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**isochar** · 17 July 2000, 12:30

Looks nice on paper. Benchmarks look nice too. The 366mpxl fillrate catches my eye though. (800 for v5/gts)

Every ATI product previous to this has had huge driver problems. (I can admit to owning one of this products at one point in time =(
I don't see the Radeon with good driver support until/if ATI provides it.

The other reason it seems to do so well is the 183mhz DDR. Throw that in a gts (3dfx should reconsider the sdr in the v5) and see what happens. (All the places are comparing standard clocked components)

I read that they are being shipped in limited quantities now. So somewhat available in August. September is when full-scale availability is supposed to happen. (Which is when nVidia/Matrox(3dfx?) will announce their new products)

Lastly, when I heard the statement ATI made that they gave up on Win2k drivers for their flagship Rage Fury MAXX, I discounted buying any of their products for a long time...

[This message has been edited by isochar (edited 17 July 2000).]

**xortam** · 17 July 2000, 12:31

Those that have been keeping up with the 3D industry know that there's still one player left: ATI.

We've just been dis'ed people. How soon they forget.
Of course with ATI, you've got to give them plenty of time to prove out their drivers. Wouldn't want to rush into anything new with them. Q3A scores look like they could use some improvement to be competitive for speed. Did appreciate the one statement ...

Don't get us wrong, the Radeon's 3D performance is very competitive, especially at 32-bit, but if we've learned anything about comparing 3D cards, we've learned that speed isn't everything. ... You have to look at entire feature sets when choosing a video card

Would like to hear more about how well it does with video encoding and any new use of the Rage Theater chip. HDTV? Especially interested in this.

[This message has been edited by xortam (edited 17 July 2000).]

**Frankfurt** · 17 July 2000, 12:55

I havent checked the other ones, or the ones you listed...but the 1 at www.gamersdepot.com is quite good imho
it is quite complete
ill have a look at the other ones as well though (not the anand one, or the toms one)just thought id put in my two cents

Frankfurt

**HedsSpaz** · 17 July 2000, 13:05

The feature that most intersted me actually was this HyperZ stuff. I don't normally like what Tom has to say about stuff but he did write a fairly imformative article for a change. You may want to go take a look at it. It describes the HyperZ stuff better than Thresh's does.

It does of course pose a bit of a quandry for some of us though. I still have a G200. It's a good card but I would really like something new. I can't justify spending money on a G400 right now because while it has the features and the image quality I want, it doesn't have the speed I want. I refuse to buy anything made by nVidia, and the Voodoo 5 5500 doesn't have enough bang for the buck.
Which brings us to Matrox and Ati. Since I already said that I don't want to get a G400 at the moment, that rules that out. Much to my dismay the G450 isn't supposed to be out until October, furthermore, there is no telling if the G450 will be worth it anyway. What I would really like is the G800, but thats not going to happen anytime soon.
(I suppose you can all figure out where I am going with this )
So, thats my justification. I think I might get one of these things to hold me over until the G800 or even the G800 Fusion(if there is such a thing) comes out. The image quality(3d) and speed(again, 3d) of the G200 is just starting to really bug me.

Ian

**cpld005** · 17 July 2000, 13:31

Most reviews I have read about it have been very positive, even with respect to drivers. It appears that 16-bit has the same issues since the original Rage Fury, but I don't play any games in 16-bit color anymore anyways. Impressive, and if it continues to do well in reviews and a couple of more driver updates it will be my next card, as I cannot wait anymore for Matrox to release the G800.

**xortam** · 17 July 2000, 13:39

HedsSpaz, I think its already been determined that the G400 Max still outperforms the G450. Its still a very competitive card for the money. These new speed demons are coming in at a very dear price. If your welling to spend that much, I'd suggest holding off until towards xmas to see how well the latest offerings compete in price, stability, and features (maybe Matrox will have their next-gen card out by then). Why wouldn't you buy an nVidia product? I think its silly to base your buying decisions on simply an emotional response. Perhaps you have some valid reasons? Personally, I'm still quite happy with my Max but I could see later upgrading to something that handled HDTV, encoding, and dual-head well.

[This message has been edited by xortam (edited 17 July 2000).]

**SteveC** · 17 July 2000, 13:42

Radeon still makes me think of a washing machine powder....

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Cheers,
Steve

"Life is what we make of it, yet most of us just fake"

[This message has been edited by SteveC (edited 17 July 2000).]

**HedsSpaz** · 17 July 2000, 13:59

Xortam, mostly it has to do with how I feel about nVidia's buisness practices. I'm sure you've heard most of the rants about it, you know, product cycles, cost for the cards, yadda yadda. And this isn't to say that I haven't seen the cards in action. One of my best friends has a Geforce 256 in her computer, and another friend has a Geforce 2 in the comptuer I helped build for him. Admittedly they don't actually look all taht bad. But for 2d desktop display, I do notice a difference. Even my G200 has better 2d image quality then either of the GeForce's I've seen, of course, that is just my opinion.
At any rate, what it comes down to is that since I don't particularly care for the quality of their products or for their buisness pratices I choose not to support them buy purchasing a product based on one of their chips.
It's just personal taste really.

