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 The
video
card wars are heating up once again. The rivalry
between ATi and NVIDIA has never been more intense.
The two are poised for yet another battle in their ongoing
attempts for market supremacy. As of late, the two
seem to be in strike / counter-strike mode. ATi
launches new drivers and NVIDIA launches Cg. Just as
was the case with the Radeon 8500 launch, ATi is the first
to break the silence and have announced their next
generation technology. We can only assume that NVIDIA
is lying in wait, to see what their arch-rival has brought
to the table.
Recently,
ATi had
to overcome a few obstacles that had tarnished their image
for some time.
They've had a long history of developing promising new
hardware that was often limited by poor driver development.
ATi
knew they needed to rid themselves of this image, and took
steps to improve the overall quality, stability and
performance of their drivers and software. Over the
past year or so, ATi has taken their "driver issues"
very seriously and have taken proactive steps to find
solutions to any issues that arise in a timely manner.
The end result was the Catalyst driver package which
incorporated several new tools that help to diagnose and
report compatibility issues. While they were at it,
ATi also developed a cleaner, more concise driver interface
that should help end-users become familiar with their card's
available features. We had the chance to take a look
at ATi?s new
Catalyst Drivers, just before they were released back in
June, and we were impressed to say the least.
Today, ATi
has unveiled new products, in hopes of turning the tides on
the competition, with innovative new features and design
implementations that, on the surface, look promising.
The first is the new Radeon 9000 Series of video cards that
aim to offer mid-range performance, at budget price points.
The Radeon 9000s are offered in two flavors that are
intended to compete
directly
with
the GeForce 4 MX line, as well as the GeForce4 Ti4200.
ATi's new high-end product is the, "soon to be released",
Radeon 9700, that aims to topple NVIDIA?s GeForce 4 Ti
series of products from atop their throne, with a completely
new GPU that touts an impressive list of features and
"killer" performance. Today we have a preview of the
Radeon 9000 / 9000 Pro as well as some advanced information
on the widely anticipated Radeon 9700 board, formerly only
known as the "R300".
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Features
of the Radeon 9000 Series |
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Getting a lot on the
cheap? |
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3D GRAPHICS FEATURES
SMARTSHADER? technology
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Full support for DirectX 8.1
programmable pixel and vertex shaders
in hardware
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1.4 pixel shaders support up to 6
textures per rendering pass
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1.1 vertex shaders support vertex
programs up to 128 instructions
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Complete feature set also supported in
OpenGL via extensions
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Programmable shaders provide enhanced
3D effects in over 100 existing and
upcoming game titles
SMOOTHVISION?
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Image quality enhancement features for
Direct3D? and OpenGL applications
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Programmable full-scene anti-aliasing
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Supports 2 to 6 samples
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Performance and quality modes
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Advanced anisotropic filtering
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Supports 2 to 16 samples
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Bandwidth-saving algorithm enables
this feature with minimal performance
cost
CHARISMA ENGINE? II
HYPERZ? II
VIDEO FEATURES
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VIDEO IMMERSION? II delivers
industry-leading video playback
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FULLSTREAM? Hardware accelerated
de-blocking of Internet video streams
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Integrated MPEG-2 decode including
iDCT and motion compensation:
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All format DTV/HDTV decode
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Top quality DVD with lowest CPU usage
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YUV to RGB color space conversion
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Back-end scaler delivers top quality
playback
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4-tap horizontal and vertical
filtering
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Upscaling and downscaling
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Filtered display of images up to 1920
pixels wide
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Unique per-pixel adaptive
de-interlacing feature combines the
best elements of the ?bob? and
?add-field? (weave) techniques
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Hardware mirroring for flipping video
images in video conferencing systems
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Supports 8-bit alpha blending and
video keying for effective overlay of
video and graphics
DISPLAY FEATURES
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Dual integrated display controllers
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Drive two displays simultaneously with
independent resolutions and refresh
rates
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HYDRAVISION? software provides
complete control over multi-display
configurations with a user-friendly
interface
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Dual integrated 10-bit per channel
palette DACs operating at up to 400MHz
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Integrated DVI-compliant 165MHz TMDS
transmitter supports resolutions up to
WUXGA (1920x1200)
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Integrated TV-Out support up to
1024x768 resolution
GENERAL FEATURES
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Comprehensive 2X and 4X AGP support
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Compatible with AGP 8X universal
motherboards
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High performance dual-channel 128-bit
DDR memory interface supports
32/64/128MB configurations
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Fully compliant with PC 2002
requirements
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Optimized for Pentium4 SSE2 and AMD
Athlon? 3Dnow! processor instructions
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Supports optional THEATER? 200
companion chip for NTSC/PAL/ SECAM
video capture
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Highly optimized 128-bit 2D engine
with support for new WindowsXP GDI
extensions
The Radeon 9000 and 9000 Pro are
virtually identical except they are clocked at different
speeds. The Radeon 9000 will be outfitted with a 250MHz GPU
and 400MHz DDR RAM (200MHz x 2), while the Pro version's
core will be running at 275MHz with 550MHz DDR RAM (275MHz x
2). We were fortunate enough to get our hands on a
Radeon 9000 Pro for testing, but the package we received
wasn't quite ready for retail shelves. Due to this
fact, we won't be commenting on the bundle, we'll cover that
in future reviews.
The Card:
Although the feature set is very
similar to the Radeon 8500, from an architectural
standpoint, the Radeon 9000 Pro is a completely new design.
Just like the
Radeon All-In-Wonder 8500 we reviewed back in April, the
Radeon 9000 Pro has a GPU clocked at 275MHz. The
onboard memory is also clocked the same at 275MHz (550MHz
DDR), although the 9000 Pro is equipped with only 64MB as
opposed to 128MB. The unit comes with Dual Monitor
support supplied by the new Radeon 9000 Pro Flexible
Display Engine. What this means is the Radeon 9000
is equipped with two integrated RAMDACs, each running at
400MHz, allowing for resolutions of up to 2048x1536 on each
monitor. With good filtering, these fast RAMDACs
should produce excellent 2D image quality, even while
driving two monitors at high resolutions. The card
also has a TV-Out option and has support for Digital Flat
Panel displays. A DVI-VGA adapter is included for
connecting a second analog VGA monitor to the card.
Click To
Enlarge
The Radeon 9000 Pro implements much of the
same technology found in the Radeon 8500 such as the
CHARISMA ENGINE II, SMARTSHADER, and
SMOOTHVISION, although they do vary in a number of key
areas. The 9000 Pro also implements some new
technology that we haven't seen before like FULLSTREAM.
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Technology and Features of the Radeon 9000 Series
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