Nvidia - Anti-Competitive, Anti-Consumer, Anti-Technology

[Mark1989]

I have always had mix of cards going way back to Voodoo cards.

Amd gto2 amazing card also that could flash it for a big boost there 7 series cards also great even the little 7770, 7870 was of course fab.

That being said I'm team green right now, and it's amd **** poor quality on rx cards, I had a 470 fail and two 480 fail which made me swap back to team green.

Unless amd do something great again I'll be sticking to my 1070.

I honestly feel they were much better when it was just ATi.

People always say nvidea the problem but it's ******** amd as a company have had countless generations to put out a decent card to compete at high end scale and haven't its that simple. VEGA there savior is still too power hungry and not all that great imo.

What Amd are great at and still are and better than nvidea is bang for buck, I had very poor luck with rx series but when they worked for what you paid at launch and performance you got was outstanding

 

[Sasahara]

I put it to you that most of NVIDIAs R&D budget is going towards AI and deep learning and we haven't had a new GPU architecture for 2 years. Plus Pascal was just a highly clocked version of previous cards.

And given that still AMD can't compete with them?

But in any case R&D has a cumulative effect, so everything they have spent including acquisitions of other companies going back well over 10-20 years ago goes into what we have now.
The GPU architecture we had two years ago wouldn't have been as good if Nvidia was a small equal player with another 5-6 competing companies.

 

[Undesirable]

And given that still AMD can't compete with them?

No they can't. That shows you how effective NVIDIAs underhanded tactics have been.

But in any case R&D has a cumulative effect, so everything they have spent including acquisitions of other companies going back well over 10-20 years ago goes into what we have now.
The GPU architecture we had two years ago wouldn't have been as good if Nvidia was a small equal player with another 5-6 competing companies.

Any gains made by R&D could be offset by the fact that NVIDIA now invests less in GPU development than they otherwise would and / or artificially holds the tech back. Where are the new freaking cards if they've got such a massive R&D budget? Where are the DX12 optimized cards that should have been with us years ago?

 

[KillBoY_UK]

And given that still AMD can't compete with them?

But in any case R&D has a cumulative effect, so everything they have spent including acquisitions of other companies going back well over 10-20 years ago goes into what we have now.
The GPU architecture we had two years ago wouldn't have been as good if Nvidia was a small equal player with another 5-6 competing companies.

I remember what it was like in the early days of 3d cards lots of company's lots of vendor only API lots of BS (games which you had to have one vendor's card or the game wouldn't even run) In short it was a Cluster "Fornication" with only one clear option from 3DFX and was like that for years later until the Likes of Maxtrox, Nvidia, ATI had a better product things change.

So as I and others have said AMD and Intel need to provide a better product for things to change. Like how AMD has provided a better product in the CPU space and looks how that's lit a fire under the market the past year.

 

[KillBoY_UK]

No they can't. That shows you how effective NVIDIAs underhanded tactics have been.


Any gains made by R&D could be offset by the fact that NVIDIA now invests less in GPU development than they otherwise would and / or artificially holds the tech back. Where are the new freaking cards if they've got such a massive R&D budget? Where are the DX12 optimized cards that should have been with us years ago?

Pascal is still selling well and they put R&D in not just GPU's. Its annoying I would love some new tech to talk about it but from a business POV why bother atm

 

[Kaapstad]

No they can't. That shows you how effective NVIDIAs underhanded tactics have been.


Any gains made by R&D could be offset by the fact that NVIDIA now invests less in GPU development than they otherwise would and / or artificially holds the tech back. Where are the new freaking cards if they've got such a massive R&D budget? Where are the DX12 optimized cards that should have been with us years ago?

NVidia are still producing the cards based on their R & D spend like the Titan V but they are under no pressure to upgrade the Pascal cards for gaming as there is nothing from the competition to match them.

NVidia will produce more Volta based cards for gaming when it is cheap and easy to make 12nm so the R & D spend won't go to waste but why should they rush when there is no competition?

 

[Freddie1980]

You have to spend the a similar amount for an AND GPU at the same performance level. And if AMD can't compete why would any other GPU company of a similar size compete if they still existed?

And why do you think we are in such a position today?

