POWERCOLOR RADEON 9700 PRO REVIEW

"In this reader requested review we compare the Powercolor Radeon 9700 Pro against the Leadtek GeForce 6600, Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT and Gigabyte GeForce PCX 5900. We used a range of software including:- 3dmark 2001 SE, 3dmark 2003, 3dmark 2005, 3dmark 2006 and Rightmark."

POWERCOLOR RADEON 9700 PRO SPECIFICATIONS

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.

POWERCOLOR RADEON 9700 PRO

CHIP	GPU	CORE CLOCK MHZ	MEMORY CLOCK MHZ	MEMORY INTERFACE	PIXELS PER CLOCK	DIRECTX
POWERCOLOR RADEON 9700 PRO	R300	325	620	256	8	9.0
LEADTEK GEFORCE 6600	NV43	300	550	128	8	9.0C
SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600 XT	RV360	500	650	128	4	9.0
GIGABYTE GEFORCE PCX 5900	NV34	350	500	256	4	9.0
CHIP	GPU	CORE CLOCK MHZ	MEMORY CLOCK MHZ	MEMORY INTERFACE	PIXELS PER CLOCK	DIRECTX

GENERAL SYSTEM INFORMATION

PROCESSOR	AMD ATHLON64 3000
VIDEO CARD	POWERCOLOR RADEON 9700 PRO
	SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600 XT
	LEADTEK GEFORCE 6600
	GIGABYTE GEFORCE PCX 5900
ATI DRIVER	ATI CATALYST v6.6
NVIDIA DRIVER	NVIDIA FORCEWARE v91.31
MOTHERBOARD	ASROCK 939 DUAL SATA 2
MEMORY	2 x 512MB OCZ GOLD XTC PC3200 DDR
OPERATING SYSTEM	WINDOWS XP SERVICE PACK 2
DIRECTX VERSION	v9.0c

3DMARK BENCHMARKS

3DMARK 2001 SE

	15785
	13523
	13653
	13117

3DMARK 2003

	4960
	5168
	4367
	4576

3DMARK 2005

	2159
	1955
	2047
	862

3DMARK 2006

	500
	875
	445
	148

POWERCOLOR RADEON 9700 PRO LEADTEK GEFORCE 6600
SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600 XT GIGABYTE GEFORCE PCX 5900

COMMENT - "The Powercolor Radeon 9700 Pro puts in a great performance with 3dmark 2001 SE and outperforms the Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT by 14%. In an unexpected twist the Leadtek GeForce 6600 pulls out a victory against the Powercolor Radeon 9700 Pro with 3dmark 2003 beating it by 5%. Things return to normal with 3dmark 2005 and the Powercolor Radeon 9700 Pro beats the Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT by 6%. 3dmark 2006 is more advanced than all of the other 3dmark programs and has SM2.0 and SM3.0 tests. The only video card which can complete all of the tests is the SM3.0 equipped Leadtek GeForce 6600 which is why it's score of 875 is 43% faster than the Powercolor Radeon 9700 Pro."

RIGHTMARK

PIXEL SHADING (PS1.1)

	725
	646
	524
	508

PIXEL SHADING (PS2.0)

	208
	184
	160
	47

POWERCOLOR RADEON 9700 PRO LEADTEK GEFORCE 6600
SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600 XT GIGABYTE GEFORCE PCX 5900

COMMENT - "The Powercolor Radeon 9700 Pro does well beating the Leadtek GeForce 6600 by 11% with the PS1.1 benchmark and then by 12% with the PS2.0 benchmark."

SHADERMARK 2.0

	3638
	3942
	2896
	1545

POWERCOLOR RADEON 9700 PRO LEADTEK GEFORCE 6600
SAPPHIRE RADEON 9600 XT GIGABYTE GEFORCE PCX 5900

COMMENT - "The Powercolor Radeon 9700 Pro and Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT both fail some of the dynamic flow control and floating point filtering tests. This gives the victory to the Leadtek GeForce 6600 and it beats the Powercolor Radeon 9700 Pro by 8%."

POWERCOLOR RADEON 9700 PRO REVIEW INDEX

PAGE 1 - POWERCOLOR RADEON 9700 PRO INTRODUCTION

PAGE 2 - AURORA WATCHING EARTH 2160, FAR CRY, GT LEGENDS AND QUAKE 4

PAGE 3 - SCOOTER WAR3Z, SCRAPLAND, SERIOUS SAM II AMD TRACKMANIA SUNRISE

PAGE 4 - TRIBES VENGEANCE, UNREAL TOURNMENT 2004 AND XPAND RALLY

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