Radeon 9700 Pro.

[Draft]

Just wanted to let everyone know that I just received this months MacAddict and on the MacMall ad, it has the Radeon 9700 Pro listed for $333.99. After seeing this, I went to the site and searched for it. Low-and-behold, I came up with this:

http://www.macmall.com/macmall/shop/detail.asp?dpno=576569

The price listed there is $359.00.

What does this all mean? Is the 9700 just around the corner?

Draft

[Draft]

Nevermind about the link. It's for the PC version of the card. There is still an ad for it in MacAddict magazine though.

Draft

[MrMacMan]

Originally posted by Draft
Nevermind about the link. It's for the PC version of the card. There is still an ad for it in MacAddict magazine though.

Draft
Well you can always *try* to flash it.

[void]

It's 8x AGP, you can't

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by vjv
It's 8x AGP, you can't

What does 8x AGP have to do with it? 8x AGP is fully backwards compatible with any AGP slot.

[Ambrose Chapel]

MacMall has had the Mac Radeon 9000 listed for a few months already...doesn't mean the card is anywhere near due to ship.

[Liquidity X]

the 9000 is basicly a 8500 w/ a ADC port, and i even read some where the 8500 outplays the 900o in a lot of ways. I love my 8500, I hope the 9700 with run ok in my 2x agp, and that it comes with a vga/dvi, I wanna use Dual displays withthat one also. I donlt have a ADC display.

[MacBandit]

Was there any mention of the 9700 at the Expo?

[Chaszmyr]

Originally posted by MacBandit
Was there any mention of the 9700 at the Expo?

Nope. By the time PowerMacs get 8x AGP they GeForce FX will be out... Dont hold your breath for a 970

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Chaszmyr


Nope. By the time PowerMacs get 8x AGP they GeForce FX will be out... Dont hold your breath for a 970

You don't need 8x AGP to use the the 9700. I know it's being produced ATI has made announcements about it also it keeps showing up in sales fliers which usually means it's imminent.

There was DDR ram for PowerMacs in the magazines a month before the new PowerMacs came out.

[Draft]

Was there any news from ATI about the 9700 at MWSF? Did anyone stop by the ATI booth at MWSF?

Draft

[8thDegreeSavage]

The 9700 pro WAS on display at the expo.

It was running UT2k3 on DP ghz G4's at a solid 80 fps.

Wait till its done. they are using the PC code for the cards so mac users will get the EXACT same features as the PC world. We should get it in the next few months....and YEAH it does run fine on 4x AGP.

Some of you talk out of your A$$.

[Liquidity X]

how about 2x agp?

[8thDegreeSavage]

IM not sure about 2x currently, but 4x is a forsure, they had 6 out of 11 GHZ DP G4's running the 9700 at the MWSF.

They said it should be out in retail in next two months or so..or they are hoping to have it out by then.

I know currently almost all graphics cards dont quite saturate a 4x agp and that 8x agp is slightly excessive in almost all situations. So while you may be able to run the card in a 2x agp slot you may not get as much benefit as a card designed for that type pof slot or at max 4x agp as say a 4x agp slotted mac running a card designed to be 8x if needed and backwards compatible with 4x agp.

Does that make sense for you?

[Liquidity X]

yah i fiurged i'd take a performace hit due to a slower agp, but how mcuh was kinda what i was wondering. My G4 had been upgraded to a DP 800, so my CPU shouldn't bottle neck it to much, wjo know by then I may sell this and get a G5, who knows, just kinda wondering so I couldplan ahead if I donlthave a new box by then.

[FattyMembrane]

Originally posted by 8thDegreeSavage
they are using the PC code for the cards so mac users will get the EXACT same features as the PC world
actually, img just posted an article today in which epic noted that ut2k3 would not support fsaa (although ati is expected to make an enabler to do this). it will also lack smp support (the pc version does not have it either, but it really should). do you know what kind of frame rates a comparable pc with a 9700 gets with ut2k3 at the same settings you wer using? it would be nice to see that we are finally getting games that run as well as their pc counterparts.

[Funkatation]

Here's some benchmarks for the 9700Pro with UT2K3.

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1683&p=6

[ddtlm]

I still wonder if there is any G4 out there that can really put a 9700 Pro to good use.

[FattyMembrane]

Originally posted by Funkatation
Here's some benchmarks for the 9700Pro with UT2K3.