And if you think that Nvidia has killed to competition is bad. (It may be)
I put it to you that if they hadn't and we had 5 or 6 competing companies all with small R & D budgets including AMD and Nvidia, all the current generation of GPUs could be significantly slower than they are now.
So you could be paying £400 for a RX580 level performance because it's the top end card. (But you'd be happy because you wouldn't know any better)

We've not had that many companies developing PC video cards since the mid 90's so it's mute point, the industry back then was in it's infancy before growing into maturity by the early/mid 2000's and it's pure economic evloution for companies to change direction or get bought out. Ending up with just three companies making dedicated PC graphics seems natural given the specialist knowledge required to develop such products.

BTW those small R&D budgets gave us cards like the Power VR and 3DFX's Voodoo 1, comparatively speaking those products done more for the PC gaming industry then anything that's come after them.

 

[Panos]

Spends billions in R&D making clever decisions and advancements = anti competitive and anti technology...? Haters gonna hate.

You serious? Did you see the video?
There is nothing new on the NV underhand tactics over the years, trying to remove competition from the market by any means necessary. Even when their competition was much better than them.

 

[Panos]

And given that still AMD can't compete with them?

What are you smoking? AMD is competing against NV even right now. Bellow the exuberant £500+ pricetag, Nvidia has nothing to beat AMD cards at their respective price ranged.
RX480 & 580 are beating GTX1060 6Gb and so are the 570s & 560s mop up everything else on their price ranges.

AMD doesn't have a halo product like 1080Ti or the ridiculous priced Titans. But that doesn't matter.

 

[TNA]

AMD doesn't have a halo product like 1080Ti or the ridiculous priced Titans. But that doesn't matter.

I would not say it does not matter. Those halo cards help sell the lower tier cards too. Also you happen to have that exact same halo card yourself.

Would have made an offer to buy it off you, but you are trying to brake even after 1 year use which is not working for me
Not having a pop at you or anything btw, in your position I maybe have been doing the same

 

[tommybhoy]

Would have made an offer to buy it off you, but you are trying to brake even after 1 year use which is not working for me

Maybe, pfft, pot, kettle,

 

[Sasahara]

What are you smoking? AMD is competing against NV even right now. Bellow the exuberant £500+ pricetag, Nvidia has nothing to beat AMD cards at their respective price ranged.
RX480 & 580 are beating GTX1060 6Gb and so are the 570s & 560s mop up everything else on their price ranges.

AMD doesn't have a halo product like 1080Ti or the ridiculous priced Titans. But that doesn't matter.

So AMD is competing? Then why the whining about Nvidia's underhand tactics, if they were competing you wouldn't have a problem?
I'm pretty sure AMDs market share tells us they are not competing very well, despite having a decent line-up in the lower to mid-range market.

Please note I have been one of their customers in this price/performance bracket in the last 2 years, and I've not purchased an Nvidia GPU below a GTX 1070 performance in that time.
And I would always recommend a RXxxx over the competing GTX 10 Series card unless there was a significant price difference or availability problem.

But being able to compete doesn't solely relay on the products performance and price. AMD have failed to out sell Nvidia due to many reasons, not all of them due to Nvidia being dicks.
The RX400 and 500 series were pretty much sold out for most of the last 2 years, but they still didn't out sell Nvidia, so they have supply problems. (It doesn't matter if it was crypto miners buying them)
If you can't make enough units to supply the market and your competitor does, you can't really blame them.

Also if ATI and Nvidia had been more even over the last 20 years the chances are AMD would not have been able to purchase a healthy ATI, so we would be in a completely different market, AMD might be in even more trouble without ATI, Intel might have completely cleaned up and AMD might have folded who knows.

As more not having a 1080ti level product not mattering, they didn't have a GTX 1080/1070 level product for a year. The profits of these card are likely to be multiple of the smaller cards, so they do matter to the companies profits.

 

[Panos]

I would not say it does not matter. Those halo cards help sell the lower tier cards too. Also you happen to have that exact same halo card yourself.

Would have made an offer to buy it off you, but you are trying to brake even after 1 year use which is not working for me
Not having a pop at you or anything btw, in your position I maybe have been doing the same

No worries mate I even have an Intel CPU.
That was bday self present :/ Had initially ordered a Vega 64 LC on the day they came out on sale at OCUK, but there was no stock having to wait weeks for after my birthday and didn't want Sapphire because I was going to WC it.
Also the 1080Ti barely worked three weeks since mid December. I was either on holidays (more than two months) or using the laptop because contracting in London & Stoke for three months.
And funny enough you will find haven't posted anything on the benchmarks threads here, because I havent overclocked it, but once just to 2036 when I got it and used it some times when playing TWW2 last year. Since then is stock with custom curve to keep it cool.
The 1989-1999 stock boost clock is very powerful for the strategy games I play (Stellaris, EUIV) or WOT/WOWS.

