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- Date:
- Monday , May 05, 2003
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Sean Quinn
- Google +1
Tyan Tachyon G9500 Pro Review
The 9500 Pro VPU is still very much around, and today we take a look at Tyan’s new Tachyon G9500 Pro that brings with it Tyan’s own 9500 Pro PCB design and hardware monitoring! Read inside to see how it stacks up with a reference ATI 9500 Pro and also to see if this card could be your next upgrade.
Introduction:
Last December we took a look at Tyan’s brand new top-of-the-line video card, the Tachyon G9700 Pro. However, the card we had was only an engineering sample. The much touted hardware monitoring system was not functioning on our card. Still, our sample did reach some of the highest overclocks we had seen at that time on a 9700 Pro video card with stock cooling. One of the most unique characteristics of that video card was the cooling system itself. It featured a two-part system that made complete and continuous contact with the front and back of the core as well as the RAM chips. When we dismantled the heatsink system we found that there was a very generous amount of thermal material used for the RAM and core. In fact, the back of the core also had thermal material pressed onto it coming in contact with the back heatsink helping to facilitate heat off the back of the core. The whole system was functional and looked good in the process.
If you want an introduction to Tyan and their line of ATI based Tachyon video cards, check out the Introduction in our Tachyon G9700 Pro Review; it will sum up what the Tachyon line of video cards are all about.
Playing on the word Tachyon, these cards are set out to entice you with awe-inspiring speed and performance. If you are into physics, then you know what a tachyon is. If you are not, then the simplest explanation is that a tachyon is a theoretical sub-atomic particle that always travels faster than the speed of light. You hear the term a lot in sci-fi shows where time travel is involved.
Today we have Tyan’s next video card project, the Tyan Tachyon G9500 Pro. This video card is based on ATI’s 9500 Pro VPU. The 9500 Pro has all of the 3D features of the 9700 Pro, but has reduced performance to fill that price segment. The 9500 Pro is a fully DirectX 9.0 VPU supporting Vertex Shader and Pixel Shader 2.0. It has 8 pixel pipelines, 4 geometry pipes, and can do 16 textures in one pass, just like the 9700 Pro. Where it differs from the 9700 Pro is in the core clock, the memory clock, and the width of the memory bus. The core clock is set to 275MHz, versus 325MHz on the 9700 Pro. The memory clock is set at 270MHz (540MHz DDR), compared to the 310MHz (620MHz DDR) on the 9700 Pro. And lastly, the memory bus has been reduced from 256 bits wide to 128 bits. This allows for a total memory bandwidth of 8.6GB/sec.
“The Tachyon G9500 PRO brings both the world of Microsoft® 9.0 and the speed of AGP 8X to gaming enthusiasts everywhere. With a 275MHz engine clock and 128MB of 540MHz DDR memory, it is an incredibly fast solution with an excellent price-performance ratio. Other features include an 8-pixel rendering pipeline, an advanced cooling solution, 128-bit floating point precision, ATI's HYDRAVISION™ software for multiple monitor display, and the latest OpenGL ® support.
The Tachyon G9500 PRO features Tyan's much anticipated Tachyon Graphics Monitor Software 2.0, which will allow users to monitor key hardware indicators such as VPU temperature and voltage, and in addition, regulates the fan speed on the card for optimal acoustics in the end-user's PC environment.”
On Tyan's site here they give you an overview of the G9500 Pro and throw in a lot more information for you to look at. There is a datasheet of the G9500 Pro’s feature set online if you wish to check it out here. They also have the manual online here if you wish to view it. It gives a very detailed explanation of hardware and software installation. There is also an online FAQ here. So you have plenty of information to scrounge around for if you want to learn everything you can about this card.
The Tachyon G9500 Pro:
The box comes in a compact size, being big enough just for what is included. It is good to see the core and memory frequencies printed clearly on the front of the box. There will be no misconception about what the speeds of this card are before you buy it. Also note the picture of the card on the back of the box. What you can’t see in the picture is the fact that it says: “Actual Card May Vary from Picture”. And it does vary, as the card's heatsink fan assembly looks different on the actual board. Packaging is done quite well and will keep the card protected during normal transit.
As you can see, the heatsink and fan assembly does differ from the picture on the back of the box. This design is a 3-way system separating the main core HSF unit from the two separate RAM sinks which is a very welcome design compared to most in the industry. Though the card looks slightly pea green from the pictures, it is indeed blue. The flash brightens the image and makes the shade of blue appear lighter than it actually is. There are some unique features on this card which we are sure you have noticed by now. We will take a look at them all.
Let us first take a look at the RAM sinks. There are two located on this card, one covering the back RAM chips and the other covering the four chips on the front of the card. They are held together by adhesive material and held in place by pushpins. The RAM is rated at 3.6ns which represents a 277MHz rating.
The GPU's cooling assembly is held in place by two black pushpins. A nonadhesive thermal interface material is used between the heatsink and GPU. Dissembling the unit after testing allowed us to evalute that good contact between the GPU and HSF was evident.
In the first picture above, you see the Winbond W83782D chip. This provides the hardware monitoring capabilities of this video card known as "Tyan Graphics Monitoring". In the second picture above there are two things worth noting. The card's power connector has been posistioned in the PCB's upper right hand corner like we are used to seeing on 9700Pros. This allows Tyan to use a full length heatsink on the RAM since there is now no power connector in the way like on stock 9500s. Second, there is a speaker on this card. The speaker gives an audible alert if the card starts to overheat. You can see in the third and fourth pictures above how the thermal probes are located under the front heatsink. In the fifth picture we have taken the heatsink off and you can see how the thermal probes are positioned. One of the probes seemed to be folded in a way that was not intended, but it did not seem to hamper operation.
There were also two DIP switches on this card. The one in the first picture is typically the switch to change from NTSC to PAL. However, we are not sure what the second switch located by the AGP slot on the back of the card does.
This card comes with the standard DVI, VGA, and TV-Out connectors. There is a Tachyon Graphics Monitor manual included as well as a Tachyon Graphics Line quick installation guide. They even have a complete user's guide. The CD includes Catalyst Driver version 3.1 and control panel along with DirectX 8.1b. WinDVD 4.0 is also included on the CD. A power cable is also provided if you need to split power off from a device for this card.