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1683&p=6
wow. it looks like the 9700 is really lagging on the mac. i think that ddtlm may be right about the g4 being a bottleneck

[ddtlm]

FattyMembrane:

Possibly also ATI's drivers. You may have seen the early benchmarks on the new AluBooks that showed the GF4G0-440 beating the Radeon 9000-M, which is not how things are in the PC world. Admittedly the newer laptop does have more memory bandwidth, but the (early) benches showed quite a difference, more than I would expect from memory bandwidth alone. There is also the possiblity that the Radeon 9000-M is clocked especially low in the TiBook.

I look forward to real tests being performed to settle these questions.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by Liquidity X
how about 2x agp?

Yes it will run in it but you will see no benefit from it from say an ATI 8500 to the ATI 9700 this is because the bus is saturated even with the ATI 8500 and even something like a G4MX at peak FPS for instance low screen size will saturate a 2x AGP bus at times.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by FattyMembrane

wow. it looks like the 9700 is really lagging on the mac. i think that ddtlm may be right about the g4 being a bottleneck

The problem is we don't know the screen resolution or the game display preferences for the PowerMacs at the expo so the FPS are completely useless. Also we are talking about very early drivers if they are expecting a month or two still before release. Understand the only thing holding back the release is drivers and that means at least a month of development for just drivers yet.

I have seen many early reports of video cards with beta drivers that only showed about half to 2/3 there FPS with the early drivers as compared to the final drivers. A good example of this was the early ATI Radeon cards.

To just clarify one other point AGP 8x is actually known as AGP 3.0 and is by design fully backward compatible with all previous AGP revisions.

[ddtlm]

MacBandit:

Yes it will run in it but you will see no benefit from it from say an ATI 8500 to the ATI 9700 this is because the bus is saturated even with the ATI 8500 and even something like a G4MX at peak FPS for instance low screen size will saturate a 2x AGP bus at times.
This is innacurrate. In the land of PC's I have read many reviews that compare AGP 8x to 4x, or 4x to 2x, and they always conclude that it is virtually irrelevant. I have yet to see any support for your claim that AGP speed makes much difference.

On the other hand, I have seen again and again that FSB and memory speed, as well as CPU power and driver optimizations, make a big difference.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by ddtlm
MacBandit:


This is innacurrate. In the land of PC's I have read many reviews that compare AGP 8x to 4x, or 4x to 2x, and they always conclude that it is virtually irrelevant. I have yet to see any support for your claim that AGP speed makes much difference.

On the other hand, I have seen again and again that FSB and memory speed, as well as CPU power and driver optimizations, make a big difference.

anandtech has shown that 2x AGP can be flooded very easily with modern graphics cards. I don't have a link for it but I do remember reading something there in the last year. Here is a rough explanation at Anandtech.com

As stated in the last paragraph of this article the hardware T&L unit is quite capable of pushing more data than 2xAGP can feed even with the old Geforce3 cards. Seeing how the Geforce 4 and ATI9700 are capable of nearly twice the FPS of the Geforce3 I would say that the benefit of 2x to 4x AGP is even more important now.

http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=64

For everyone else here is an article explaining AGP 1.0, 2.0, 3.0. So there is no longer any confussion on compatibility etc..

http://www.anandtech.com/guides/viewfaq.html?i=35

[ddtlm]

MacBandit:

As stated in the last paragraph of this article the hardware T&L unit is quite capable of pushing more data than 2xAGP can feed even with the old Geforce3 cards.
But you ignore the numerous times that Anandtech qualifies the 2x -> 4x performance boost by saying it applies only to DDR or RDRAM systems, not PC133 systems. To quote anand:

The peak specifications are nearly equal and as such you won’t be able to reach the theoretical peak under real world situations.
So clearly all Macs except those released very recently don't even care much about AGP 4x. Wether the latest Macs care or not is unknown, because although they do have DDR RAM, their FSB is still SDR.

Seeing how the Geforce 4 and ATI9700 are capable of nearly twice the FPS of the Geforce3 I would say that the benefit of 2x to 4x AGP is even more important now.
But are any other busses on any available Macs capable of pushing these higher data rates?

