GeForce FX 5800 Ultra vs Radeon 9700 Pro

man, i remember this generation VIVIDLY. ati really knocked it out of the park with this one
And later they released the Bulldozer of video cards: the HD 2900 XT. The comment thread for the review here on that one was glorious. Good times.
 
I remember my dustbuster very well.

I remember getting to take a look at one in a box at QuakeCon, after hearing FrgMstr speak ;)

And later they released the Bulldozer of video cards: the HD 2900 XT. The comment thread for the review here on that one was glorious. Good times.

Talk about shitting the bed... just as Nvidia's FX series should have been good GPUs- and they actually were, but developers didn't code for them, imagine that!- the HD2900XT should also have been a good GPU.

Between these two generations, I concluded that:
  • For DX9, the ATi 9700 Pro was basically the hardware reference; they also designed to use 24bit color throughout, so for 32bit sources they tossed fidelity, and for 16bit stuff they had extra overhead, but they did not do what Nvidia did which was to run 32bit color at half speed; since developers targeted ATi and released 24bit color sources, the FX5800 essentially ran at half speed or nearly so
  • For DX10, this flipped: Nvidia essentially had the reference hardware with the 8800GTX- which was a knockout not just because it ran DX10 pretty well, but because it also ran DX9 very well
 
My 5800 Ultra is still sitting in a static bag and has not been used in years as I don't have a board to test it out on.
 
I was one of the people with the 2900xt, gotta say, when mildly overclocked it wasn’t nearly as bad as most people made out
 
I was one of the people with the 2900xt, gotta say, when mildly overclocked it wasn’t nearly as bad as most people made out

I also owned a 2900xt. I regretted it though, mostly because it was loud and even with bios editing and tweaks I couldn't get it where I wanted it. But my brothers bought the 8800 series and their cards died with the bump gate fiasco... 9700 Pro was a solid card though.
 
man, i remember this generation VIVIDLY. ati really knocked it out of the park with this one

The thing that people often fail to recognize here is that, like AMD's Athlon and later Athlon 64, ATi's Radeon 9700Pro was the product of the right company and technology acquisition at the right time. ATi bought out a company called ArtX, which gave them the technology they needed to create the Radeon 9700 Pro.

I was one of the people with the 2900xt, gotta say, when mildly overclocked it wasn’t nearly as bad as most people made out

It was still way slower than NVIDIA's offerings and ATi was caught cheating on the benchmarks. About the only thing that card did better was 3D Mark. This is where I realized that 3D Mark scores meant virtually nothing as the variables that mattered to it weren't the ones that necessarily improved game performance.
 
The thing that people often fail to recognize here is that, like AMD's Athlon and later Athlon 64, ATi's Radeon 9700Pro was the product of the right company and technology acquisition at the right time. ATi bought out a company called ArtX, which gave them the technology they needed to create the Radeon 9700 Pro.



It was still way slower than NVIDIA's offerings and ATi was caught cheating on the benchmarks. About the only thing that card did better was 3D Mark. This is where I realized that 3D Mark scores meant virtually nothing as the variables that mattered to it weren't the ones that necessarily improved game performance.


You do know Nvidia was caught cheating with the FX 5800 Ultra on 3DMark.

And its now sad because if any of these companies start to cheat, I don't think it would be noticed like it used to when we had good journalists reporting actively on this stuff.
 
ah, yes, the 9700 PRO, great card, but it was the card that marked the beginning of the end for ATI.
 
i still have my 9500 cough i mean 9700 cough :) box some where but pretty sure i killed that card at some point for shits and giggles after upgrading to the 9800 SE i mean 9800 Pro :)

those were the fun times back then, still amazed even after all this time you can still bios mod lower cards to higher cards.. i for sure thought that was going to completely stopped after the 9800 SE/Pro modding but it never happened thankfully.
 
The 9700 Pro was pretty much the best video card I have ever owned. At least nostalgia wise, I have extremely fond memories of that card and playing any game I wanted to play with all the settings cranked.
 
The 9700 Pro was pretty much the best video card I have ever owned. At least nostalgia wise, I have extremely fond memories of that card and playing any game I wanted to play with all the settings cranked.

