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ATI has been hammering away at NVIDIA?s firm grasp on
the hearts and minds of gamers, multimedia enthusiasts,
corporate users and laptop owners. Up until now, they have
done so with individual product announcements, like the RADEON
9700 Pro, RADEON 9000 Pro, and so on. Each card
effectively delivered a well-aimed blow to NVIDIA?s
comprehensive lineup, currently consisting of the GeForce4 Ti and MX families. With
the 9000 and 8500 cards covering the mainstream market, ATI is
poised to further its cause in the mid and high-end 3D
arenas, filling the gap between the RADEON 9700 Pro and the RADEON
9000.
As we've
already seen, the R300 Visual Processing Unit is an ace for ATI; a
hot commodity. It?s the first consumer level graphics engine with eight
rendering pipelines and 128-bit per pixel floating point
color support. The chip employs four geometry engines to
process up to 325 million polygons per second, when clocked at 325MHz .
In essence, the R300 is the first chip that adheres to
Microsoft?s DirectX 9 specification, putting it in direct
competition with NVIDIA's upcoming NV30. NVIDIA?s
next-generation part isn?t quite ready yet, though. And despite
rumors that have been circulating about a launch during this
year?s Comdex, it is doubtful hardware based on the
anticipated competitor will be ready at that time. So,
while NVIDIA puts the finishing touches on NV30, ATI is
readying an entire family of cards designed to leverage the
power of its R300 processor across several price points.
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Features
of the RADEON Family |
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Competition for the
GeForce4 Ti 4600, 4400, and 4200 |
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GRAPHICS
TECHNOLOGY
R300 Visual
Processing Unit (VPU)
MEMORY CONFIGURATION
3D
GRAPHICS FEATURES
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Eight/four parallel
rendering pipelines process up to 2.6
billion pixels per second
-
Four parallel geometry
engines process up to 325 million
transformed and lit polygons per
second
-
High precision 10-bit
per channel framebuffer support
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256-bit/128-bit DDR memory
interface
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AGP 8X support
-SMARTSHADER? 2.0
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Full support for
Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 programmable
pixel and vertex shaders in hardware
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2.0 Pixel Shaders
support up to 16 textures per
rendering pass
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2.0 Vertex Shaders
support vertex programs up to 1024
instructions with flow control
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New 128-bit per pixel
floating point color formats
-
Multiple Render Target
(MRT) support
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Shadow volume rendering
acceleration
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Complete feature set
also supported in OpenGL via
extensions
-SMOOTHVISION?
2.0
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State-of-the-art
full-scene anti-aliasing
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New technology
processes up to 15.6 billion
anti-aliased samples per second for
unprecedented performance
-
Supports 2x, 4x, and 6x
modes with programmable sample
patterns
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Advanced anisotropic
filtering
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Supports up to 16
bilinear samples (in performance mode)
or trilinear samples (in quality mode)
per pixel
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2x/4x/6x full scene
anti-aliasing modes
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Adaptive algorithm with
programmable sample patterns
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2x/4x/8x/16x
anisotropic filtering modes
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Adaptive algorithm with
bilinear (performance) and trilinear
(quality) options
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Bandwidth-saving
algorithm enables this feature with
minimal performance cost
-HYPERZ? III
-TRUFORM? 2.0
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2nd generation N-patch
higher order surface support
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Discrete and continuous
tessellation levels per polygon for
dynamic LOD
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DirectX 9.0
displacement mapping
VIDEO
FEATURES
-VIDEOSHADER?
