ATi announces Radeon 9800, 9600, and 9200

kecksykecksy
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
<a href="http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1794"; target="_blank">http://anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1794</a>;



Well, ATi has a new, faster Radeon, and the Radeon 9700 Pro Mac still hasn't shipped. Fewy!



Basically, the 9800 Pro is a higher clocked version of the 9700 Pro with additional shader support and improved AA. The Radeon 9800 Pro matches the nVidia GeForce FX 5800 Ultra in most tests, and creams it when AA is turned on. It's also quieter than the Geforce FX, so it doesn't sound like a lawnmower.



ATi also announced the Radeon 9200 Pro which replaces the Radeon 9000 Pro, and the Radeon 9600 Pro which replaces the Radeon 9500 Pro. Don't be fooled, though; the 9200 Pro is just an 8X AGP version of the 9000 Pro. It's not any faster, it's not any slower, and it still only supports DX8.1.



The Radeon 9600 Pro is ATi's new, mainstream DX9/OpenGL 2.0 card. It's not clear whether it will be faster or slower than the 9500 Pro, as the 9600 Pro has yet to be benchmarked. It might be slower since the Radeon 9600 Pro is a different arcitexuture with fewer pixel pipelines than the 9500 Pro. On the other hand, the 9600 Pro has a faster core and memory, and since ATi is citing it a replacement to the 9500 Pro, it should be faster, right? The real question is, will it be faster than GeForce FX 5200, which nVidia should announce later today?



[ 03-06-2003: Message edited by: Kecksy ]</p>

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 17
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,425member
    Maybe that's by design.



    Could Apple be delaying current Mac orders of 9700's for this?
  • Reply 2 of 17
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    The 9600 Pro should be on par with the 9500 Pro it replaces, except it's cheaper to manufacturer, has fewer pixel pipes and stuff, but clocked higher. It's going to be hard to claim one is better than the other even though the 9600 Pro is the highest clocked GPU of the bunch.
  • Reply 3 of 17
    rodukroduk Posts: 706member
    I was hoping to see the equivalent of the 9500 (or similar) introduced for the Mac. I'd like something slightly better than the 9000 to make it worthwhile changing my existing card, but I'm not sure my older QuickSilver PowerMac would be able to fully utilise the 9700. There seems to be quite a large gap, both in price and performance, between the mainstream 9000 and the top of the range 9700.



    [ 03-06-2003: Message edited by: RodUK ]</p>
  • Reply 4 of 17
    tigerwoods99tigerwoods99 Posts: 2,633member
    Yea, once again more bullsh*t as we have the new Radeon come out for the PC and the Mac doesnt even get the 9700 yet. I doubt its a "could they be waiting?" thing either, we'll just get stuck with the older generation card again at $400. This is what pisses me off.
  • Reply 5 of 17
    kecksykecksy Posts: 1,002member
    I guess now that ATi is the leader in video hardware, they're too good to make products for Apple. Even nVidia is better. They had the GF4 MX and Ti on the Mac in no time. I suspect the GeForceFX would be on the Mac now had it not been delayed.



    [ 03-06-2003: Message edited by: Kecksy ]</p>
  • Reply 6 of 17
    tigerwoods99tigerwoods99 Posts: 2,633member
    Yeah, problem is the Geforce FX is a frickin leaf blower and ATI blows nVidia out of the water now.
  • Reply 7 of 17
    lixlix Posts: 56member
    Doesn't seem so long ago that we were bitching about ATI and were desperate for nVidia. Now we want ATI back!



    <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />



    Seriously though, it would be good if they just skipped over the 9700 Pro for the Mac and gave us the new cards. It's my birthday soon and I want one!
  • Reply 8 of 17
    mount_my_floppymount_my_floppy Posts: 913member
    Do you guys think that ATI is holding back on the mac because of what steve did to them a while back?
  • Reply 9 of 17
    tigerwoods99tigerwoods99 Posts: 2,633member
    Probably. Steve Jobs is an idiot.
  • Reply 10 of 17
    serranoserrano Posts: 1,806member
    [quote]Originally posted by TigerWoods99:

    <strong>Probably. Steve Jobs is an idiot.</strong><hr></blockquote>



  • Reply 11 of 17
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    ATi is busily writing new drivers, and it goes without saying that they write the Windows drivers first, then port them to the Mac. I think that accounts for the delay.



    It still sucks royally, but there you go. I think ATi is finally getting around to addressing their reputation on the PC side for terrible drivers.
  • Reply 12 of 17
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    The Radeon 9800 Pro is pretty much just a 9700 Pro on steroids too, so the drivers situation shouldn't be bad once we get the 9700 Pro...
  • Reply 13 of 17
    altivec_2.0altivec_2.0 Posts: 995member
    What I'd like to see is a Fire GL card from ATI just as fast and powerful as the 9800, more for workstations and not having all these gamer cards in computers that aren't used for games.
  • Reply 14 of 17
    tigerwoods99tigerwoods99 Posts: 2,633member
    The thing I don't understand is why wouldnt ATI just skip over the 9700 and concentrate on making drivers for their next generation card if they knew the 9700 wouldnt be ready before they could announce the 9800 on the PC side. I mean, how much different could the drivers be? THe 9800 isnt ALL that far from the 9700, it's just a beefed up version. I figure that if we have the 9700 drivers for Mac, it might even be possible to flash the 9800 Pro for PC to work in a Mac.
  • Reply 15 of 17
    kecksykecksy Posts: 1,002member
    [quote]Originally posted by TigerWoods99:

    <strong>The thing I don't understand is why wouldnt ATI just skip over the 9700 and concentrate on making drivers for their next generation card if they knew the 9700 wouldnt be ready before they could announce the 9800 on the PC side. I mean, how much different could the drivers be? THe 9800 isnt ALL that far from the 9700, it's just a beefed up version. I figure that if we have the 9700 drivers for Mac, it might even be possible to flash the 9800 Pro for PC to work in a Mac.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Yeah, the 9700 Pro Mac still isn't shipping yet, which makes me wonder whether they'll just replace it with a 9800 Pro. Would be nice.
  • Reply 16 of 17
    matsumatsu Posts: 6,558member
    Is it time for Apple to put a small team of full time grafics card driver writers to work? There's ATI and nVidia to keep current, and then there's always the possibility of a resurgence from Matrox, or pro stuff from Video-logic, yadda yadda. Have a team around to "macify" a selection of PC cards?
  • Reply 17 of 17
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    What would be better is if Apple could somehow put some sort of firmware mod right in the AGP slot on Macs so that any PC graphcis card could be used. I don't know how technically feasible that is, though... but seriously, you can get some really nice cards for not much money! Like a Radeon 9100 (basically an upclocked 8500) for under $80... the Mac version is twice as expensive. And there's much more range, too. Instead of having to choose between a Radeon 8500, a GeForce 3, and a GeForce 4 Ti4600, there are tons of options in between - GeForce 4 Ti4200, Ti4400, GeForce 3 Ti cards, Radeon 9500, 9100, 9200, etc. You can basically spend exactly what you want to spend for exactly the amount of graphics you need.
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