At the time, this was true. Later on when larger LCD's hit the market and multi-monitor became a thing, the top end video card was no longer sufficient without buying them in pairs. Today, we could still use the power of a second card, but multi-GPU isn't supported well enough for that to be a reasonable option.
 
I was a reliable buyer of nvidia from the TNT2 up to the 5800 series. I switched because the radeon was better. That and the 5870 were the only AMD GPUs I ever owned.
 
At the time, this was true. Later on when larger LCD's hit the market and multi-monitor became a thing, the top end video card was no longer sufficient without buying them in pairs. Today, we could still use the power of a second card, but multi-GPU isn't supported well enough for that to be a reasonable option.

Yup... went from Crossfire 290s to a single Vega 64. Multigpu simply isn't broadly enough supported anymore to justify the cost, and complexity.
 
I was a reliable buyer of nvidia from the TNT2 up to the 5800 series. I switched because the radeon was better. That and the 5870 were the only AMD GPUs I ever owned.

I was pretty much the same, starting with TNT. I bought a new card pretty much every time they launched one for years. TNT, TNT2, GeForce 256, GeForce2, GeForce3 skipped GeForce4 then jumped to 9700 Pro. Since the 9700Pro I stopped buying every launch and skip back and forth based on value. Funny thing is, I'm not sure if I stopped buying every launch because of the prices skyrocketing or because I got married! It seems I switched to a best value strategy after getting hitched. Then this last rotation I insisted on AMD because I was fed up with Nvidia's new Apple like business strategies.
 
ah, yes, the 9700 PRO, great card, but it was the card that marked the beginning of the end for ATI.
The X100 and X1000 series were solid product lines as well. It really wasn't a problem until the HD 2000 series and the beginning of the DX10 era and ATI/AMD began to falter.
 
I was pretty much the same, starting with TNT. I bought a new card pretty much every time they launched one for years. TNT, TNT2, GeForce 256, GeForce2, GeForce3 skipped GeForce4 then jumped to 9700 Pro. Since the 9700Pro I stopped buying every launch and skip back and forth based on value. Funny thing is, I'm not sure if I stopped buying every launch because of the prices skyrocketing or because I got married! It seems I switched to a best value strategy after getting hitched. Then this last rotation I insisted on AMD because I was fed up with Nvidia's new Apple like business strategies.

Yeah I skipped a gen here and there all throughout. I tried to stretch the 5870 longer by buying a second but kept having overheating issues. Really soured me on the SLI/xfire. I still had a dedicated soundcard at the time which was part of the problem.
 
My first GPU was the 5900 Ultra and I was blown away by how powerful it was at the time coming from console gaming and having a previous computer that was a potato. The 5900 Ultra started to choke in newer DX9 games and I eventually upgraded to the Radeon X800XT. Great memories!
 
I upgraded from an FX 5600 Ultra (junk...) to a Radeon 9800Pro. I had it flashed to an XT, watercooled, and overclocked heavily; and it was STILL getting outperformed by some 9700Pro's. Amazing card.
 
Yeah i remember kyle, brent or whoever having a prerelease/eng samp 9700 at quakecon in the summer of 02.
 
No amount of coding could actually help the Geforce FX, as it had severe internal issues with register pressure and lack of INT performance due for that. The HD 2900XT had a different issue, just too dependent on compilers to extract Instruction Level Parallelism, it was just too wide to be able to be fed.
 
I remember getting to take a look at one in a box at QuakeCon, after hearing FrgMstr speak ;)



Talk about shitting the bed... just as Nvidia's FX series should have been good GPUs- and they actually were, but developers didn't code for them, imagine that!- the HD2900XT should also have been a good GPU.

Between these two generations, I concluded that:
  • For DX9, the ATi 9700 Pro was basically the hardware reference; they also designed to use 24bit color throughout, so for 32bit sources they tossed fidelity, and for 16bit stuff they had extra overhead, but they did not do what Nvidia did which was to run 32bit color at half speed; since developers targeted ATi and released 24bit color sources, the FX5800 essentially ran at half speed or nearly so
  • For DX10, this flipped: Nvidia essentially had the reference hardware with the 8800GTX- which was a knockout not just because it ran DX10 pretty well, but because it also ran DX9 very well

Flipped again in DX11 where Fermi was a furnace
 
The FX 5000 series was truly infamous.