And the GTX 1080Ti has annoyed me for no reason other than I feel no need spending hours or days to create a curve for it. Did it on the 1080 hitting 2190 and feeling proud, or the FuryX with 1190 core took quite a tweaking or the Nano with 1150 core. But 1080Ti is no sport and always wanted to sell it and grab a Vega but until few weeks ago Vega had issues with Stellaris and HOI IV so had to keep it.
You could say this card was feeling like burden

Hence after selling the FuryX and Nano last night, going to grab a new reference Vega 64 for WC this or next week, and put on sale the 1080Ti again at the reduced price had it on MM until last night.
Vega 64 imho is more sport for me and looking forward to put my hands on the P states and see what I can do with it.

 

[bru]

Ok I tried to watch it before posting, but after 20 mins of that voice, I just cannot put up with it any more.

So it all starts out quite well, with reference to the fact that NVidia release new and faster products every year, but then the hate train begins.

He bangs on about the suing of other companies, welcome to the post millennium era, it seems to be standard practice to sue for any and every reason these days and the way the US patent system works you can see why it happens. Phones with rounded corners anyone?

The use of rebrands. Well that never happens in this industry does it, oh wait it happens all the time, by all the major players. If anything slightly less with NVidia, over the last few generations, but it not an unheard of practice. What are the chances of the AMD 680 being a rebrand?

The 9700 smashing the competition, well yes in that slide he showed it did, but here is another page from the same review.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/970/10

Oh look not smashing the 9700 all of a sudden, so yes we can all cherry pick benchmarks.
One other point about the performance of the 4600, it was launched 5 1/2 months earlier than the AMD 9700, and 6 months later the 5800and 5800 ultra arrived. all of a sudden the 9700 doesn't look quite so special.

The point about 3Dmark is valid NVidia were caught cheating plain and simple, just goes to show that some of his content is accurate.

NVidia shills, oh boy. Did it happen, probably did, does it still happen, who knows.
The only person on this forum that I know has become affiliated with one of the major companies is LT Matt and he promptly changed his name to AMD Matt and stop posting anti NVidia comments, only pro AMD ones. Which is fine and exactly the way I would expect any paid person to behave. Are their others, I really don't know and before anyone accuses me, all I can say is if signing an NDA and posting pro NVidia comments will get me an upgrade from my 970, where do I sign, it could have saved me the £500 for the Dell 27" Gsync monitor, as well probably.

That's as far as I got, before his voice got to me too much, so I just couldn't watch any more.

Just one other thing, that was mentioned earlier in this thread. what Jim of AdoredTV did to Ryan Shrout was unbelievably out of order, and Jim had to take action to stop the incited violence by posting that he never wanted anyone to threaten or harm the Shrout family. So close to breaking the Swedish anti hate law, it wasn't funny.
If you didn't like what Ryan of PCper was doing then do like I did and stop watching or reading his stuff, you don't publish his home address, that was just a completely bizzare move on Jim's part.

Anyway enough of a rant from me and I only managed to get 20 min's into the video, did it really need to be an hour long just to say NVidia are bad and greedy, they have done wrong in the past. Well guess what most big companies have done some shifty stuff in the past and if you really want to make an hour long video of all a companies errors, I cannot wait for the AMD one, which of course will probably never get made.


Edit: Upon further investigation, it appears that I was incorrect Jim did not post Ryans address, so apologies to Jim from AdoredTV

 

[Panos]

So AMD is competing? Then why the whining about Nvidia's underhand tactics, if they were competing you wouldn't have a problem?
I'm pretty sure AMDs market share tells us they are not competing very well, despite having a decent line-up in the lower to mid-range market.

Please note I have been one of their customers in this price/performance bracket in the last 2 years, and I've not purchased an Nvidia GPU below a GTX 1070 performance in that time.
And I would always recommend a RXxxx over the competing GTX 10 Series card unless there was a significant price difference or availability problem.

But being able to compete doesn't solely relay on the products performance and price. AMD have failed to out sell Nvidia due to many reasons, not all of them due to Nvidia being dicks.
The RX400 and 500 series were pretty much sold out for most of the last 2 years, but they still didn't out sell Nvidia, so they have supply problems. (It doesn't matter if it was crypto miners buying them)
If you can't make enough units to supply the market and your competitor does, you can't really blame them.