-
Seamless integration of
programmable pixel shaders with video
data
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High quality, hardware
accelerated de-blocking of internet
streaming video
-
Noise removal filter
for captured video
-
Integrated MPEG-2
decode
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Hardware accelerated
iDCT, motion compensation, and color
space conversion
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Top quality DVD and
all-format DTV/HDTV decode with low
CPU overhead
-
Back-end scaler
delivers top quality playback
-
Upscaling and
downscaling with 4-tap horizontal and
vertical filtering
-
Filtered display of
images up to 1920 pixels wide
-
Unique per-pixel
adaptive de-interlacing feature
combines the best elements of the
?bob? and ?add-field? (weave)
techniques
FULLSTREAM?
video de-blocking technology
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Noise removal filtering
for captured video
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MPEG-2 decoding with
motion compensation, iDCT and color
space conversion
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All-format DTV/HDTV
decoding
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YPrPb component output
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Adaptive de-interlacing
and frame rate conversion
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Dual integrated display
controllers
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Dual integrated 10-bit
per channel 400MHz DACs
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Integrated 165 MHz TMDS
transmitter (DVI and HDCP compliant)
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Integrated TV Output
support up to 1024x768 resolution
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Optimized for Pentium®
4 SSE2 and AMD Athlon? 3Dnow!
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PC 2002 compliant
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
-
Dual integrated 10-bit
per channel palette DACs operating at
up to 400MHz
-
Integrated 165MHz TMDS
transmitter supports resolutions up to
QXGA (2048x1536) and complies with DVI
and HDCP specifications
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Integrated TV-Out
support up to 1024x768 resolution
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YPrPb output for direct
drive of HDTV monitors
DISPLAY SUPPORT
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15-pin VGA connector
for analog CRT
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S-video or composite
connector for TV/VCR
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DVI-I connector for
digital CRT or flat panel
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Independent resolutions
and refresh rates for any two
connected displays
GENERAL FEATURES
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Comprehensive 2x, 4x,
and 8x AGP support
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High performance
quad-channel DDR memory interface
supports 64/128/256MB configurations
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Fully compliant with PC
2002 requirements
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Optimized for Pentium®
4 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
Windows® XP GDI extensions
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The
RADEON 9700 Family |
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GeForce4 Ti 4600 Killer |
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Vital Stats:
RADEON 9700 Pro: 325/620MHz
core/memory, R300 core with eight parallel rendering
pipelines, 128MB of DDR memory on a 256-bit data path
(19.8GB/s of bandwidth)
RADEON 9500: 275/540MHz, R300 core with eight parallel
rendering pipelines, 128MB of DDR memory on a 256-bit data
path (17.3GB/s of bandwidth)
We're going to go out on a limb here, and
assume that the RADEON 9700 Pro needs no introduction. If
you would like to refresh your memory, check out
our review, however, the important fact is that
ATI?s RADEON 9700 Pro is currently able to outperform any
competing 3D card. On the 9700 Pro, the R300 core runs at 325MHz and is
complimented by a 256-bit memory bus clocked at 310MHz DDR,
or effectively 620MHz.
Not all of the cores ATI receives back
from the fabrication plant are capable of 325MHz, though.
Many function perfectly, yet are not as tolerant of high
frequencies. NVIDIA has used this concept of yield to build
the GeForce4 Ti family. The processors are sorted ? the
best become GeForce4 Ti 4600 cards, others, reliable at
275MHz become Ti 4400?s and the rest are used for Ti 4200
cards. Of course, this doesn?t mean a GeForce4 Ti 4200 card
can?t be overclocked to run at the same frequency as a 4400.
Click To
Enlarge
Using a similar technique, ATI is
introducing the "non-Pro" RADEON 9700 to compliment the more expensive
Pro. Both 9700 cards will feature the same R300 VPU with
eight rendering pipelines and a similar 256-bit DDR memory
bus (with 128MB of memory). The distinguishing
characteristic of the RADEON 9700 will be its operating
frequency: 275MHz core and 270MHz DDR (540MHz effective)
memory. Then there is the $299 price tag, which
should put the card in the same league as the GeForce4 Ti
4600 with regard to both price and performance. Further,
ATI claims the RADEON 9700 will be available as soon as this
month.
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RADEON 9500 Family and Conclusion
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