I still have my 9800 Pro. Lots of fond memories with that one.

I don't think so, sure the FX5800 was a fiasco, but nvidia sold gazillions of FX5600, 5700 and 5900 cards. I loved my FX5900 (flashed to ultra).
 
I had a 5700 that played UT pretty well, with a Athlon64. The 6800GT that replaced it tho was beastly in comparison.
 
I was a reliable buyer of nvidia from the TNT2 up to the 5800 series. I switched because the radeon was better.
man, i remember this generation VIVIDLY. ati really knocked it out of the park with this one

d.
That is because of the XBOX conflict : Nvidia was hired by Microsoft to design the first xbox. And nVidia used the platform to launch their line of nForce motherboards without paying any royalty to Microsoft. In revenge, MS withhold the DX9 specs from nVidia but disclosed them to ATI inflicting a painful financial lesson on nVidia, far greater than any royalty.
 
I had a 5700 that played UT pretty well, with a Athlon64. The 6800GT that replaced it tho was beastly in comparison.

Had the same upgrade path with a 5700U to a 6800GT soft-modded to Ultra clocks. Was blown away with how much faster it was than the little FX.
 
Had the same upgrade path with a 5700U to a 6800GT soft-modded to Ultra clocks. Was blown away with how much faster it was than the little FX.
I went from the FX5900 to a 6800GT. Actually I was quite happy with the FX performance, but the 6800 was a nice jump.
 
I went from the FX5900 to a 6800GT. Actually I was quite happy with the FX performance, but the 6800 was a nice jump.

My 5700Ultra wasn't a bad card per-se, but in HL2 and DOOM 3, the 6800GT destroyed it.
 
I was on a GeForce 2 Pro 64MB when the Radeon 9700 Pro and 9500 Pro came out. I wanted a 9700 Pro but ended up with a 9500 Pro cuz that's what I could afford. 9700 Pros were going for around $400 and that was too rich for my blood (if only we could return to those days, when flagship cards only cost that much). I had a buddy that got a 9700 Pro and that shit blew my mind. Later a friend gave me a 9800 Pro when they grabbed a 9800 XT. Man, seeing all the performance tests in that video really fucking brings me back. 9700 Pro was a fucking shader monster. Lawdy I remember the cooler on the 5800 Ultra, and the sound its fan makes at full load. I'm interested in seeing that future 5900 Ultra vs 9800 Pro video. I wasn't back on nVidia until the 7900GT (which was replaced under eVGA warranty with a 7950GT).

Back in those days when the 9700 Pro came out, NewEgg used FedEx by default, and shit almost always came early (at least for those of us on the east coast). My 9500 Pro thus arrived a day or two earlier than planned, which meant any studying I had to do for college finals that year did NOT happen. By then I had already been living on [H] for years, and between the reviews I saw there and on a few other trusted sites of the time, I was going bonkers for the 9X00 series. So yeah, my 9500 Pro was delivered early, I said fuck my exams, time to check out DirectX 9, some Radeon demos, and see how my older games ran. I think I was running a Palomino 1900+ at the time. Yeah I think that was before my nForce 2 Barton 3200+ system. I still got the 9500 Pro and 9800 Pro around here. Got the box and all documentation the 9500 Pro came with. GeForce 2 Pro (Hercules Guillemot) is in that box with the 9500 Pro. 9800 Pro is still in the Barton nForce 2 system. I'm gonna hit up my friend and see if he still has his 9700 Pro. If so, I wants it. Throw that shit in the Barton system and see if it still works.

In revenge, MS withhold the DX9 specs from nVidia but disclosed them to ATI inflicting a painful financial lesson on nVidia, far greater than any royalty.
Wow really? I didn't know that!

EDIT: My friend no longer has the 9700 Pro. He got rid of it years ago. Dangit. Oh well, that's to be expected I guess.
 
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