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For our last set of benchmarks,
we used Croteam's Serious Sam: The Second Encounter. We
configured the game to use OpenGL (this is one of the few
games that can use either DirectX or OpenGL) and ran a
series of tests using the built-in "Little Trouble" demo.
To ensure the playing field was level, we used Beyond3D's
"Extreme Quality" script which maxes out the texture and
filtering quality with all of the cards being tested.
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Head-to-Head / Performance
With Serious Sam: TSE |
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Sam
is a Little High Strung... |
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In Serious Sam, the Tyan Tachyon G9600 Pro
narrowly surpassed the ATi built Radeon 9600 Pro in all of
the tests run at 1024x768. At 1600x1200, however, the
ATi built card took the lead, again by a minimal, basically
meaningless margin. For all intents and purposes, the
two Radeon 9600 Pros we tested here performed at identical
levels.
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Overclocking With The Tyan Tachyon G9600 Pro |
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Speed
is What We Need! |
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When we pulled this card apart
and found the 3.6ns Hynix RAM populating the board, we were
interested to see just how high the memory on the Tachyon G9600
Pro would overclock. All of the other 9600 Pros we've
looked at thus far were equipped with 2.8ns Samsung modules
that overclocked well beyond their stock clock speeds.
Needless to say, based on our experience with other 9600
Pros and Tyan's own Tachyon G9700 and G9500 Pros, we were
expecting the G9600 Pro to at least match the
overclockability of these other cards. Unfortunately,
we were let down.
We used the Tyan Graphics
Monitor to overclock the G9600 Pro until visual artifacts
became visible during the benchmarks. The maximum core
and memory clock speeds we were able to attain were 515MHz
and 313MHz, respectively. The G9600's core overclocked
very well, surpassing its default clock speed by an
impressive 115MHz, but the memory would only overclock by a
picayune
13MHz. It appears that the Hynix memory used on this
card simply does not have enough headroom for significant
overclocking.
We're not quite sure what to
make of the Tyan Tachyon G9600 Pro. It is definitely a
great card, with an excellent feature set. On one
hand, the G9600 Pro is currently the only Radeon 9600 Pro
with hardware monitoring capabilities, it has a great
cooling setup with a variable speed fan, and it will be
available in a dual-DVI configuration, something that should
please anyone looking to use multiple digital LCD flat
panels. On
the other hand, many enthusiasts have been attracted to the
Radeon 9600 Pro because of its overclockability, which
unfortunately happens to be the main area where this board is lacking.
However, we can't ding this card too severely because it
wouldn't run as far out of spec as we would have liked.
In the end, if you plan to buy a Radeon 9600 Pro and won't
be overclocking, this is the card for you. The feature
set and cooling solution are superior than any of the other
9600 Pros we've looked at to date. And with its
tweaked layout and superior features, the G9600 Pro is still
selling at a similar price point to other Radeon 9600 Pros
($180 vs. $165). Be that as it may, hardcore overclockers should probably shop around. Based on its
great features and competitive price, we're giving the Tyan
Tachyon G9600 Pro a HotHardware Heat Meter rating of
7.5.
(Update 8 / 7 / 2003 - Rumor
has it, the Dual-DVI Version of this card may not ship.
We sent an e-mail to Tyan asking if this was true.
We'll update this space when we get an answer.)
There are a ton of folks just like you in HotHardware's PC
Hardware Forum...Go There Now!
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