Also if ATI and Nvidia had been more even over the last 20 years the chances are AMD would not have been able to purchase a healthy ATI, so we would be in a completely different market, AMD might be in even more trouble without ATI, Intel might have completely cleaned up and AMD might have folded who knows.

As more not having a 1080ti level product not mattering, they didn't have a GTX 1080/1070 level product for a year. The profits of these card are likely to be multiple of the smaller cards, so they do matter to the companies profits.

Have you seen this forum when someone asked for a new mid range card advice?
All the NV followers advising cards like 970, 1060 or 770 for heaven sake. Even when the AMD offering at same price was far better, and the same very people are very militant in this very forum about their pro-Nvidia opinion as "better brand" trying to shut everyone who argued with them.

And this small example is clear representation of ALL the internet discussions packed with those blind pro-NV militants for quite some time.

Hell even today there are people advising others that the 970 is a good card when a 290/390 can be bought for the same price offering not only more perf but better tech also like DX12.
What else do you want? Nor AMD neither Intel Marketing can compete against such militant and fanatical blind faith to NV.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The 9700 smashing the competition, well yes in that slide he showed it did, but here is another page from the same review.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/970/10

Oh look not smashing the 9700 all of a sudden, so yes we can all cherry pick benchmarks.
One other point about the performance of the 4600, it was launched 5 1/2 months earlier than the AMD 9700, and 6 months later the 5800and 5800 ultra arrived. all of a sudden the 9700 doesn't look quite so special.

From that review:

Final Words
It has definitely been a while since we've been able to say that an ATI card has lived up to its expectations, but the Radeon 9700 Pro does live up to every last one of our expectations. The question truly ends up being, does it meet your expectations?

There are three things that the Radeon 9700 Pro can offer at this point:

1) The highest performance in current and future games.
2) The ability to play at 1600x1200 in just about any game currently available or soon to be made available, and
3) The ability to play virtually any game at 1024x768 with 4X AA and 16X anisotropic filtering enabled at smooth frame rates.

The first point is moot because you should never buy a video card based on the performance it will offer in games that are no where near being released. While it is true that the Radeon 9700 Pro is probably the best card out right now for Doom III, there will be something faster and cheaper closer to the time Doom III is released. But if you're looking to play anything this fall (UT2003, etc...) then the 9700 Pro makes a lot of sense.

The last two points will really determine whether the Radeon 9700 Pro is the card for you; if either of those options appeal to you, then the Radeon 9700 Pro is probably very well suited for your needs.

We would recommend buying a Radeon 9700 Pro over a GeForce4 Ti 4600 if you're buying today, even taking into account the ~$100 price difference between the two cards. What we can't offer a recommendation on however, is what to do when the issue of NV30 comes into the picture. If NVIDIA is able to meet their schedules, NV30 will be out around December and at a price competitive with the Radeon 9700 Pro.

Waiting until later this Fall will also grant you the option of going with the Radeon 9500, a 4 pixel pipeline version of the Radeon 9700 running at lower clock speeds. Or if you're looking for a bit more, the All-in-Wonder Radeon 9xxx cards based on the R300 will be announced later this year as well. Paired with a new video encoder chip, the new All-in-Wonder card should prove to be the biggest hardware upgrade the AIW series has seen in years.

Regardless of what path you choose the Radeon 9700 Pro is a viable option from ATI, and it has been a very long time since we've been able to say that as well.

Techreport:

https://techreport.com/review/4104/ati-radeon-9700-pro-graphics-card

Conclusions
I believe I've said enough about the Radeon 9700 Pro by now. You have seen the results and screenshots for yourself, and you know that it's got more pixel-pushing power, faster pixel shaders, better vertex shaders, more poly throughput, and better real-world performance than any other graphics card you can buy. The image quality is second to none, especially with antialiasing enabled. I've racked my brains and raked this thing over the coals trying to find a significant weakness, and I'll tell you what: I haven't found one.

Oh, sure, there are always odd driver bugs, incompatiblities, and other teething problems, and I won't pretend to be able to keep tabs on all of those things. (The card was problem-free in my testing.) If you're thinking about buying a Radeon 9700 Pro card, you'll definitely need to factor those considerations into your decision.

But as a 3D graphics chip, the Radeon 9700 is darn near perfect. ATI has taken the time with this chip to increase precision and expand registers and tweak functional units to the point where everything works as advertised. The Radeon 8500, good as it was, was nowhere near this good.

