R300 & RV250 up at Anandtech!!!

[HokieESM]

Yeah, the "heatsink art" is a bit much.... of course, with more and more people wanting to SEE the insides of their cases (I can't believe how many people bring me cases with windows now), i guess its to be expected.

But speaking of heatsinks.... Anand shows a 9000 Pro (the RV250) with a fan. THG specifically mentions the one he used only had a heatsink. Which do you figure? Personally, I have some interest if there's no fan.... wouldn't that be great for one of these small systems (the FlexATX boxes)? Silent, silent, silent... only the heatsink fan and one rear fan.... I could go for that.

Anyhow, the 9700 does have immense "wow" factor.... impressive scores. Of course, I try to stay away from games..... grad school is kicking my ass as is. <grin>

And about bashing Matrox: the big problem is that Matrox entered the 3d/gamer market period. They should have stuck to the professional sector. They have MUCH better 2D (and you can tell after staring at a 21" monitor running autocad for five hours). The Parhelia is a spectacularly unfunny joke.

 

[Sunner]

Hardware, you suck.

 

[MrGrim]

OK, I think it's time for a lesson ...

sar·casm Pronunciation Key (s&auml;rkzm) n.
1. A cutting, often ironic remark intended to wound.
2. A form of wit that is marked by the use of sarcastic language and is intended to make its victim the butt of contempt or ridicule.
3. The use of sarcasm.

 

[gregor7777]

Originally posted by: MrGrim

Originally posted by: gregor7777

Originally posted by: MrGrim
Shut up all of you FPS whores, the Parhelia can use 3 monitors.

Quiet you.

That's like pulling up to a stoplight in your pinto, and me next to you in my Ferrari, and you saying "Shut up you 0-60 whore, mine has a cloth interior."

Nobody will pay $400 for 3 crappy looking monitor support.

Yes ... but ... ok I got it, better 2D. That's right, the Parhelia has better 2D.

OK, but even you have to realize that VERY few people will even come close to purchasing it for $400 when a feature packed Radeon 9000 (budget, mainstream card) comes in at a meager $109. And while it's at it offers similiar , if not better gaming.

I just can't see how one could defend it. But, to each his own.

 

[MrGrim]

gregor7777 I was being sarcastic ...

 

[gregor7777]

Originally posted by: MrGrim
gregor7777 I was being sarcastic ...

Valid points nonetheless

 

[mchammer187]

DAMN!

NV30 is a long ways away but it does not look like they will be able to pull an ATI with that one :Q

Long Live the King

 

[Adul]

hardware you suck!

 

[DeepBlueJH]

aside from various oddball features, one would have NO reason what so ever to purchase a Parahelia... not for gaming, not for anti-aliasing...
what a bust..

eh, 3 monitor support? who buys three monitors for one computer anyway?

 

[Athlon4all]

Originally posted by: NFS4
No who was crazy enough to buy Parhelia?? Where's Amish?

If I were spending $400 on a vid card, it would no doubt be Parhelia due to its superior 2D and 3D Image Quality I'll be back

 

[bcterps]

Cmon now! People are complaining about the art on the heatsink/fan! Are you kidding me! They could have put a picture of Jerboy on that thing and I'd still buy one!

Of course NV30 will outperform R300, but the question is by how much, and for what premium. You know that the 9700 is going to have a price cut when NV30 hits the shelves. I wanna see how the .13 micron R300 performs against the NV30, then you'll really be comparing apples to apples.

--Ben

 

[MrGrim]

Originally posted by: Athlon4all

Originally posted by: NFS4
No who was crazy enough to buy Parhelia?? Where's Amish?

If I were spending $400 on a vid card, it would no doubt be Parhelia due to its superior 2D and 3D Image Quality I'll be back

How sad.

 

[bizkit]

Well it looks like the old 3dfx and Nvidia Battles of old.

Nvidia need to get NV30 together ASAP or improve on the tech so much that it will
put ATI back in it's place.

ATI needs to make the move on the non enthusist for this card to succeed in the market.
Nvidia is more of a house hold name than ATI is that is where ATI need to strike.

Supposdly this card(RV300) will make it out around September or so , November for NV30.

2 months of glory for ATI then King Nvidia is back in the saddle again.
Only 2 things can really hurt ATI at this point.
1. No unified Driver
2. They are the kings of putting stuff out late. The first radeon rocked the boat and would have
punched Nvidia hard but they let the card out two months late. Enough for Nvidia to sneak the GF2 right by them.

I hope ATI can keep the pressure up after this so the price on these expensive cards decrease.

