Just got word from Dave @ Beyond3D that they have had the opportunity to review numerous incarnations of ATI?s latest 3D chip. However, one remained un-reviewed, until now. Courtesy of PowerColor, they're looking at their ?Evil Commando 2 Gold? Radeon 9700 128MB card.
Those who are not familiar with the Radeon 9700 will want to know that this board variant remains exactly the same as Radeon 9700 PRO in all respects other than the clock speeds of the core and memory. This means that all 8 pixel pipelines available from R300 are there, as is the full 256-bit memory bus. All that's different is that where Radeon 9700 PRO has core/memory speeds of 325/610MHz, Radeon 9700 weighs in at 275/540MHz. This still equates to a theoretical pixel rate of 2.2G pixels/s and a physical bandwidth of just over 17 GB/s. We'll compare the performance of this board with two of its siblings, the higher powered Radeon 9700 PRO and the lower bandwidthed 9500 PRO, to see exactly where the 9700 stands in the lineup.
Those who are not familiar with the Radeon 9700 will want to know that this board variant remains exactly the same as Radeon 9700 PRO in all respects other than the clock speeds of the core and memory. This means that all 8 pixel pipelines available from R300 are there, as is the full 256-bit memory bus. All that's different is that where Radeon 9700 PRO has core/memory speeds of 325/610MHz, Radeon 9700 weighs in at 275/540MHz. This still equates to a theoretical pixel rate of 2.2G pixels/s and a physical bandwidth of just over 17 GB/s. We'll compare the performance of this board with two of its siblings, the higher powered Radeon 9700 PRO and the lower bandwidthed 9500 PRO, to see exactly where the 9700 stands in the lineup.
