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For
the last few months, budget conscious enthusiasts have
been enamored with ATi's Radeon 9600 Pro GPU. And
when you really think about it, what's not to like?
It's a relatively inexpensive product, with a great
feature set and above average performance. The
Radeon 9600 Pro has also earned a reputation for being
quite the overclocker. Back in April,
when we first got our hands on an ATi built Radeon 9600
Pro, we overclocked its core and memory well beyond
their default speeds and saw huge performance gains.
Today on HotHardware.Com, we're going to take a long look
at Tyan's version of the Radeon 9600 Pro, the Tachyon
G9600 Pro. This card boasts a slightly redesigned
PCB with a custom cooling solution, and like some previous
cards in the Tachyon line-up, it also sports hardware
monitoring capabilities not found on competing products.
Tyan has long been known for manufacturing high-end server
class mainboards, but they have recently made quite a
splash with their modified Tachyon cards. We have
previously reviewed Tyan's
G9500 and
G9700 Pros, and were impressed by both. Let's
move on and see if Tyan's got another winner on their
hands with the Tachyon G9600 Pro...
CLICK ANY IMAGE FOR AN
ENLARGED VIEW
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Specifications & Features of the Tyan
Tachyon G9600 Pro |
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The
Blue Monster |
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GRAPHICS TECHNOLOGY
RV350 Visual Processing Unit (VPU)
Core Clock Speed 400MHz - 1.6GP/s
MEMORY CONFIGURATION
3D
GRAPHICS FEATURES
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Four parallel rendering pipelines process up to 1.6
billion pixels per second
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High precision 10-bit per channel framebuffer
support
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128-bit DDR memory interface
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AGP
8X support
SMARTSHADER 2.1
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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
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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 2.1
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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
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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+
DISPLAY SUPPORT
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15-pin VGA connector for analog CRT
/
DVI-I connector for digital CRT or
flat panel
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S-video or composite connector for TV/VCR
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Independent resolutions and refresh rates for any
two connected displays
VIDEO FEATURES
VIDEOSHADER
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Seamless integration of programmable pixel shaders
with video data
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High quality, hardware accelerated de-blocking of
internet streaming video
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Noise removal filter for captured video
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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
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Back-end scaler delivers top quality playback
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Upscaling and downscaling with 4-tap horizontal and
vertical filtering
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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
FULLSTREAM
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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
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Dual integrated 10-bit per channel palette DACs
operating at up to 400MHz
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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
GENERAL FEATURES
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Comprehensive 2x, 4x, and 8x AGP support
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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 BUNDLE
Tyan's Tachyon G9600 Pro ships
with a relatively spartan assortment of bundled software
and accessories, especially when compared to other
"premium" graphics cards currently available. Tyan
includes a Quick Installation Guide, a User's Manual and a
guide to using their proprietary Graphics Monitor
software, along with a driver / utility CD-ROM.
The CD contains some basic free programs like Acrobat
Reader 5, DirectX, a few Demos and a Full Version of
Intervideo's WinDVD playback software. A composite
video cable, an S-Video cable, an S-video-to-RCA adapter
and a DVI-to-DB15 adapter are also included with the card.
Overall, the Tachyon's bundle is not bad, but we would
have liked to have seem some games included with G9600 Pro
as well.
TYAN GRAPHICS MONITOR
One aspect of the G9600 Pro's
bundle that is unique is the Tachyon Graphics Monitor
software. Tyan tweaked ATi's reference Radeon 9600
Pro design to incorporate a few features not found on
similar cards. Like some of its predecessors, the
Tachyon G9600 Pro has hardware monitoring capabilities
built-in. Using the Tachyon Graphics Monitor
software, users can monitor GPU and Memory voltages and
temperatures, and can also alter the speed of the cooling
fan to any speed between 3400RPM and 5400RPM. The
cooling fan can also be throttled based on GPU
temperatures. The Tachyon Graphics Monitor software
gives users the ability to overclock their card as well.
GPU frequencies range from 380MHz on up to 590MHz, while
memory frequencies are selectable up to 630MHz.
Next Up - The Card, Screen Shots
& Gaming...
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For
the last few months, budget conscious enthusiasts have
been enamored with ATi's Radeon 9600 Pro GPU. And
when you really think about it, what's not to like?
It's a relatively inexpensive product, with a great
feature set and above average performance. The
Radeon 9600 Pro has also earned a reputation for being
quite the overclocker. Back in April,
