's partly gotten out of hand?<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by cakecake on 07/27/02 07:35 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[jpscfl]

If you were expecting some flaming comments...Sorry to disappoint you. All i have to say is:

I have found out the hard way, never to believe any advertising hype. When I SEE some killer benchmarks from a non-biased source, then I'll get excited.

 

[Dinski]

No matter who's winning. The competition gives us faster chips at lower costs.

 

[Jes12345]

I think the Radeon 9700 looks and performs very well (from reviews i've read). ATI has got a step up on NVIDIA for now, but how long will that last for - To the release of NV 30.

I need a video upgrade pretty bad in my system
-Voodoo 5
-GeForce 2 MX 400
-TNT 2

I think for for overall performance and price I will pick up the Radeon 9700 when it is released (Could hold out for NV 30 but I think it will kill my saving and overdraft as well.)

🙂

<font color=red>Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do! <font color=black> Think outside the box!

 

[Myrmecophagavir]

For years ATi was like AMD, hiding in the shadows, playing only to a small budget market.

That's not true. ATI has the biggest OEM deal I've ever seen. It's changed a little now with budget GeForces around, but ATI was never skulking in the shadows only selling to budget users... they had exclusive deals with all the major computer brands, there was an ATI card in every one, totally ubiquitous. It was that way for many years.

 

[juin]

Remember that nVidia's own nForce chipset was supposed to outclass everything on the planet and be lightyears ahead

I was the only one that was again nforce when the was release the white paper and i was right once again.

The day i meet a goth queen that tell me Intel suck.I turn in a lemming to fill is need in hardware.

 

[cakecake]

Still, I want to differentiate that ATi has really not innovated, so to speak, very much until now. They are a much older company than nVidia, which is only 4 years old. They weren't on the forefront of consumer graphics, and sure they did have sales, but they were from systems integrators who wanted to sell cheap cards.

This little cathode light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine!

 

[AMD_Man]

Still, I want to differentiate that ATi has really not innovated, so to speak, very much until now. They are a much older company than nVidia, which is only 4 years old. They weren't on the forefront of consumer graphics, and sure they did have sales, but they were from systems integrators who wanted to sell cheap cards.

While I agree about the second comment, I don't see how that is lack of innovation. ATI has always been one step ahead of nVidia in innovation and one step behind in overall performance.

<b><i>"A penny saved is a penny earned!"</i></b>

 

[BORED_DUDE]

Ati's new card looks like a winner. I can't wait to buy one.

“ <font color=blue> Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.” - Jimi Hendrix </font color=blue>

 

[chuck232]

ATI has the biggest OEM deal I've ever seen.

Where do you see this? From what I've seen, system integrators use nVidia cards mostly. The new line of Radeon cards may change that, but right now, nVidia has a much larger OEM market. (Dell, Compaq, IBM, and the such.)

Falling down stairs saves time

 

[AMD_Man]

One word: Notebooks!

Nearly all mid-range to high-end notebooks have ATI chips.

<b><i>"A penny saved is a penny earned!"</i></b>

 

[Myrmecophagavir]

Where do you see this? From what I've seen, system integrators use nVidia cards mostly. The new line of Radeon cards may change that, but right now, nVidia has a much larger OEM market. (Dell, Compaq, IBM, and the such.)

Everywhere I used to look... things have changed now that Nvidia pushes its budget range, but certainly in the past ATI had things sewn up for ages, Mach64 to Rage 128 at least.

 

[hartski]

from what you've seen...so where did you see yours? just askin...I do believe ATI has the OEM market coz of their lower price and good performance..you get what you pay for...anyway how much will be the 9700...any estimations? at ATI website I did see the 9000 to be like 150 US bucks? so is 9700 under300 bucks? or is itfar superior from 9000 to be in a price range of 350-400? too excited but alas no money!!!!

 

[chuck232]

As I said, Dell, IBM, Compaq, HP, whatever. Yeah, I agree with the notebook part, although, that market isn't as big as the desktop sector.

The R9700 has a MSRP of $399USD. Not too bad for such a good card now and potentially, when DX9 comes out. Stupid MS :tongue: !

Falling down stairs saves time

 

[10GHZ]

Not only that, ATI's Radeon 9000/pro is the answer to the lower budget nvidia MX lines, looks like ATI has finally got their act together not just within the driver development field, but have also learnt to design and market their products for ALL consumers. The 9700 will be up high in a class of its own for some time and meanwhile, very soon, the Radeon 9500 will be released for even cheaper at around 199-299 US dollars.

 

[hartski]

for those who won't be able to afford the 9700 do you guys think the 9500 will be a big leap from the 8500? I bet it would...I jsut remembered the 8500 and 7500 of old days...I guess when they come out pretty damn soon a trip to their website will satisfy my questions...

 

[10GHZ]

the 9500 is sorta like the 9700LE, it will most likely contain all the features of the 9700, but only has a lowered clocked core and memory. as long as ATI and other 3rd party manufacturer put in qulaity parts, we can always overclock it to a 9700, hopefully.
on another note, just heard that the up coming NV30 will use DDR2. looks like ATI still ain't in safe water yet.

 

[chuck232]

Ok, first off, the DDRII wasn't even supposed to mass produce til Q2 2003 IIRC. I'm not doubting that the NV30 may beat the R9700, but these specs are all rumours.

I've heard that the R9500 may only have 4 pipelines instead of 8. Also, I have a speculation, maybe it'll only have 128bit DDR RAM. Then with lower speeds, it could only barely reach Ti4600 levels. Huh.... barely reach Ti4600 for a mainstream card .

Help the n00bie!!

 

[nexus_alpha]

Don,t forget the r300 was designed to use ddr II so we may see it in the r350.

 

[chuck232]

Yeah, it was designed to incorporate it, but who knows when DDRII will be available?

Help the n00bie!!

 

[10GHZ]

yes maybe.... and i think it is marketed to compete with the GF4 Ti lines. but hopefuly, only the core/memory speed will be the only difference between the 9700 and the 9500.