R300 - July 2002

The Radeon 9700 is a stake to the heart of nVidia. It's enormous memory bandwidth and first-time record 8 render pipes already make for a good shaker, but the 9700 is also DX9-compatible. At a time where nVidia is still DX8-based, ATI is pulling ahead and that is sure to turn up the heat under some competitor's pants.

Tech Sheet

RAMDAC 2x400 Mhz Transistor count (millions) 110 Technology 0.15 micron Frequency 325 Mhz Onboard RAM 128/256 MB DDR RAM bus frequency 310 Mhz DDR RAM bus width 256 bits Memory Bandwidth 19.4 GB/s Pixel Pipelines 8 Vertex Shaders 4 Triangle count (millions) 325 Pixel fill rate 2 600 MPixels

And turn up the heat it does. The 9700 Pro soundly trounces the competition's best product. How ATI managed to take a looser like the 9000 and turn it into such a winner could seem quite a mystery. But the fact is, the R300 has nothing to do with the RV250. Almost double the transistor count, a truckload of pipelines, DDR and DDR-II compatibility, DX9 compatibility, 256-bit memory bus . . . No, the R300 is an entirely new product.

And, where it not for ATI's traditionally weak driver support, the R300 would be the trumpet of Armageddon for nVidia, which is really starting to panick. The NV30, code-name for the GeForce FX, is still months away. Months during which ATI can occupy the market and prevent the NV30 from actually having any worth when it finally comes out.

And it turns out that that is exactly what is happening.

In addition, ATI is taking a leaf from nVidia's book, and declining its R300 in several inferior flavors in order to better occupy the market. At this game, nVidia is king though, and ATI's driver issues keep it from making any meaningful inroads into nVidia piece of the cake.

Tech Sheet

Model 9700 9500 Pro 9500 RAMDAC 2x400 Mhz Transistor count (millions) 110 Technology 0.15 micron Frequency 275 Mhz 275 Mhz 325 Mhz Onboard RAM 128/256 MB DDR 128 MB DDR 64 MB DDR RAM bus frequency 270 Mhz DDR 270 Mhz DDR 270 Mhz DDR RAM bus width 256 bits 128 bits 128 bits Pixel Pipelines 8 8 4

The graphic states a resolution of 1280x1024, but that is a mistake. The actual resolution is 1024x768.

The Radeon 9000 series

The Radeon 9800