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OCUK ATI RADEON 9700 PRO REVIEW

"In this article we review the OCUK ATI RADEON 9700 PRO video card, featured software includes Half Life 2, Doom3, Quake3, Tribes Vengeance, Unreal Tournament 2004, X2 The Threat and various other popular games software."

ATI Radeon® 9700 Pro is the most advanced graphics board in its category, featuring ATI's Radeon 9700 Pro Visual Processing Unit (VPU), supporting AGP design specifications. Through a combination of incredible 3D rendering performance, sophisticated real-time visual effects, industry-leading image quality, processing speed, and cutting-edge video features, it takes the PC entertainment experience to a new level.

• Fastest 3D gaming performance with next-generation VPU architecture.
• Complete DirectX® 9.0 support for unprecedented realism and sophisticated visual effects.
• Smoothvision™ 2.0 technology provides new levels of image quality.
• Revolutionary new video features including Videoshader™ and Fullstream™ technologies.
• Featuring Catalyst™ - ATI's industry leading software suite with frequently scheduled updates.
• .15 Silicon Process.
• 110 Million Transistors.
• 325Mhz Core Clock Speed.
• 8 Rendering Pipelines with 1 texture sampling unit per pipe giving 2.6Giga Fillrate.
• 128MB of 310Mhz DDR RAM on a 256Bit Bus giving 19.8GB per second actual bandwidth.
• Up to 16 textures per pass.
• 4 Parallel Geometry Pipeline giving a peak Triangle throughput of 325Mtri/sec.
• Dual Display Controllers with two 400MHz RAMDAC's and Integrated TMDS Transmitter.
• DirectX Version 9.0 Compliancy.
• Trueform 2.0 Higher Order Surface Processor.
• Smartshader 2.0.
• DX Vertex Shaders 2.0.
• DX Pixel Shaders 2.0.
• HyperZ III Memory Optimisations.
• Smoothvision 2.0.
• Up to 6X FSAA.
• Up to 16X Anisotropic Filtering.
• Videoshader Video/DVD Playback.
• Hydravision Display Software.

RIGHTMARK BETA 4 GEOMETRY PROCESSING SPEED (AMBIENT) 81 88 GEOMETRY PROCESSING SPEED (DIFFUSE + SPECULAR) 22 61 PIXEL SHADING (PS1.1) 692 544 PIXEL SHADING (PS2.0) 203 53 POINT SPRITES 642 541 OCUK ATI RADEON 9700 PRO MSI GEFORCE FX 5900 XT BENCHMARK SETTINGS 1024x768 Resolution 32Bit colour Depth COMMENT - "The results start off badly for the OCUK ATI Radeon 9700 Pro when it loses both of the first two tests to the MSI GeForce 5900 XT. The OCUK ATI Radeon 9700 Pro lost especially badly with the Diffuse and Specular Geometry test when the MSI GeForce 5900 XT beat it by a huge 64%. After that it was very good news for the OCUK ATI Radeon 9700 Pro when it won all of remaining three tests including the most important pixel shader tests. With the basic pixel shader 1.1 test the OCUK ATI Radeon 9700 Pro manages a good 22% performance increase over the MSI GeForce 5900 XT. The most important test in Rightmark is the Pixel Shader 2.0 test and this test shows the real power of the OCUK ATI Radeon 9700 Pro when it crushes the MSI GeForce 5900 XT by offering a HUGE 74% performance increase. The point sprite test was more of the same and the OCUK ATI Radeon 9700 Pro beat the MSI GeForce 5900 XT by a modest 16% this time."

