On 09 Aug 2006, at 8:53 PM, Tyler Turner wrote:
Darcy,
You've been saying that this has been the case for 10
years.
Not at all. I did, however, approvingly quote someone saying that
"maybe 10 years ago" there was a significant difference between the
2D performance of the cards available at the time, but that today,
this is no longer the case. This is not at all the same thing as
saying that "this has been the case for 10 years."
Please note that I'm also not saying that there's no difference in 2D
performance between a video card from 10 years ago (or 5 years ago,
or 2 years ago) versus today's cards. All I'm saying -- and I've been
pretty clear about this, I think -- is that, of cards currently on
the market, when it comes to 2D performance, there is no significant
difference between a $100 graphics card and a $1500 graphics card.
The Radeon 9700 Pro is STILL a decent video
card by today's standards
For 2D applications, perhaps -- it was, after all, a top-of-the-line
high-performance card at the time. But it lacks most of the advanced
Direct X and OpenGL features found on today's cards, and it's an AGP
card (as opposed to the much-faster PCIe bus the Mac Pro uses). Plus
it has only 128 MB RAM (compared to the 256 MB or 512 MB of today's
cards). And it runs at 275 MHz -- even your X600 (never a top-of-the-
line card) runs at 400 MHz. You're right that the 9700's fillrate
still puts the X600 Pro's to shame, but fillrates are only important
in 3D applications.
This table may be useful:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Comparison_of_ATI_Graphics_Processing_Units>
And the article did NOT say that the performance was
maxed out - it just said that it was the best of the
day. The article makes it very clear that what you've
been saying here is simply not true.
Not exactly sure how you concluded that, since the article doesn't
cite a single benchmark. Once again, I'm amenable to evidence, but
the article you linked to is not only out-of-date, it's data-free.
To be perfectly honest I would not be surprised if the
Radeon 9700 could still compete effectively with
Nvidia's 7300. According to this page, it outperforms
it.
http://freestone-group.com/video-card-stability-test/benchmark-
results.html
Okay, first off, these are 3D-only benchmarks -- just so we're clear.
Second, the Nvida 7300 GS (listed in those results) and the Nvida
7300 GT (not listed) are completely different cards. Finally, the
7300 GT easily outperforms the Radeon X1300 Pro on 3D Mark tests. And
the Radeon 9700 is even less powerful than the Radeon x1300 Pro.
<http://www.techtree.com/techtree/jsp/article.jsp?
article_id=74047&cat_id=537&page=2>
Cheers,
- Darcy
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Brooklyn, NY
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