Author: Neumann Lim
Editor: Howard Ha
Publish Date: Monday, July 22nd, 2002
Originally Published on Neoseeker (http://www.neoseeker.com)
Article Link: http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Previews/rv300/
Copyright Neo Era Media, Inc. - please do not redistribute or use for commercial purposes.
With the introduction of Radeon 9700 (R300) and Radeon 9000 (RV250), ATI finally manages to exceed what nVidia has to offer at least on paper. nVidia's successful attempts to block ATI from the crown with its GeForce 4 Ti series and its superior Detonator4 drivers has put ATI on the defensive. However, with the upcoming release of Radeon 9700, it is a contest of who will sit quite comfortably on the throne.
The real kicker is that the Radeon 9000 Pro is being priced at $129 USD and fully compatible with DirectX 8.1. Radeon 9000 Pro poses serious threats to nVidia in the sub-$150 market. Radeon 9700 will feature full compatibility with DirectX 9. Unless nVidia switches to the new DirectX standards we could be looking at a new king.
Lets look at some of the features that are expected to be in the 9000 and 9700.
|
|
Radeon 9000 Pro |
Radeon 9700 |
|
Manufacturing Process |
0.15u |
0.15u |
|
Core Speed |
275MHz |
325MHz ? |
|
Memory Speed |
550MHz DDR |
650MHz DDR ? |
|
Memory Bandwidth |
8.8GB/sec |
20GB/sec |
|
Memory Type |
128bit DDR |
256bit DDR |
|
Peak Pixel Fill Rate |
1100 Mpixels/sec |
2600Mpixels/sec |
|
Rendering Pipelines |
4 |
8 |
|
Maximum Textures Applied per Pass |
6 |
16 |
|
Texture Units per Pipeline |
1 |
1 |
|
Vertex Shader |
1.1 |
2.0 |
(Technical data retrieved from http://www.ati.com/developer/prodinfo.html)
RADEON 9700
RADEON 9700 is the world's fastest and most advanced graphics board to date, featuring ATI's RADEON 9700 Visual Processing Unit (VPU). Through a combination of incredible 3D rendering performance, sophisticated real-time visual effects, unsurpassed image quality and cutting-edge video features, it takes the PC entertainment experience to a totally new level.
|
Specifications
System Requirements
§
Intel Pentium 4/III/II/Celeron, AMD
K6/Duron/Athlon/Athlon XP or compatible with AGP 2X (3.3v), 4X (1.5V), 8X
(0.8v) or Universal AGP 3.0 bus configuration (2X/4X/8X).
§
128MB of system memory
§
Installation software requires CD-ROM drive
§
DVD playback requires DVD drive
Graphics Technology
§
RADEON 9700 Visual Processing Unit (VPU)
Memory Configuration
§
128MB of double data rate SDRAM
Operating Systems Support
§
Windows XP
§
Windows 2000
§
Windows Me
Display Support
§
VGA connector for analog CRT
§
S-video or composite connector for TV / VCR
§
DVI-I connector for digital CRT or flat panel
§
Independent resolutions and refresh rates for any two
connected displays
Features
§
Eight parallel rendering pipelines
§
Four parallel geometry engines
§
256-bit DDR memory interface
§
AGP 8X support
§
Programmable pixel and vertex shaders
§
16 textures per pass
§
Pixel shaders up to 160
instructions with 128-bit floating point precision
§
Vertex shaders up to 1024
instructions with flow control
§
Multiple render target support
§
Shadow volume rendering acceleration
§
High precision 10-bit per channel frame buffer support
§
Supports DirectX 9.0 and the latest version of OpenGL
§
2x/4x/6x full scene anti-aliasing modes
§
Adaptive algorithm with programmable sample patterns
§
2x/4x/8x/16x anisotropic filtering modes
§
Adaptive algorithm with bi-linear (performance) and
tri-linear (quality) options
§
3-level Hierarchical Z-Buffer with early Z test
§
Lossless Z-Buffer compression (up to 24:1)
§
Fast Z-Buffer Clear
§
2nd generation N-Patch higher order surface
support
§
Discrete and continuous tessellation levels per polygon
§
Displacement mapping
§
Seamless integration of pixel shaders
with video
§
FULLSTREAM
video de-blocking technology
§
Noise removal filtering for captured video
§
MPEG-2 decoding with motion compensation, iDCT and color space conversion
§
All-format DTV/HDTV decoding
§
YPrPb component output
§
Adaptive de-interlacing and frame rate conversion
§
Dual integrated display controllers
§
Dual integrated 10-bit per channel 400 MHz DACs
§
Integrated 165 MHz TMDS transmitter (DVI & HDCP
compliant)
§
Integrated TV Output support up to 1024x768 resolution
§
Optimized for Pentium 4 SSE2 and AMD Athlon
3Dnow!