DOOM III LOW QUALITY 66 66 MEDIUM QUALITY 44 43 HIGH QUALITY 23 31 OCUK ATI RADEON 9700 PRO MSI GEFORCE 5900 XT COMMENT - "Using the cpu limited low quality setting we see that the OCUK ATI Radeon 9700 Pro and MSI GeForce 5900 XT both perform the same. Using the medium quality setting with most of the high quality effects enabled we see an approx 35% performance drop for both of the video cards. Using the high quality setting with all of the high quality effects enabled and we see the OCUK ATI Radeon 9700 Pro really struggling against the MSI GeForce 5900 XT. The reason for the OCUK ATI Radeon 9700 Pro lack of performance using high quality is the use of shadows. The MSI GeForce 5900 XT uses Nvidia Ultrashadow Technology which helps it render shadows, the OCUK ATI Radeon 9700 Pro doesn't have that technology so it's performance suffers." BENCHMARK SETTINGS High Quality 1024x768 Screen Size Fullscreen Enabled Vertical Sync Disabled Demo1 Benchmark LOW QUALITY Bump Maps Disabled Shadows Disabled Special Effects Disabled Specular Disabled Antialiasing Disabled MEDIUM QUALITY Bump Maps Enabled Shadows Disabled Special Effects Enabled Specular Enabled Antialiasing Disabled HIGH QUALITY Bump Maps Enabled Shadows Enabled Special Effects Enabled Specular Enabled Anti-aliasing Enabled

FAR CRY LOW QUALITY 79 73 MEDIUM QUALITY 52 48 HIGH QUALITY 42 40 HIGH QUALITY (4xAA & 8xAF) 30 30 OCUK ATI RADEON 9700 PRO MSI GEFORCE 5900 XT COMMENT - "The OCUK ATI Radeon 9700 Pro starts off strongly delivering an 8% performance increase over the MSI GeForce 5900 XT. However as we increase the image quality the performance difference drops to 7%, 5% and finally to 0% with both video cards offering equal performance." BENCHMARK SETTINGS Resolution 1024x768 Anti-Aliasing Disabled Fullscreen Enabled Vertical Sync Disabled Default Render Mode LOW QUALITY Texture Quality Low Bilinear Anisotropic Filtering 1 Particle Count Low Special Effects Low Enviroment Quality Low Shadow Quality Low Water Quality Low Lighting Quality Low MEDIUM QUALITY Texture Quality Medium Trilinear Anisotropic Filtering 2 Particle Count Medium Special Effects Medium Enviroment Quality Medium Shadow Quality Medium Water Quality Medium Lighting Quality Medium HIGH QUALITY Texture Quality High Trilinear Anisotropic Filtering 4 Particle Count High Special Effects High Enviroment Quality High Shadow Quality High Water Quality High Lighting Quality High

HALF LIFE 2 MEDIUM QUALITY 71 80 HIGH QUALITY 59 71 HIGH QUALITY (4xAA & 8xAF) 46 45 OCUK ATI RADEON 9700 PRO MSI GEFORCE 5900 XT COMMENT - "You might be thinking what amazing results the MSI GeForce 5900 XT delivers compared to the OCUK ATI Radeon 9700 Pro. The problem is that the OCUK ATI Radeon 9700 Pro is using DX9 which improves the water quality and delivers much better looking effects. The MSI GeForce 5900 XT has very poor DX9 performance so the makers of Half Life 2 decided that ALL GeForce FX video cards should only use DX8. If the MSI GeForce 5900 XT was using DX9 then it's frame rates would be in the mid to high 30's and it would easily be beaten by the OCUK ATI Radeon 9700 Pro." BENCHMARK SETTINGS MEDIUM QUALITY Model Detail Medium Texture Detail Medium Water Detail Reflect Shadow Detail High Shader Detail High Trilinear Filtering HIGH QUALITY Model Detail High Texture Detail High Water Detail Reflect Shadow Detail High Shader Detail High 8x Anisotropic Filtering

HALF LIFE 2 EXTRA COAST05 45 47 COAST12 69 67 PRISON05 72 61 OCUK ATI RADEON 9700 PRO MSI GEFORCE 5900 XT BENCHMARK SETTINGS HIGH QUALITY Model Detail High Texture Detail High Water Detail Reflect Shadow Detail High Shader Detail High 8x Anisotropic Filtering COMMENT - "Look at these great results for the OCUK ATI Radeon 9700 Pro, even though it is using DX9 and the MSI GeForce 5900 XT is using DX8 it still manages to beat the MSI GeForce 5900 XT in two out of the three benchmarks. Using the Prison05 benchmark the OCUK ATI Radeon 9700 Pro using DX9 was 16% faster than the MSI GeForce 5900 XT which was using DX8."

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