We may run into some problems or limitations when DirectX 9 arrives in force. I'm still a little wary about how this first generation of chips with support for 64- and 128-bit color depths will perform at those depths. The data throughput and computational requirements for 128-bit pixels are enormous, and that presents every opportunity to fudge by splitting 128-bit chunks into two and the like. Tricks like that could sap performance and cause problems with next-gen games. Of course, those games probably won't be arriving for months and months.



110 million transistors of joy

At the end of the day, the Radeon 9700 Pro is the culmination of an era and the beginning of something new. The 9700 is the last in a line, the ultimate graphics chip as a collection of fixed functional units that accelerate specific parts of the rendering process in hardware. But it also ushers in the era of generally programmable graphics chips, VPUs as general SIMD machines. As programmability and high-level shading languages gain a foothold, graphics chips will probably become both simpler and more powerful—general SIMD processors with less custom circuitry for accelerating specific effects. The 9700 bridges these two eras, running today's games better than anything else, and providing the potential for artists to create graphics unlike anything you have ever seen done in real time.

Hexus:

http://www.hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/422-ati-radeon-9700-pro/

Conclusion
If you were to ask me, a casual gamer, what it is that I look for in a high-end graphics card, phrases such as "fantastic 2D quality", "stability", "future-proofing", "outstanding performance" would spring to mind. On these counts, and several more, the Radeon 9700 Pro delivers, and delivers in spades.

2D quality, a long-standing hallmark of ATi cards, once again is top-notch. The vibrancy and definition of text, on both a classic CRT and a new TFT, were excellent as I scaled through the resolutions. That's not the say NVIDIA's Ti 4600 has poor 2D, it's just that the Radeon's image is that little bit better.

I know a vast number of users are sometimes swayed against ATi-based cards in fear of receiving an outstanding hardware product let down by relatively poor drivers. I've been using this sample R9700 for a few days now, and have probably played more games in that time than I had for the previous few months. I encountered no anomalies in that time that could be attributed to the card. The only time it did crash was purely self-engineered as I tried to find its limits.

The R9700 is a DX9-class of card. Even now we can't fully test just how good it will be in the future due to a shortage of DX9 benchmarks or games. What we can say, however, is that it is currently the best-placed card to take advantage of eagerly-awaited titles like Doom 3. That kind of goes without saying, though.

Performance exhibited by the Radeon 9700 was nothing short of spectacular. You expect it to perform well once you digest its impressive specifications, but theory and reality, as ATI only too well know, are two different things. In a standard benchmark mode, the R9700, helped with almost 20GB/s bandwidth, advanced bandwidth-saving optimisations via the use of Hyper Z III, simply overhauls the GeForce4 Ti 4600 by brute force alone. I think it is safe to say that the Radeon 9700 can run any current game at 1600x1200x32 with options set to maximum.

Not all of us are blessed with huge displays. Some of use value efficient anti-aliasing and effective anisotropic filtering at lower resolutions, as this helps us maximise our gaming experience. Once we apply these visually-enhanced settings, the Radeon 9700 pulls away from the Ti 4600 in a show of sheer dominance. Just look back at the Serious Sam 2 and MOHAA results to reacquaint yourself of just how impressive the Radeon can be. In cases of a high degree of anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, the Radeon can be as much as 300% faster than the Ti 4600.

The on-line hardware community knew that the R9700 would be good, I'm pretty sure they're surprised just how good it is. Our overclocking efforts topped-out at around 355MHz core. We've seen reports of other branded Radeon 9700s hitting 400MHz core with slightly enhanced cooling. I'm pretty sure we'll see a R9700 SE in the not too distant future, especially as the VPU can take the faster DDR-II memory. Anyone for a 450MHz core / 1GHz memory R9700 ?.

ATi have perhaps taken a leaf from NVIDIA's book by contracting out production to a number of other companies. This should ensure healthy competition amongst manufacturers and keep prices relatively low. I've already seen the ATi, Sapphire, Powercolor, and Connect3D brands on sale in the U.K.

I've sung the praises of the R9700, as it's exceeded my expectations. I thought I was quite happy with a Ti 4600 until I used a R9700. The Ti 4600 now makes for a nice paperweight.

In this industry there is nothing quite so motivating as your rival stealing a march on you. NVIDIA, the darling of the high-end graphics community for the past few years, is not sitting idle right now. Their next iteration of graphics card, the much-vaunted NV30, is gearing up towards production soon. I've been privy to certain specifications, and if they hold true, the NV30 may just do to the Radeon 9700 what it has done to the Ti 4600.