§
PC 2002 compliant
Warranty
§
3-year limited warranty
Mode Tables
2D DISPLAY MODES
Resolutions, colors and maximum refresh rates (Hz) in 256, 65K or 16.7M colors
|
Monitor Resolution |
Hz |
|
640x480 |
200 |
|
800x600 |
200 |
|
1024x768 |
200 |
|
1152x864 |
200 |
|
1280x1024 |
160 |
|
1600x1200 |
120 |
|
1920x1080*
16:9 |
120 |
|
1920x1200 |
100 |
|
1920x1440 |
90 |
|
2048x1536 |
85 |
*16:9 aspect ratio monitors are supported on 1920x1080 and 848x480 on
Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Winpows ME. The
complete list of resolutions depends on the driver version and operating
system. NOTE: that resolutions are limited by the
performance of the attatched monitor.
MAXIMUM 3D RESOLUTIONS
(with 128MB Frame Buffer)
|
65K colors |
2048x1536 |
|
16.7M
colors |
2048x1536 |
Radeon 9700 Die
You can expect to see the Radeon 9700 die in the 0.15u process. This die will feature an estimated 100+ million transistors and thats compared to the Parhelia at 80 million transistors! ATI seems to going for a core clock speed of at least 300MHz but that is still yet to be finalized and we might see even higher speeds. In terms of power drain, I can guarantee this baby is going to being sucking a lot of power so be prepared to use a 350W power supply to power all your computing peripherals.
Radeon 9700 AGP 8x
ATI has been boasting about full compatibility with AGP 8x so its no surprise to see that the Radeon 9700 will feature this. The significance is that vertex transfers take place at a speed of 2.0GB/sec instead of the older AGP 4x at 1.0GB/sec.
Radeon 9700 Memory
The Radeon 9700 will sport 256bit DDR. This will offer a memory bandwidth of about 20GB/sec (based on the calculation: 256/8 x 2 x 325). The Radeon 9700 will also feature a 4 channel 64bit memory controller, allowing 4 separate transfers to take place at once. The maximum memory size is 256MB of DDR or DDR2.
Featuring a revolutionary Quad-pipe architecture and 64MB of memory, RADEON 9000 PRO provides best-of-class* performance to accelerate all popular 3D applications. Four parallel, highly optimized rendering pipelines, typically available only for the high-end gaming cards, significantly enhance performance and game-play responsiveness when compared to the standard 2-pipeline architectures found in most mid-range products.
  |
Mode Tables
Resolutions, colors and maximum refresh rates (Hz) in 256, 65K or 16.7M colors
2D DISPLAY MODES
|
Monitor Resolution |
Hz |
|
640x480 |
200 |
|
800x600 |
200 |
|
1024x768 |
200 |
|
1152x864 |
200 |
|
1280x1024 |
160 |
|
1600x1200 |
120 |
|
1920x1080*
16:9 |
120 |
|
1920x1200 |
100 |
|
1920x1440 |
90 |
|
2048x1536 |
85 |
*16:9 aspect ratio monitors are supported on 1920x1080 and 848x480 on
Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Winpows ME. The
complete list of resolutions depends on the driver version and operating
system. NOTE: that resolutions are limited by the
performance of the attatched monitor.
65K colors 2048x1536 16.7M
colors 2048x1536 Radeon
9000 Technology The
Radeon 9000 comes in the 0.15u process with a core
clock speed of 275MHz. The real kicker with the 9000 is that it is based on
8500 technology but it is fully DirectX 8.1 compatible at USD$100 less in
price!
Radeon
9000 Pro Radeon
9000 Radeon
8500 Manufacturing Process 0.15u 0.15u 0.15u Core Speed 275MHz 250MHz 275MHz ? Memory Speed 550MHz DDR 400MHz DDR 550MHz DDR ? Memory Bandwidth 8.8GB/sec 6.4GB/sec 8.8GB/sec Memory Type 128bit DDR 128bit DDR 128bit DDR Rendering Pipelines 4 4 4 Maximum Textures Applied per Pass 6 6 3 Texture Units per Pipeline 1 1 1 Vertex Shader 1.1 1.1 1.1 Pixel Shader 1.4 1.4 1.4 RAMDAC 2 x 400MHz 2 x 400MHz 2 x 400MHz
MAXIMUM 3D RESOLUTIONS
The major difference between the 9000 Pro and the 8500 is that the 9000 has four pixel pipelines that can only calculate 1 texture per cycle instead of 2. However, the 9000 had an increase in the number of textures that comprise the end pixel from three to six to compensate for the weaker multi-texturing performance! This just means that the 9000 will perform poorly in gaming scenarios that require heavy texturing.
Conclusion
The Radeon 9000 series is a GeForce 4 MX replacement. As a gamer, I wouldnt hold out for it. On the other hand, the Radeon 9700 is something to behold with full 8x AGP and DirectX 9 compatibility, 256bit DDR, 20GB/sec memory bandwidth, Vertex/Pixel Shader 2.0, Hyper Z III and a maximum 256MB card Im already drooling.
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