ATi RADEON - The Empire strikes back (15/15) Conclusion ATi has made quite an impressive re-emergence into the high-end 3D market with the RADEON, although it didn’t quite achieve it’s goal of besting NVIDIA. Especially the card’s 16 bit performance is still weak, which may be a driver or a hardware issue. Possibly a reason for this can be found in the lack of two texture units in comparison to the GeForce2? The 64MB version I tested greatly profits from its fast memory (183MHz DDR) in 32bit color. Please note however that with the standard settings, the card runs with the option "convert 32 bit texture to 16 bit" enabled, giving it a boost of another few FPS at a slightly reduced image quality. The difference in quality is negligible, however. At least I couldn’t see a difference. Although the Hercules 3D Prophet II 64 is still securely in first place in terms of performance, the RADEON can pass a GeForce2 at stock speeds at higher resolutions. Nonetheless, NVIDIA retains its firm hold on the performance crown. Thanks to its extensive set of driver tools and the video-in and out functionality, the RADEON 64 DDR can nonetheless inch its way ahead of the Hercules 3D Prophet II 64, which reached an overall score of 92%. Mostly, the lackluster NVIDIA reference drivers are to blame for this, since they don’t offer much beyond good performance. Manufacturers who simply use NVIDIA reference drivers needs to get on the ball and include some better TV-out support, among other things. This is where ATi’s great amount of experience as OEM market leader really helps. Compared with these two cards, the Voodoo5 seems a bit outclassed and can’t compete – as does the 32MB GeForce2. Bear in mind, however, that these are really competitors to the RADEON 32MB 166MHz DDR (~333 MHz) with its slower clock speed and lower price. If ATi gets its driver/performance issues worked out, the RADEON definitely has the potential to cause NVIDIA some major headaches, since a multichip RADEON is much more than just a technical possibility (RADEON MAXX, anyone?). NVIDIA isn’t resting on its laurels, though, and the NV20 isn’t too far off either...
Overall results VGA cards (Since I use this rating system): ATi RADEON 64MB DDR: 93% Explanation of the rating system Lars "Borsti" Weinand - August 2000 Translation by Benjamin Kraft Questions? Opinion? - Go to our Forum! |
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| Copyright: 07.08.2000 -
RIVA
Station 2000 - Lars Weinand Translation by Benjamin Kraft URL of this Article: www.rivastation.com/radeon64_e.htm - If you want to link to it, please use this URL! :-) |
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