Highs

• The fastest graphics card in town, no question
  
  
• Exceptional image quality
  
  
• Runs amok in our benchmarks with FSAA and Anisotropic filtering applied
  
  
• Solid initial drivers
  
  
• Makes you want to dig all your favourite games out again
  
  
• Widely available right now for under £300

Lows

• Is an extremely hot card, make sure you have adequate air flow

Overall rating, 9.5/10

Toms Hardware:

https://www.tomshardware.co.uk/ati-radeon-9700-pro,review-521.html

Conclusion
The King is dead! Long live the King! How's this for a plot-twist? The challenger Radeon - a real "Performeron" - has actually done it and usurped the throne from the former king! ATi has earned itself not only the performance crown in gaming environments, but also that of the technology leader!

The Radeon 9700 PRO proved to be superior in all possible categories, be it the framerate while the game was in progress, the triangle throughput, FSAA, anisotropic filtering, or pixel and vertex shader performance. NVIDIA's flagship trails the new champion in every discipline. And Matrox? In light of these results, the Parhelia looks even less attractive than before.

To put these results in perspective, keep in mind that the GeForce4 Ti is already half a year old. Then again, it is also still selling at $300 to $350, even today. The recommended retail price of the Radeon 9700 has been quoted as being $399. We expect to see retail prices even lower than that in computer hardware stores. Besides, the "normal" 9700 will be even less expensive. As a result, we should see the price of GeForce4 Ti boards drop very rapidly. This will present NVIDIA with another challenge: to readjust prices across the entire GeForce4 family (both Ti and MX) and justify the existence of some of its members. Of course, this all depends on ATi's ability to ship their boards in sufficient quantities - which is exactly where the Radeon 8500 failed.


Where 2D features are concerned, neither card offers a feature that would make it more desirable than its competitor. Both the R9700 and the GeForce4 Ti offer dual-monitor support, including a very comfortable management software as well as TV-Out functionality. However, the Radeon has a slight advantage due to its 10Bit DACs and the higher DVI resolution.

If you're looking for the fastest gaming card around, then you're looking for the Radeon 9700. NVIDIA's counteroffensive in the form of the highly anticipated NV3x won't be more than a rumor for at least a few more months. Currently, we expect cards to be on store shelves for the holiday season. As for the update to the GeForce4 family, code-named NV18 and NV28, these cards are still a few weeks off, and it is doubtful whether a simple update with higher frequencies would be sufficient to come anywhere near the 9700's performance levels. Even if it did (a big "if"), these parts would still lack the Radeon's DirectX 9 support.

Of course, NVIDIA will undoubtedly answer this challenge, and we are more than just a little curious as to the tricks that the Californians have up their sleeves which would help them reclaim the throne that they've occupied for the past years. ATi is also making preparations, though, and the next performance update in the form of DDR-II memory is already on track for the end of this year. The pared-down Radeon 9500 will put additional pressure on NVIDIA in the mid to low range market. On the whole, ATi's chances for success don't look bad at all. And the real winners of this performance revolution are the consumers. After all, the most important factor in deciding which product to buy is still price, not performance. Thanks to the ongoing and bloody feud between the big boys of computer graphics, we can expect prices to continue dropping. Whoever said it was right: "A revolution every now and then is a very healthy thing."

HardOCP:

https://www.hardocp.com/article/2002/08/19/ati_radeon_9700_pro_benchmarks

Conclusions & Delusions:


There are certainly a lot of benchmarks here to look at and take in. While the Comanche4 and Code Creatures benchmarks are supposedly the most "advanced" I don't really put a tremendous amount of stock in the numbers as both companies have worked hand in hand with NVIDIA during the development of the code. This is not to say they are intentionally tipping the scales their ways but I think that there may be some optimizations for the ATi hardware that have been overlooked. This is just my theory with little or no proof to really base it one....just a hunch.



Image Quality:



While we had wanted to deliver a section of this article focused directly on image quality we simply did not have the resources available to do it on ATi's timeline. I do think that the benchmark numbers are certainly what is wanted at this point and we will follow up with an image quality article at a later date. But just because we did not have time to present it properly does not mean that we did not have a chance to experience it over the last week.



First lets start out with usable Anisotropic Filter at high sampling while done at high resolutions. While ATi will describe it as "free", there does seems to be some performance hit associated with it. Although when coupled with 4XAA, it does seem to be pretty much transparent. Earlier this year with other VidCards we were given an either/or situation. With the NVIDIA product we got usable 2XAA and with the Radeon 8500 we got usable AF. Well the Radeon 9700 delivers us the ability to use both.



