![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Wednesday, April 16, 2003
- Author:
- Sean Pelletier
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
Radeon 9600 Pro Review
ATI's new Radeon 9600 Pro certainly has some large footprints to follow in after the incredible success and popularity of the Radeon 9500 Pro. Equipped with some new features and build upon a .13u process, it looks as though ATI might have another winner.
Testing Procedure
We have found that true "apples-to-apples" testing is accomplished only after great analysis of image quality produced by video cards being directly compared. As we saw within the review of the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra, care must be taken when making a fair comparison. We have applied the same due diligence here.
Test Setup
Seeing that this article focuses on mid-level and mainstream cards, we did not think it wise to benchmark them on a 3GHz system, but to rather instead benchmark them on something more "mainstream", such as an nForce2 motherboard featuring a new Barton 2500+ processor...
Platform for all the cards: MSI K7N2G-ILSR, Barton 2500+ (166Mhz FSB), 2 X 256MB Corsair TwinX XMS3200 C2 (Dual Channel DDR333), Maxtor 40GB ATA/133. Windows XP Professional SP1 with DirectX 9.0a.
ATI Radeon 9600 Pro Reference Card - Operating at default clock speeds (400/300) using WHQL driver version 7.84.10. "Quality" settings selected within drivers for all options.
ATI Radeon 9500 Pro - Operating at default clock speeds (277/270) using Catalyst 3.2 drivers. "Quality" settings selected within drivers for all options.
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600 Ultra Reference Card – Operating at default clock speeds (350/350) using driver version 43.45. "Application" mode selected within drivers throughout testing.
Anti Aliasing Analysis
There once was a time when people questioned the need for anti-aliasing. Fortunately, technology improvements and higher quality games have answered that question once and for all. Without a doubt, anti-aliasing has seemingly become an absolute necessity. However, given the taxing nature of the latest crop of games users are finding themselves searching to uncover the "happy medium" between image quality and performance. The consumer is not on this search alone as graphics card vendors rush to find a creative new approach will provide the enhanced image quality without the usual performance hit. During this search for speed and quality, it is important that the consumer be kept aware of what these vendors are doing. Through the use of specific benchmarks and analysis tools, we can ensure that no corners are being cut and that these companies are being honest in their claims.
FSAA Tester
After its successful inception into HardOCP's benchmark suite in our ATI Radeon 9800 Review, Thomas Bruckschlegel's FSAA Tester has given us a means to clearly identify and explore the finer points of a graphics card's approach to enhanced image quality settings. Given the varying nature of the pattern used within the test, the strengths and weaknesses of each card's approach can be clearly illustrated.
Taking a look at this first set of images, we notice a few unique characteristics for each graphics card vendor. Specifically, when comparing the ATI and NVIDIA card at the 12 o'clock position of the image we find that the GeForce FX 5600 Ultra's image seems to be a bit blurred. In contrast, the ATI card's image is distinct, though it does appear to be slightly more aliased. Yes, our evaluations are done before we compress the images to jpeg.
This setting is where we really begin to see the ATI cards differentiate themselves from an image quality standpoint form the NVIDIA card. Paying close attention to the 9o'clock area of the image, we find a great deal of aliasing and blurring. The ATI cards produce an exceptional image which is very crisp and hardly shows any aliasing whatsoever.
The situation at hand begins to get a bit complicated once we begin using the maximum FSAA setting for the ATI cards. Keep in mind this is ATI 6XAA Vs. NVIDIA's 8XAA. Thus far, we have seen that the NVIDIA card does not favor the 90 degree extremes of the image. However, the card does perform exceptionally well in between those angles. This area seems to be a slight weak-point for the ATI cards as they lose a bit of the clarity they have on the perpendiculars. From an image quality standpoint, NVIDIA's 8X FSAA appears to be the closest approximation to ATI's 6X FSAA that we can get.