As far as AGP 8x vs AGP 4x, here's a link which pretty much establishes AGP 8x as pointless at this time:

http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2002q4/gf4-8x/index.x?pg=1

[MrMacMan]

Originally posted by Liquidity X
yah i fiurged i'd take a performace hit due to a slower agp, but how mcuh was kinda what i was wondering. My G4 had been upgraded to a DP 800, so my CPU shouldn't bottle neck it to much, wjo know by then I may sell this and get a G5, who knows, just kinda wondering so I couldplan ahead if I donlthave a new box by then.

The G5 was basically killed.
Basically this year will bit because the 970 I will Hopefully come come in 2004. (Or sooner apple, please) We will see some speed bumps, feb aparently.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by ddtlm
MacBandit:


But you ignore the numerous times that Anandtech qualifies the 2x -> 4x performance boost by saying it applies only to DDR or RDRAM systems, not PC133 systems. To quote anand:


So clearly all Macs except those released very recently don't even care much about AGP 4x. Wether the latest Macs care or not is unknown, because although they do have DDR RAM, their FSB is still SDR.


But are any other busses on any available Macs capable of pushing these higher data rates?

As far as AGP 8x vs AGP 4x, here's a link which pretty much establishes AGP 8x as pointless at this time:

http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2002q4/gf4-8x/index.x?pg=1

I do agree that 8x AGP at least at the current level of technology is overkill.

When I was talking about the benefit of 4x AGP I did in fact have the DDR macs in mind because that is what I have. Yes I do think they will be able to take advantage of the 4xAGP because of the DDR and because they can access the DDR ram with DMA (Direct memmory access). The main system bus in the DDR Macs is more then capable of the throughput potential that AGP and DDR are capable of.

[ddtlm]

MacBandit:

The main system bus in the DDR Macs is more then capable of the throughput potential that AGP and DDR are capable of.
Unless you have information that I don't, this is speculation.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by ddtlm
MacBandit:


Unless you have information that I don't, this is speculation.

The capable throuput of the main bus has been stated on this site many many times. It would be within one of the threads created just after the MDD Powermacs were released. There were even diagrams with the data path speeds etc..

[ddtlm]

MacBandit:

Yes, I am well aware of the peak bandwidths of Apple's busses, however that does not address the question. On the one hand we have the DDR memory which could stream textures fast enough to use AGP 4x, and on the other we have a FSB which is not so fortunate. To quote Anand:

This is a matter of the T&L units being able to handle geometric complexity well beyond the limits of what AGP 2X can offer which isn’t the case with older boards with less powerful T&L units.
AFAIK, "geometric complexity" (verticies) and GPU micro-programs are going to be coming down the FSB most of, if not all of, the time because they are very often modified each time the frame is drawn. The DDR RAM does nothing for this.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by ddtlm
MacBandit:

Yes, I am well aware of the peak bandwidths of Apple's busses, however that does not address the question. On the one hand we have the DDR memory which could stream textures fast enough to use AGP 4x, and on the other we have a FSB which is not so fortunate. To quote Anand:


AFAIK, "geometric complexity" (verticies) and GPU micro-programs are going to be coming down the FSB most of, if not all of, the time because they are very often modified each time the frame is drawn. The DDR RAM does nothing for this.

This is true and I don't have a lot to say but, Apple please get us a DDR FSB!!!

It all really depends on how much of the data can be precached into memory I guess and in the case of first person shooters i'm guessing that that isn't much.

Even with all of this I do expect a large FPS increase with a ATI9700 on a DDR Powermac with 2x1GHz or higher. If this wasn't going to be the case we would see that the frame rates with the G4Ti showing very flat across the board at higher resolutions. This not being the case means the CPU is not the limiting factor yet.

[ddtlm]

MacBandit:

Even with all of this I do expect a large FPS increase with a ATI9700 on a DDR Powermac with 2x1GHz or higher.
We'll have to wait and see. :) I wonder if the 9700 Pro is going to be showing up at around the same time as the next powermac revision...

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by ddtlm
MacBandit:


We'll have to wait and see. :) I wonder if the 9700 Pro is going to be showing up at around the same time as the next powermac revision...

Last I heard they said a month or two. So yes, it could show up then or it could show up at the same time that hte Geforce FX comes out which I expect an either simultaneous release of for Mac and PC or a Mac first release. This is because of the past history with the G4Ti and Apples current use of NVidia products.

What ATI doesn't realise is they are losing a lot of sales. Even though I am an ATI advocate (back the underdog) if they release the G4Ti the FX is only a month away I'll just wait and see what the numbers are like, fully expecting the FX to be slightly faster and therefore will get my and many other peoples money.