As we see the popularity and quality of the WWII-type-games rise, we are finding ourselves outside more often in virtual environments. For myself, this is really where AF comes into play. When playing a game like Medal of Honor, having good Anisotropic Filtering can mean the difference between having a realistic gaming environment and having one that looks terrible. Of course being able to do this at 12x10 or 16x12 resolution with 4XAA running also brings the experience home. The 16XAF sampling that the Radeon 9700 shows off is simply awesome. It is one of those features that once you have it, you will never want to give it up.



Then again, running 4XAA is about the same. Smooth frames with 4XAA is going to spoil you rotten. The new SMOOTHVISION AA by ATi is definitely different as well and different in that it has been very much improved even when compared to NVIDIA's current sampling algorithms. I have compared both side by side in the exact same situations and there is no doubt that ATi's AA now looks better than what is delivered on the GeForce4. ATi's 9700 Antialiasing simply looks smoother than NVIDIA's in real game play.



Overall:



Of course all the eye candy in the world is worthless without frame rate and as you can see from our benchmarks the ATi Radeon 9700 Pro can deliver the features that are included. No, you don't have to turn one off to get the other. No, you don't have to turn the resolution down. The feeling I get is that 1280x1024 with 4XAA and 16XAF turned on is the sweet spot for this card. Can you go 1600x1200 with the same features utilize? Yes you can, but then again I feel cheated unless I am getting a frame rate of less 120. If you do nothing but deathmatch online, or only play at low rez, this card is not for you. If you are one of those folks that wants to be immersed in a more realistic virtual gaming world, the ATi Radeon 9700 Pro has your name on it. Just don't forget your wallet.



And speaking more on frame rate and eye candy, I think it is worth it to bring up the AthlonXP 1.53GHz frame rates as well. The scores we got out of that setup simply floored me. I would have not guessed that a Radeon 9700 Pro upgrade could be worth so much on a sub-2GHz system. I can already see a lot of folks going for the video card upgrade with the 9700 and leaving the CPU till later as we start banking on 333MHz bus AthlonXPs showing up.



The ATi Radeon 9700 Pro is the best video card we have ever laid our hands on. ATi is going to be first to market with some very impressive technology and the gamers are sure to take notice. I think the benchmarks at 4XAA/16XAF speak for themselves. The image quality is nothing less than beautiful in both 2D and 3D. Then considering we already know it is going to be a powerhouse card that has the ability to run DOOM]|[ next year and you are almost guaranteed to have a nice long term upgrade for your hard-earned cash. I just don't see how the ATi Radeon 9700 Pro is going to leave you any way but satisfied.



Please don't forget to check out our 9700 White Paper article as well as our article covering our 9700 Gaming Experiences if you are needing more information.

Tweaktown:

Conclusion In conclusion, ATi has gone all out to prove to everyone that a new king has been crowned when it comes to graphic cards. It has out performed its rivals in almost every benchmark (other the Comanche 4) and has slaughtered them in terms of AF/AA. How much does this card retail for? It retails at a quite pricey MSRP US$399. This is the only down fall to this superb card. Unless you have $400 just lying around, don't even think of purchasing this card. Is it worth it? Myself, as an enthusiast, would definitely say it's worth it. It gives me all the performance I dreamed of in a graphics card. You get the best performance, awesome 2D quality and even Video output features. This is the card you want in your so-called "bad-ass" rig. Is it worth it for the occasional gamer? It's not at all worth it. Think of it this way, if you are an occasional gamer who plays at 800x600, do you really even need this card? Why couldn't you settle for a budget card? ATi also provides budget based cards for those who don't have that much loose change in there pockets and who only play games every once and while (Card such as the ATi Radeon 9000 Pro). ATi has definitely put their foot down in the graphics market. How long will it last though? That is a question that can only be truly answered by the only rival that ATi has...nVidia. So everyone enjoy these couple months of glory and expect a war when 2003 comes along. - Pros Fast Card Great Visual Quality Awesome AF/AA performance - Cons Price Rating - 9.5/10 and TweakTown's Editors Choice Award

Read more: https://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/359/ati_radeon_9700_pro_review/index9.html

The 9700 PRO was not only a very fast DX7/DX8 card it also very good at DX9,and had excellent AA/AF performance.

It came after the ATI 7000 and 8000 series,where Nvidia had better cards,so came out of the blue and was an utter shock.

