Reviews
Motherboards.org
"This is an award-winning card that tops the charts in
the 3D arena and will make the die-hard Nvidia card fans shake
their heads in wonder. This is a true gamers card and even
the most skeptical of users will find themselves in a warm
happy spot while using this card. Good job again ATI you now
have control over the top of the line and entry-level gamers
market a solid thumbs up to you!"
AnandTech.com
"ATI hasn't slowed their pace at all in the two months
since the Radeon 9700 Pro has been shipping to retailers.
In those two months we witnessed the release of the Mobility
Radeon 9000 and the launch of ATI's All in Wonder 9700 PRO."
SharkyExtreme.com
"With this three-pronged attack, ATI has not only placed
a highly competitive product next to every NVIDIA card, but
have also answered the gamer's call to transition Radeon 9700,
AGP 8X, DirectX 9 technology at more aggressive price points.
There is no question that ATI is looking to offer a technically
superior product at each buying segment, as well as allowing
OEM manufacturers to have a few different options when offering
ATI products".
FiringSquad.com
"With today's product announcements, ATI has one strong
lineup this holiday season. Radeon 9700 PRO already owns the
high-end, and soon Radeon 9700 and Radeon 9500/9500 PRO will
hit the mainstream segment. [...] who would have thought we'd
have $200 DirectX 9 graphics cards so soon? It took eight
months for Direct X 8 cards to reach that price point with
the release of GeForce3 Ti200. ATI has accomplished this task
for DirectX 9 in less than half that time. That's pretty remarkable
task, and ATI deserves tons of credit for reaching this."
Rage3D.com
"ATI is hitting every market segment with superb products.
At the very top of the line is the Radeon 9700 PRO, along
with the fully-packed multimedia AIW 9700 PRO board. The middle
segment is filled by the Radeon 9700, Radeon 9500 PRO and
Radeon 9500. All these boards are DirectX 9 compliant with
great performance. Finally, the low end consists of the Radeon
9000 and Radeon 8500 video cards. Looks like a great selection
for consumers!"
HardOCP.com
"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.
Very good scaling across the board and the Radeon 9700 Pro
simply blows the Ti4600 and Parhelia out of the water when
the antialiasing and anisotropic filtering are turned on.
What we found really surprising was the AMD 1.5 scores. Even
with the CPU being 1GHz slower, the Radeon 9700 Pro still
outpaces the Ti4600 by 100%.
The Radeon 9700 Pro delivers scores of over 10,000 3DMarks
even at 1600x1200 resolution. That is simply amazing. What
is even more incredible is the fact that even with the AA
and AF turned on we still have benchmarks nearing the 10K
threshold."
AnandTech.com
"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."
HotHardware.com
"First and foremost, I don't think anyone can refute that
ATi is firmly in the "driver's seat" with the
release of the Radeon 9700 Pro. The benchmarks, testing
and showcase
that you have seen here today, clearly show that ATi's new
flagship GPU is faster, more powerful and has better features
and 3D quality than anything on the market, period. This
is a bold statement to make for sure but after spending
some
quality time with this new graphics card, we can honestly
say that it is the most impressive product we have seen
in
a long time, from any Graphics OEM. NVIDIA certainly has
some catching up to do."
TomsHardware.com
"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."
Beyond3d.com
"The performance of the board is reasonably staggering in
some cases in comparison to their previous generation
and they
have done this whilst introducing the most complex and feature
rich chip on the market place today."
Extremetech.com
"It's official. When we previewed ATI's new Radeon 9700 back
in July, we could only give you relative performance numbers,
not hard benchmark data. Now we've got the released product
and real numbers, and they range from impressive to breathtaking.
This time around, the brass ring clearly belongs to ATI.
And while nVidia is never one to be counted out, the high-profile
GPU maker finds itself in the uncomfortable position of looking
squarely at its primary competitor's tail lights."
FiringSquad.com
"As you've seen in the benchmarks, Radeon 9700 PRO brings
new levels of performance to the desktop performance segment.
Even with Radeon 9700's early drivers, GeForce4 Ti 4600 just
isn't able to keep up! We were astounded at just how significant
some of the margins are, especially in 3DMark 2001SE. And
the best part is, as the Radeon 9700 PRO's drivers mature,
performance will only go up from here."
Chip Online, Chip.de
"ATI's brand new Radeon 9700 Pro dominates in all benchmarks
- and outclasses the competition.
ATI did everything right with the Radeon 9700 Pro: The new
flagship can will all benchmarks. The board achieves best
results and shines especially under highest 3D-strains: With
6x Multi-Sampling Anti-Aliasing and 16x anisotropic filtering
in resolutions of 1280x1024 and 32bpp colour depth the card
shows framerates in excess of 60 FPS - that is top.
NVidias Quincunx looks - as you can see from the screenshots
- worse (than ATI's 4X FSAA). The Fragment Anti-Aliasing
of
the Pharelhia-512 looks about the same."
August, 2002
ZDNet.de
"Radeon 9700 Pro sinks GeForce4
That's the end of the fun for NVidia. Archenemy ATI took the
Californians with the Radeon 9700 Pro by suprise. The adtvantage
of the Radeon 9700 Pro over the GeForce4 TI 4600 is so large,
that a direct comparison isn't worth it. In the Formula 1,
NVidia wouldn't even qualify for the race.
The Radeon 9700 Pro also shows how little innovative the
GeForce4 is compared to the GeForce3. ATI on the other hand
managed
a quantum leap in the graphics chip technologie, setting
new standards in 3D Performance and Video-quality."
August 19, 2002
RIVA Station, rivastation.com
"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!"
August 19, 2002
The Inquirer, the-inquirer.com
"Right now, the Radeon 9700 PRO is the true king of the high
end market. Geforce 4 TI 4600 is dethroned, and Nvidia
has
lost its performance crown"
August 19, 2002
Hardware.fr
"Le roi est mort, vive le roi !
Good news, it is worth the money! If in term speed of rendering
such as one approached it hitherto Radeon 9700 is not a
'
bombe' compared to GeForce4 Ti 4600 for a processor of new
generation, with in the best of the cases +40% in 1600*1200
32 bits, it is not any more the case as from the moment the
anti aliasing and with the anisotropic filtering are applied.
These functions, implemented in this new GPU of such kind
to offer performances and an optimal quality, make it possible
Radeon 9700 to dig an enormous ditch compared to the preceding
generation since it proves 2 to 3 times faster than this
good
old man GeForce4 Ti 4600!"
August , 2002
Clubic.com
"More than one simple "come back" for ATI
Radeon 9700 is essentially without the shade of a doubt like
the graphics processor most powerful and more succeeded of
the moment. GeForce4 Ti4600 however simply left in February
2002 is already well far in terms of rough performances but
also in terms of embarked technologies.
Radeon 9700 is indisputably the board that ATI needs. It
is clearly a notch above competition"
August 19, 2002