As far as your other comment goes, you have a very good point there. Which is why I am left in such a quandry.
One thing about the G450 though is this. It has been reported(read, rumored) that the G450 will cost less than the G400. Now, if I can get a 32MB DH G450 for what a, hmm, say a 32MB SH G400 costs, then that I consider to be a deal.(what you should really be getting out of this is that I'm being a cheapskate ) The problem is that what I'd really honestly like is a G800. It appears however that that dream is going to have to wait until christmas or later. Which means that I really don't even want to spend so much as 100$US on a video card right now.

Anywho, I think you begin to get my reasoning. I have been considering a Vanilla G400, they can be had for 81$ according to Pricewatch. But the problem with that is am I going to discover that I got ripped off a month/month+1/2 from now when the price drops to 50$ or something? And what if the G450 retails and just over 100$ or something, I can justify spending it then.

Ok, I'm rambling now, I'll stop.

Mostly the Radeon is alluring because a)it's not from nVidia, b) it's better than my G200, and c)(and you can't deny this)it beats the G400 in 3d performance pretty badly(although the image quality is completely unknown).

OK, enough, I'll shut up now. It's time to go home anyway.

**Jorden** · 17 July 2000, 14:20

<font size=5>$400 for a videocard?</font>

Oh my God, what's next? At that price one should expect it to come in it's Titanium container, laced with Gold and Platinum, right?

Jord.

**tuco** · 17 July 2000, 14:25

ha ha good one steve c, well after rage fury & rage maxx, just who's going to spend that much cash on a product when the last few products have been, not only average, but seriously handicapped by their drivers as well?. with the ammount of cash these wondercards are costing nowdays i certainly wouldn't want to take that kind of risk.

**xortam** · 17 July 2000, 15:02

HedsSpaz, it sounds to me like you're going to be very price conscious for a while. Will the Radeon be w/i your budget? You can either live with what you've got until you loosen up your purse strings or get something less expensive that you can live with for a while. nVidia sounds like they have some viable mid-priced cards (MX) that would probably be a good choice, but you're not interested in buying their products. How much (little) are you going to save on a G450 over a 32 MB G400 SH? How long before the G450 becomes available to you? I'd say buy the G400 now and start enjoying it or suffer without something better until you can pony up for the big boys. You want a G800? You don't even know what the next-gen card from Matrox will be much less its price or when it will become available. You're going to have find the balance that's right for you between lost enjoyment time and paying what price for what features and what performance on something new. You also have to look at the ability of the system that your putting this new graphics card into (power draw, CPU, monitor, etc.).

[This message has been edited by xortam (edited 17 July 2000).]

**Snake-Eyes** · 17 July 2000, 16:04

The Radeon does look pretty impressive. If (a big one there) ATI figures out how to do proper drivers for it, it may rule the roost for a few months. In any case, nVidia's practices notwithstanding, my GTS will hold me until the Matrox card, which should from all impressions (gleaned from hints in interviews with Matrox employees) be more than enough to hold me for another year (unlike nVidia's cards, which I never really expected to last that long, given their release cycles). Admittedly, I paid a large amount to get hold of a GTS (bought when it first came out, a little before nVidia pulled the extra-stupid PR / competitive stunts, or I probably wouldn't have one), but it's overall performance is good enough to last me til Matrox gets the G800 out on the market. And the Radeon, as good as it seems, isn't THAT much better than the GTS to justify putting out the money to switch cards (my monitor does a max of 1600x1200, with the sweet spot being 1024 or 1280, depending on who you ask).

And, with it coming so late in the year (even though it's still a little earlier than expected), I couldn't expect it to last more than a few months before something I wanted more came out (in other words, I couldn't justify the cost for so little useful time).

HedSpaz, as far as getting a Radeon goes, I'd recommend holding off to see what Matrox releases. Surely they can't be that far off now. And even if the G800 isn't faster than the GTS or Radeon cards, they'll likely be fast enough (just as the GTS is fast enough even compared against the Radeon), and probably have a much better picture and at least as rich a feature set (Matrox hasn't let us down in those areas yet).

The Big M surely has something up their sleeves to counter the latest nVidia and especially ATI (a direct market competitor) threats. Just as obviously, now that ATI has thrown such a good hand, Matrox can't wait too long showing theirs, if they want to maintain their market shares in the OEM sector.

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Ace

**Himself** · 17 July 2000, 16:59

I just read around 5 reviews of the thing, seems like an OK card, at least it's competition for NVIDIA.

Raise your hand if you want NVIDA's 16 bit performance and ATI's 32 bit performance in one card.

The good news is competition will force prices down a bit. Also a real second player in the T&L biz can't be help to get T&L support in games. The Radeon is also a plus for EMBM fans, the more cards that support that, the better.

**DuRaNgO[MU]** · 17 July 2000, 17:04

Frankly, it sounds like good driver support would give this card a hefty lead over the gts2, and many more features as well
jim

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Sblive with Altec Lansing speaker combo
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