The 9000 series was the first time I considered even buying an ATI card and that was the same with other enthusiasts I knew at the time.

FFS,when the FX came along it not only came later,but was on a NEW NODE,consumed more power and required a dual slot cooler.

Nvidia made fun of it a few years later:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOVjZqC1AE4

Nvidia tried to be clever with the DX9 implementation and it fell apart in games like Half Life 2.

So much so Gabe Newell even suggested people buy the ATI cards for HL2:

https://techreport.com/review/5636/valve-steamed-over-nv3x-performance

HL2 was the Crysis of its era,and in the end to get the FX cards working to a reasonable level of quality in DX9 they did further optimisations,and apparently it lead to IQ problems(think it was covered in another article). Even years later the FX cards were not brilliant in DX9 games,the X800 series for example was the same 9000 series hardware but with more hardware.

As a result of that The Way It Was Meant To Be Played programme was started,so Nvidia would be able to make sure it didn't have a repeat of the issues it had during that era.

 

[IT Troll]

TLDR; 16 years ago ATI made a good graphics card.

 

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

all of a sudden the 9700 doesn't look quite so special.

reviews saying it was fantastic

TLDR; 16 years ago ATI made a good graphics card.

Defending your mate,then?? Why does he need to mention an old card then - you never question that??

He moans about the YouTuber in question "cherry picking" stuff,then goes onto "cherry pick" stuff himself to re-invent history in the form of alternate facts. Even Nvidia made fun of its cards of that era.

Yet on this very forum if people said the 8800GTX was a beast,or the Geforce 3 was great,nobody would question it - none are relevant today. I have never seen anyone here,then interject and tell people its an old card. Even people on here go on about 3DFX cards FFS.

It seems for some,if ATI or AMD made good cards,they need to bury that. In my viewpoint,they should not bother trying to target higher end cards,just stick with budget stuff.

Have you seen this forum when someone asked for a new mid range card advice?
All the NV followers advising cards like 970, 1060 or 770 for heaven sake. Even when the AMD offering at same price was far better, and the same very people are very militant in this very forum about their pro-Nvidia opinion as "better brand" trying to shut everyone who argued with them.

And this small example is clear representation of ALL the internet discussions packed with those blind pro-NV militants for quite some time.

Hell even today there are people advising others that the 970 is a good card when a 290/390 can be bought for the same price offering not only more perf but better tech also like DX12.
What else do you want? Nor AMD neither Intel Marketing can compete against such militant and fanatical blind faith to NV.

The problem,is Panos,when that chap you replied to even says the "9700 PRO was not special" when literally 9/10 of reviews of the time,said it was fantastic,when months later the FX ended up getting meh reviews,and even Valve themselves even pushed for ATI cards,as they ran DX9 better,all on a card made on an older node,that answers your question already.

Now compare that to the similar situation on the ATI side - the 8800GTX and 2900XT. The 8800GTX is considered legendary for its era and nobody would really question it.

Everytime Nvidia makes a good card,people are happy to have nostalgia,ie,the 8800GTX was a beast,but any ATI/AMD equivalents,well they were "not so special". So as a result,however ATI/AMD might try with good cards,it won't work,and Nvidia can then paper over any situations where they might misfire.

ATI/AMD graphics had a reputation problem it even going back over 10 years,even when they hit stuff out of the park and the competition misfired,so ultimately its not really any point of them competing at the high end.

Compare that to the Athlon and Athlon 64,no one would ever doubt they were great during that era. I suspect most want them to compete,so the price of the Nvidia cards will drop. Ultimately its best they stick to the budget end really - high end gaming is a fools errand for them. I said this for a while. Its wasted money and resources.

OTH,their CPUs seem to have far less reputation issues it appears,so it seems they made the clever choice there.

 

[tommybhoy]

Ok I tried to watch it before posting, but after 20 mins of that voice, I just cannot put up with it any more.

That's as far as I got, before his voice got to me too much, so I just couldn't watch any more.

Whining about a Scottish accent in a UK forum in 2018, doubt I'd hear anyone moaning if it was any other accent as racism would be mentioned, unfortunately it's not just you, it happens every time in here he releases a vid.

 

[IT Troll]

Defending your mate,then?? Why does he need to mention an old card then - you never question that??

Chill fella. I just summarised your wall of text and also made a light hearted reference to the history lesson.

I have never seen you or your mate here,then interject and tell people its an old card.

I’ve been around here for years - longer than you.