 

[Mem]

The R300 looks awesome and if the drivers are decent for gaming it will be the killer card to get until we see newer cards down the road,of all the ATi graphics products I`ve seen reviewed over the years this is by far the most impressive product,well done ATi .

 

[Rainsford]

Damn, sweet card. I'm far from being an ATI fanbody, but it's nice to see the "underdog" one-up the competition. I hope AMD is able to pull a similar feat off with Hammer. Why? Because it's cool to see such a huge reversal and it also quiets all the fanboys (well, at least on one side ) Too bad I don't have enough money to buy one, plus I just got a GeForce 4 4200, so I don't really need a new card at the moment

 

[Adul]

bizkit, we shall see these cards no later the 30days from now according to anand. if that is the case

 

[Zugzwang152]

yes, but unlike parhelia, radeon is going to drop in price I dont think parhelias gonna get significantly cheaper. Plus, theres no low end for matrox, theres just parhelia.

 

[Adul]

more droolage factor from hard|OCP

UT2003 - 1600x1200x32; 4XAA; 16XAF ? The Radeon 9700 doused the Ti4600 by about 25%. Now get a load of this, that is with the GF4 running without AA or AF. With 4XAA turned on the Ti4600 was crushed by nearly 300%. The Radeon 9700 simply made quick work of the Ti4600 under this UT2003 demo.

AA vs a ti460 with no AA and it still wins! :Q:Q:Q:Q:Q

 

[kami]

Wow that's a sweetass card, and look at that AA performance. ATI's gonna be king for a while but...

Based on the current specs of NV30, believe it or not, it will be faster than the Radeon 9700.

So I'll probably wait for nvidia's next part since I already have a Ti4200. Actually I'll probably wait for NV30's equivalent to the Ti4200 since this card is more than enough for me now

 

[Maverick]

I had a feeling this thing would beat the gf4 but I didn't expect it to be at this level! The only thing that may hold it back at this point is the price. If they can get a $350 part to market they'll be able to do some damage. Price is where Nvidia has always shined since they don't manufacture the cards themselves.

If they pull the magical feat of getting the price to $299 before the NV30 comes out they'll be golden even if Nvidia gets a 20-25% performance boost.

Regardless, I'm gonna probably jump on the first hot deal I see on this thing

 

[Athlon4all]

Originally posted by: MrGrim

Originally posted by: Athlon4all

Originally posted by: NFS4
No who was crazy enough to buy Parhelia?? Where's Amish?

If I were spending $400 on a vid card, it would no doubt be Parhelia due to its superior 2D and 3D Image Quality I'll be back

How sad.

I dont need highend 3D Performance. My Radeon 7500 is more than sufficent for my 3D needs, so, and Parhelia is certainly faster than the 7500, with better 3D and 2D IQ. Anyway, don't want this to seem like flaming

Anyway back to the topic. This is simply amazing that ATi has managed to pull this off. I'm just in total shell shock, and provided there are no majopr driver bugss (certainly performance doesn't seem to be a problem) then nothign is going to stop this baby, and I can definately see many forking out the extra $200 more (instead of a Ti 4200) because of how future proof it really is, while giving performanxce increases in todays games. This is great for ATi, if only the 9500 was being launched today. I cant wait to see what NV30 brings to the table besides higher clock speeds than the R300. I too am so shocked about this big of a increase. ATi got to GF4 levels, and then gave us just an additional 20-50% increase (much like the GF4 did vs the GF3).

And as for the Radeon 9000 Pro, its an interesting product, and I think that ATi did a great job in making it cheap but still future proof and competitive with the GF4MX. Yes the 8500LE is faster, but it wll only be in the market for so much more longer. So, this is great for the vid card industry

 

[spanky]

i want one

 

[OneOfTheseDays]

wow certainly impressive numbers. I was more concerned with the driver/compatibility problems that they were having with MOHAA. Hopefully, they'll have it all fixed by the time it ships. I won't be buying one since i just got my ti4200 but this card sure looks sweet.

 

[BDawg]

Originally posted by: Zugzwang152
yes, but unlike parhelia, radeon is going to drop in price I dont think parhelias gonna get significantly cheaper. Plus, theres no low end for matrox, theres just parhelia.

Don't you mean there's no high end for Matrox, there's just Parhelia?

 

[Booster]

These scores are surely impressive. But what impressed me the most was the fact that the P4 2.4 was holding the card back! The Rad9700 is way ahead of its time, IMO. The card will become truly useful only when it will be paired with a powerful CPU, as the Hammer, for example.