[ddtlm]

MacBandit:

Ah, wouldn't be nice to have both a R-9700 and a GF-FX available.

I'd say that it's not actually so clear that ATI is the underdog. They are and have been bigger than nVidia, they've had superior products for months, and nVidia's next products (GF-FX) may not be all-overpowering. It is possible that after a long stretch of "little" nVidia being king, ATI has finally got itself on task.

I prefer nVidia because of their excellent drivers for x86 (including Linux). ...Although I do own+use 2 ATI cards, 1 nVidia and 1 Matrox right now.

[Jeffx342]

Radeon 9700 in action! on PC

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=14288&highlight=Jeffx342

[fudgebrown]

So am I flooding my AGP 2x bus with a Geforce 4 Ti? I currently have a dual 500 G4 with a Geforce 4 Ti running well in the AGP 2x slot, and over a gig of system ram. I can play highest texture games like Jedi Knight 2 with no problems. The only bottleneck seems to be the processors. If I got a dual 1ghz upgrade would that be comparable to a new Dual Ghz MDD with same config?

[MrMacMan]

Originally posted by fudgebrown
So am I flooding my AGP 2x bus with a Geforce 4 Ti? I currently have a dual 500 G4 with a Geforce 4 Ti running well in the AGP 2x slot, and over a gig of system ram. I can play highest texture games like Jedi Knight 2 with no problems. The only bottleneck seems to be the processors. If I got a dual 1ghz upgrade would that be comparable to a new Dual Ghz MDD with same config?

Well your only prob is the bus speed now.
I belive that would just about do it for your system.

[fudgebrown]

Originally posted by MrMacman


Well your only prob is the bus speed now.
I belive that would just about do it for your system.

What do you mean that would do it for my system? The dual Ghz upgrade? explain...

[ddtlm]

fudgebrown:

With only a 100mhz FSB and RAM, you are going to be somewhat limited. Your performance should increase overall, however.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by ddtlm
fudgebrown:

With only a 100mhz FSB and RAM, you are going to be somewhat limited. Your performance should increase overall, however.

He will never attain the graphics potential of any generation Dual/GHz G4 though becuase of two things. A) 2x AGP Bus (Yes it is probably flooding the bus durring heavy operation) B) 100MHz system bus (133MHz does make a difference and 166 makes an even bigger difference). Also L3 cache can make a big difference.

The problem with upgrading an older machine is you can end up spending nearly as much as a new machine but never achieve the performance because of all the little things that are upgraded over time. Some other things to think about are the 3 ATA busses in the new duals. ATA100, ATA66, and ATA33. This was done to prevent bottlenecks.

[ddtlm]

MacBandit:

He will never attain the graphics potential of any generation Dual/GHz G4 though becuase of two things. A) 2x AGP Bus (Yes it is probably flooding the bus durring heavy operation) B) 100MHz system bus (133MHz does make a difference and 166 makes an even bigger difference).
I think you are entirely too facinated by AGP speeds. With PC100 RAM, I would not be worrying about AGP 2x. :)

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by ddtlm
MacBandit:


I think you are entirely too facinated by AGP speeds. With PC100 RAM, I would not be worrying about AGP 2x. :)

Maybe I am but it is a potential bottleneck even with PC100.

[ddtlm]

In any case, even a dual 1ghz G4 card would not be especially overkill for PC100 RAM because of the L3 caches. Although I have since upgraded it, I got surprisingly good performance from a 1.53ghz Athlon on PC133. And that was with a piddly 384k of cache of the chip, which means more useage of memory bandwidth than a G4 would experience.

As I've been saying for quite some time, there are problems far worse in current Mac towers than memory bandwidth.

[Dont Hurt Me]

so true, cpus & busses holding back it all so even with super duper vid cards i dont see much help. Great thing about nvidia and i think they are the underdogs is that there stuff works unlike that other company that allways is posting updates drivers, etc cause they didnt get right the first time. the 9700 is not yet out for the mac but the fx should also be right around the corner- go to their site to take a peek anyways nvidia seems to be in bed with apple so if they couple that with the Ibm 970 we will not only have a awsome machine but a Mac Gamers Dream! Iam holding out for one of these even if it takes a year!






