Real Radeon 9700 benchmarks are coming in.
We still intend to buy the card and test it, but some comments are in order now.
If you believed the “previews,” and thought you were going to be getting around 100% improvements across-the-board, well, now you know it isn’t so.
We said those phenomenal percentage differences wouldn’t generally hold at lower resolutions, and we were right.
We said there wouldn’t be much difference between the two for some games, and we were right.
We said those big differences were mostly due to turning on items like AA and aniso, and we were right (compare this to this.
We said those big difference at high resolutions with additional image processing was due more to the Ti4600 collapsing than the Radeon 9700 doing extremely well, and we were right.
We said the performance rate of the Radeon 9700 at very high resolutions with additional image processing would often be much better than Ti4600 but still not quite good enough, and we were right.
So, please, flush any 100% across-the-board crap out of your heads and let’s look at this anew.
You Were Wrong, Wrong, Wrong; The Radeon Rules!
I never said the Radeon wouldn’t be generally better; I said it wasn’t going to be as good as the previews would lead people to believe, that it wouldn’t be for everyone, and people would need to research and think a bit deciding whether or not to buy it.
To me, there’s a big difference between saying something’s 25% better and saying something’s 100% bigger. A lot of people didn’t quite get that, some thought I was trying to say the Ti4600 was better.
Some don’t even see any real difference between the something being 25% better and being 100% better.
Let’s see if the following clears things up:
Three friends decide to see who has the biggest one, and make a young lady for whom Size Matters the judge. One has five inches, the second has six, and the third has ten.
If this dame said she couldn’t tell the difference between Bachelor Number Two and Bachelor Number Three, what would you think of her acuity? Whatever you said, you just described yourself.
My earlier articles simply said that ATI shouldn’t be claiming ten compared to the Ti’s five, when six (or a fraction more) was more like it.
Now let’s keep the same story, but this time without Bachelor Number Three. Let’s say Bachelor Number One with the five inches is the lady’s boyfriend.
Once she got a look at Bachelor Number Two’s six inches, she’d probably say to herself, “Well, yeah, six is bigger but I’m not going to dump my boyfriend for just one more inch.”
Now imagine Bachelor Number Two bragging to her about having ten, then only pulling out six at the moment of truth. Think she’d be happy about that?
That’s what ATI did. That’s why I got mad about it.
Got it?
A Little Rephrasing
Many before me have called the competition in computing and video performance a geek form of uhhh . . . manhood enlargement.
Let us look at this situation in that light, and rephrase our contentions accordingly.
To a very large extent, the R9700 previews were like putting two guys (let’s call them Ti and Rad) with an extremely ugly, demanding woman, then measuring them. Ti registers one inch. Rad gets a whopping two, and starts yelling, “Mine is twice the size of his!”
Now take these two away, and send them out to meet more normal women. Some really turn them both on, some don’t, and some turn on one but not the other.
The easier the woman is, the more likely Ti can keep up with Rad, or at least get more than big enough.
More than a few women insist on condoms. Ti doesn’t mind, but it bothers Rad so much that he ends up little bigger than Ti.
In some cases, Rad does get considerably bigger than Ti, but the lady finds more than six inches a waste, anyway.
Fairly often, Rad ends up from a bit to quite a bit bigger than Ti, and the lady really appreciates it.
What really bothers Ti is ugly demanding women. He really shrivels up whenever they’re around. Rad, on the other hand, is more tolerant and has a lot more backbone (or some bone) in these situations.
He doesn’t do much better when the lady is really ugly or demanding, but once in a while, provided the woman isn’t too ugly or demanding, Rad does pretty decently while Ti is sidelined.
So do you want to be like Ti or Rad? Really depends on how much it will cost you to become like either, and what kind of women you want to date, doesn’t it?
If it will cost you about the same to become either like Ti or Rad, you’d choose the Rad option, but what if you’re already spent a lot to become just like Ti?
Rad isn’t consistently bigger than Ti. On the whole, he ends up significantly bigger, but sometimes, it’s only by a bit, sometimes, it’s by a whole lot. Sometimes the extra size matters, often it doesn’t. One size certainly doesn’t fit him in all the situations he can wind up in. You should definitely spend some time checking out how well Rad does in your situation before laying out the big bucks.
Most of you don’t even want to become a big stud like Rad or even Ti. It just costs too much. Being Ti Jr. or Little Rad might not get you bragging rights, but if the woman you’re with loves you the way you are right now, why not leave well enough alone?
And we haven’t even mentioned Niv yet. Rumor has it he’s going to be MegaMegaStud, and even his kids will be Megastuds but nobody knows when he’s going to show up or how good he’ll really be.
Nor do we know about Rad’s younger brother, who won’t be as good, but might well be good enough.
The Surreality of This All
The strangest part of all this is that this isn’t an argument between a bunch of Tis and a bunch of Rads. The vast majority of the arguers are Ti Jrs. and Little Rads (or less) who will never spend big bucks to become one of the big boys. They just get on one side or the other, and sit in the stands yelling, “Mine’s the biggest,” even though their equipment pales before either contender.
And all the rooting and cheerleading in the world won’t get them a millimeter bigger.
Strange.
The Real Questions
You shouldn’t be saying, “I want to be like Rad.”
What you should be doing is asking yourself, “What kind of women do I date, and how much will they appreciate me becoming like Rad?”
“Is my woman happy enough for me to wait to see what Niv and Niv Jr. are like, or wait until the price of getting to be like Rad drops?”
That’s what you should be asking yourself.
A Key
In case you can’t figure any part of this little tale out:
Ti is the Ti4600. Rad is the Radeon 9700. The women are games or video benchmarks (while I apologize if any women are offended by this, please understand that if you want to get the attention of dogs: bones are better than doilies).
An extremely ugly demanding woman would be a program like Code Creatures, or Comanche 4 (or most games at 1600X1200 with AA and aniso turned on).
An easy woman would be a game at Quake III at lower resolutions.
Women insisting on condoms would be what are being called “CPU-limited” games like Jedi Knight (with normal settings)
Women not needing more than six inches would be games where the Radeon does considerably better, but the Ti4600 gets over 60 fps.
Women who appreciate Rad’s somewhat bigger size would be 3DMark 2001, and those games in which the Radeon extra power can allow for either an increase in resolution, or something like 4X FSAA without fps loss.
A less-than-horribly ugly, demanding woman would be Quake III at high resolutions with everything turned on.
Ti Jr. and Little Rad would be the Ti4200 and Radeon 8500/9000.
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