9700 pro: evolutionary or revolutionary?

[Corporate Thug]

?

 

[MDE]

IMO, it was evolutionary, but it was a HUGE evolution considering the boost from the 8500.

 

[DarkKnight]

IMHO I think it was revolutionary because it was the first card that allowed you to run games at high resolutions with AA and AF with a minumum performance hit. Plus it was the card that gave ATI the edge over NVIDIA in performance.

 

[NFactor]

The 9700 was revolutionary it was the first chip that allowed you to do a lot of things that were claimed by the manufacturers. Things like the 9800 are evolutionary.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

Originally posted by: DarkKnight
IMHO I think it was revolutionary because it was the first card that allowed you to run games at high resolutions with AA and AF with a minumum performance hit. Plus it was the card that gave ATI the edge over NVIDIA in performance.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Both, the insane memory bandwidth and the efficiency of the memory bandwidth as well is sort of like the early amphibian growing the lung to allow them to venture from the sea onto the land; evolutionary. Revolutionary in that it "revolutionized" game play. Not longer do we ask how many frames the card can produce, but if the IQ is top notch (ie super high resolution game play and extra eye candy, AA/AF).

 

Shady, I think you need to display the definitions for evolutionary and revolutionary. Just looking at the first post after yours.
🙂

I think it was evolutionary. ATI just took the next "natural steps" I suppose. 4 pipes to eight pipes, 128 bit mem to 256 bit. As for the technology that went into it,
I think they did better than they ever thought they would. It was as if some of the ATI scientists said " holy crap, look what happens when we do this!!". In that respect, it was revolutionary. IMO.
GM

 

[Schadenfroh]

there was only 1 revolutionary card. the voodoo1, the rest were evolutionary

 

[VIAN]

DirectX9 was revolutionary. ATI just carried out the plan. ATI did evolve with their bandwidth saving features Hyper Z and efficiency of the product all together.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Originally posted by: VIAN
DirectX9 was revolutionary. ATI just carried out the plan. ATI did evolve with their bandwidth saving features Hyper Z and efficiency of the product all together.

I agree that the DirectX9 spec was revolutionary and drove ATI's hardware to success (the 9700 Pro). However, ATI also incorporated a bunch of smart (and some lucky) engineering decisions that made the 9700 Pro a revolutionary card. Among these features is:

-256-bit memory architecture (done on the ill-fated Parhelia, but nobody expected ATI or Nvidia to follow suit)
-8X1 pipeline architecture
-sticking with the .15um process, which they somehow got running at >300 Mhz
-Keeping up to date with new HyperZ, Smoothvision, etc.
-more powerful pixel shaders than Nvidia has even today
-etc.

The fact that the 9700 Pro is still, essentially, a top of the line card over a year later is it's legacy.

 

[VIAN]

I agree with that, the 8-month old radeon 9700 was so good that it slowed down the graphics industry and it still is considered one of the best cards.

 

[suklee]

Originally posted by: DarkKnight
IMHO I think it was revolutionary because it was the first card that allowed you to run games at high resolutions with AA and AF with a minumum performance hit. Plus it was the card that gave ATI the edge over NVIDIA in performance.

Revolutionary!

 

[screw3d]

The technology itself is evolutionary..but the to the graphics and gaming industry, it was revolutionary.

 

[MemberSince97]

Nice Answer # 3... And I Mean # 4 Also.........specially Lucy.....

 

[Richdog]

Revolutionary without a doubt, it brought hi-res AA and AF to the masses at little performance loss, something the Ti4600 could only dream about.:beer:

 

[Jeff7181]

Considering how old it is and how well it still performs, revolutionary. It put nVidia in their place.

 

[SectorZero]

When a peice of hardware dominates everything else in its catagory the way the 9700 Pro did last year, you have to consider it revolutionary.

 

[nimo]

With all due respect it is purely evolutionary

ATI played it safe and got it right while NVIDIA tried to bring forth the revolution and failed dismally

ATI went the way of 1to2

128bit to 256bit
4x1 to 8x1

NVIDIA attempted some thing more radical

4x2
DDRII ?etc...

9700pro is a flagship example that some time evolution beats revolutions but 😉

 

[Pete]

The hardware was evolutionary, but in a very big way (basically, double everything: pipes, precision, bandwidth, shader power).

But the combined effect of all its evolutionary parts on IQ was revolutionary, as it was essentially the first card that let you "turn it all on" at high res and still maintain highly playable fps (to this day, even).

 

[azntiger0586]

Originally posted by: Pete
The hardware was evolutionary, but in a very big way (basically, double everything: pipes, precision, bandwidth, shader power).

But the combined effect of all its evolutionary parts on IQ was revolutionary, as it was essentially the first card that let you "turn it all on" at high res and still maintain highly playable fps (to this day, even).

couldn't have said it better. =)

 

[robcy]

Revolutionary:
The fact that the card came into market months BEFORE MS officially released DX9. Over a year later it is still the 2nd fastest card in DX9 benchmarks which makes it top of the line hardware is not something to sneeze at. Every generation of card is supposed to be faster than its predesesor, and Nvidia is still tring to catch up in DX9 after two attempts (5800/5900). This card changed a lot of perceptions about ATI, and its ability to not only compete as an underdog but to actually succeed. I think that the fact that today getting 300+ fsp is second to performance under aa/af is a statement to what the 9700 has accomplished. I have never purchased hardware that 1 year later is still top of the line. Purchased my 9700PRO on Friday, Sept. 20th 2002, so yes I celebrated its birthday, and got it some copper mem sink, and a copper GPU cooler w/ a blue LCD. 🙂.

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: NFactor
The 9700 was revolutionary it was the first chip that allowed you to do a lot of things that were claimed by the manufacturers. Things like the 9800 are evolutionary.

Simply stated. Agreed.

 

[Vonkhan]

Originally posted by: Regs

Originally posted by: NFactor
The 9700 was revolutionary it was the first chip that allowed you to do a lot of things that were claimed by the manufacturers. Things like the 9800 are evolutionary.

Simply stated. Agreed.

 

[CraigRT]

I don't know, I think evolutionary...
I don't think there are too many revolutionary cards out there...

Voodoo cards (beginning of 3D)
first Riva TNT cards
GeForce3 for being one of the first $500 video cards when it came out (Canadian price)

those are revolutionary i think

the rest is just kind of evolutionary
i am sure there are some revolutionary developments, but the cards as a whole, i don't think are revolutionary.

 

[BoomAM]

My Shared Opinions;

Originally posted by: NFactor
The 9700 was revolutionary it was the first chip that allowed you to do a lot of things that were claimed by the manufacturers. Things like the 9800 are evolutionary.

I agree. IMO, its probably the biggest step in performance for GFX cards that theres ever been. Even bigger than the GF256. Cos even that had close competitors from the MAXX and the S2000.

Originally posted by: jiffylube1024
The fact that the 9700 Pro is still, essentially, a top of the line card over a year later is it's legacy.

Even though its price is now "mid-range", its performance is still high end. Even a step up to the 9800, or heaven forbid, a 5900U will only bring 10% more performance in most situations.

Originally posted by: VIAN
I agree with that, the 8-month old radeon 9700 was so good that it slowed down the graphics industry and it still is considered one of the best cards.

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
Considering how old it is and how well it still performs, revolutionary. It put nVidia in their place.

Its made nVidia sit up and think. nVidia has realised that they can be beaten.