With the
GeForce
FX just
weeks
away, users are already questioning whether they should get the RADEON 9700
now or wait for the coming of the Next Big Thing. But even some of us arewaiting,
many enthusiasts are already suggesting that the 9700 PRO will be the best high
performance choice for the next few months. As the current fastest card on the
market, the RADEON 9700 PRO has enjoyed the spotlight for a long time, and here
we're going to give it a little more attention as we look at Gigabyte's Maya
II R9700 PRO card.
First Impressions and Discussion
The Gigabyte GV-R9700PRO is yet another 9700PRO based on ATI's reference design.
At first glance, it surprises you because Gigabyte has added some pizzazz to
the card by using a gold coloured heatsink on the chip. They've also added two
passive memory heatsinks to the chips on the chip-side of the card - also Gold
coloured. If you find it odd that Gigabyte would add heatsinks to RAM on one
side of the card, and not have heatsinks on the RAM chips on the flip side,
you're not alone - it left is wondering just how effective cooling only half
the RAM would be in an overclock situation.
The R9000PRO comes clocked at a core speed of 325Mhz and a memory speed of
620Mhz (using 310Mhz DDR RAM); the very same as the default ATI cards. You can
see from the below image that the card is identical in layout to the ATI, and
thus the FIC 9700PRO cards, except for the 2 RAM heatsinks. Even the RAM is
the exact same Samsung RAM, Part number K4D26323RA-GC2A.
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