800 quicksilver geforce3 1 gig ram

[fudgebrown]

Anyway - at least I am really happy with my machine right now. I am having fun still on it, gaming is great, and work is great as well since I'm a freelance graphic designer. I agree to wait until the IBM 970, first because by then I will have paid off my debt, but also I have heard some good reliable rumors about some new powermacs coming up that should kill any Pentium based machine without question. I just wish the general public would not be so mislead by just Mhz speed of chips. I still learn a lot reading online about the G4 and how it performs so well at such a low Mhz speed, and even with slower buses and ram PowerMacs are still beating Pentiums since there is no real way to compare PC speeds. Check out -- http://www.macvspc.info/ there is some good stuff there, and a link to Mac v. PC comparisons.

[ddtlm]

fudgebrown:

I have heard some good reliable rumors about some new powermacs coming up that should kill any Pentium based machine without question
Anyone who claims this is pretty much ignorant of the facts. The PPC-970 will not be the top dog in all apps, but it will almost certainly dominate in all areas that are currently strong points of the G4. Future Intel and AMD chips are just too powerful to brush under the rug and ignore... it appears that AMD's Opteron (and perhaps Athlon 64) is going to sport a per-clock performance the same as the PPC-970!

[fudgebrown]

Originally posted by ddtlm
fudgebrown:


Anyone who claims this is pretty much ignorant of the facts. The PPC-970 will not be the top dog in all apps, but it will almost certainly dominate in all areas that are currently strong points of the G4. Future Intel and AMD chips are just too powerful to brush under the rug and ignore... it appears that AMD's Opteron (and perhaps Athlon 64) is going to sport a per-clock performance the same as the PPC-970!

Lets leave this to benchmarks in the future. I dont really even care about Intel and AMD. It's just nice to know that the Mac will be even more incredible to use with the 970.

[ddtlm]

fudgebrown:

I dont really even care about Intel and AMD. It's just nice to know that the Mac will be even more incredible to use with the 970.
Then why did you take the time to proclaim that the PPC-970 will dominate "any Pentium based machine"? Hmmmm. ;)

[Draft]

Did anyone notice the build to order options on the new powermacs? The radion 9700 is so close, I can taste it. Next to the radion 9700 it says "available soon."

Draft

[job]

It's coming...

:p

[mattmack]

Originally posted by Liquidity X
how about 2x agp?
Nope I specifically asked that Question at MWSF:(

[Dont Hurt Me]

Anyone interested in the 9700 pro or nvidia's fx should check out toms hardware where he puts these to the test. I was surprised to see that the 9700 held its own and that the fx beat it by only a slight margin and then was creating more heat and noise and cost more. plus ati is talking about coming out with a higher clocked 9700 so this is good news for all 3d gamers. Remember folks that you need a powerful cpu to push these kinds of cards to the frame rates he was showing. his test rig was with a 2700 athlon xp.

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by mattmack

Nope I specifically asked that Question at MWSF:(


That's not what I've been told by people who have actually tested it in PCs with 2x AGP. There may be a driver hang up with ATI on macs but I doubt it.

[mattmack]

Originally posted by MacBandit



That's not what I've been told by people who have actually tested it in PCs with 2x AGP. There may be a driver hang up with ATI on macs but I doubt it.
It's possilble that it will work. But I did ask the ATI rep and he may mean it wasn't supportted. If you get one and have an agp 2X Slot and it works let me know. It's an expensive gamble though:confused:

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by mattmack

It's possilble that it will work. But I did ask the ATI rep and he may mean it wasn't supportted. If you get one and have an agp 2X Slot and it works let me know. It's an expensive gamble though:confused:

It's not an expensive gamble if someone were to get the new PowerMac with ATI9700 and try the vCard in there old mac with 2xAGP. I highly doubt there is any possibility that it could cause a hardware failure due to the nature of AGP being fully backwards compatible. If there is any problem it's software related.

[mattmack]

Originally posted by MacBandit


It's not an expensive gamble if someone were to get the new PowerMac with ATI9700 and try the vCard in there old mac with 2xAGP. I highly doubt there is any possibility that it could cause a hardware failure due to the nature of AGP being fully backwards compatible. If there is any problem it's software related.

no by expensive I meant buying the card when its available and trying it in an agp 2 slot:)

[MacBandit]

Originally posted by mattmack


no by expensive I meant buying the card when its available and trying it in an agp 2 slot:)

That's kind of what I figured that's why I posed the situation of someone upgrading to new hardware and opting for the ATI9700.