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Overclocking
the
Tyan Tachyon G9500 Pro |
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Going
where others have failed |
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When the time came for
overclocking the Tyan Tachyon G9500 Pro, we crossed our
fingers and hoped that what Tyan told us about the device
identification was true. By identifying the card as
a Radeon 9700, we should be able to get past the issues
found with other Radeon 9500 based cards, which were
"clock-locked". The results are in...and they look
good! We were able to raise both the core and memory
clock speeds from their default values of 277/542 MHz up
70MHz each to 347/612 MHz. That's an increase in 25%
for the VPU core speed, and 12.5% for the memory.
Now that we were using the card at these higher speeds, we
went back and benchmarked Quake 3 and 3DMark 2001SE again,
while keeping 4XAA and 8X Anisotropic filtering enabled.
We were able
to gain an extra 18 frames per second at 1024x768, and 9
frames at 1600x1200. Whipping out the calculator
(or, in this case, going to Start-All
Programs-Accessories-Calculator) we figured this to be a
15% increase in performance. We also saw the same
relative increase in performance when running 3DMark
2001SE, with the percentage topping out at an extra 17.5%
at 1600x1200. Keep in mind that the system was
completely stable throughout these tests, and only minor
graphic artifacts were noticed in 3DMark 2001SE.
The enthusiasm
we had while testing the Tyan Tachyon G9500 Pro, was
slightly tempered by the fact that we just couldn't find it
available in too many outlets. A quick search of a few
popular search engines brought up close to nothing about
this card. It's a shame, since distribution issues
aside, this may well be one of the finest Radeon 9500 Pro
cards out there. Simply put, no other Radeon 9500
based card can boast of the same capabilities of the Tyan
Tachyon G9500 Pro. This is the only Radeon 9500 card
that natively supports overclocking. It is also the
only Radeon 9500 card with built-in hardware monitoring that
is used in conjunction with its TGM (Tyan Graphics Monitor)
2.0 software. The fan speed can be changed manually to
reduce overall system noise, or it can be left to be
controlled by the hardware monitoring system, which will
raise the fan speed if the temperature gets too hot.
Performance-wise, the Radeon 9500 has to be considered one
of the best cards out there for the money. In
actuality, the release of the ATi 9200/9600/9800 product
line will mean the phasing out of the 9500/9700 Radeons, so
this card will probably be one of the last to be based on
the R300 core. All told however, we highly recommend
the Tyan Tachyon G9500 Pro for buyers of all budgets.
We give the Tyan
Tachyon G9500 Pro a 9.5
on the HotHardware Heat Meter...
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