iXBT Labs - Computer Hardware in Detail

Platform

Video

Multimedia

Mobile

Other

September'2001 3Digest
Dual ATI RAGE 128 PRO (MAXX)



By Andrey Vorobiev

This tandem is presented by ATI RAGE MAXX 64 MBytes, AGP videocard.

Features:

  • Two ATI RAGE 128 PRO chips, 125 MHz clock rate;
  • Two 32 MBytes SDRAM memory banks in four SEC 7ns microchips each, 143 MHz clock rate, 128-bit bus;
  • Peak speed of scene drawing in multitexturing mode is 250 megapixels/sec and 500 megatexels/sec.

Wasn't tweaked due to specificial drivers. PowerStrip utility couldn't help either.

This cards has been loudly & proudly released in January'2000 and has made a real competition to NVIDIA GeForce256 cards. But ATI has had to cancel it due to some technological development mistakes. And now the situation is rather sad with this card because ATI has "left" it. No mass production, no new drivers, no Windows '2000 support. It's a pity to see such an abandoned product.

For the 20th of April'2001 the last drivers version is ATI - 6.40 cd15.

And there's no much difference in perfomance between various versions of drivers.

Many artefacts that showed up on ATI RAGE 128 PRO are present here as well. There are texture bugs in Unreal and Unreal Tournament:

I must add that drivers do not allow the card to fully use AGP4x mode on KT133A systems and it locks up in this 3D mode.

Below to the left are screenshots taken on RAGE MAXX, and to the right - reference ones taken on NVIDIA GeForce3.

Quake3:

Unreal:

Unreal Tournament:



No One Lives Forever:

Serious Sam:

Colin McRAE Rally2:



American McGee's Alice:


Mercedes Benz Truck Racing:

Sacrifice:

FAKK2:

Need For Speed 5 (Porshe 2000):

Real MYST:

Blade of Darkness:

Giants:

3DMark2001 Pro, GAME1:

3DMark2001 Pro, GAME2:

3DMark2001 Pro, GAME3:

3DMark2001 Pro, Vertex Shaders:

Black & White:

Undying:

Need For Speed: Porshe 2000 lacks fog. And Sacrifice work normally with disabled fog only.

Real MYST shows unpleasant moire, texture blinking and sand effects:

And there are also sudden perfomance overfalls in ultra-high resolutions (1280x1024 and higher).

2D quality is good enough for gameplay and is on the level of ATI RAGE 128 PRO because it works on the same chip. Only in 1600x1200 slight soaping effects appear on some monitors.

Article navigation:



blog comments powered by Disqus

  Most Popular Reviews More    RSS  

AMD Phenom II X4 955, Phenom II X4 960T, Phenom II X6 1075T, and Intel Pentium G2120, Core i3-3220, Core i5-3330 Processors

Comparing old, cheap solutions from AMD with new, budget offerings from Intel.
February 1, 2013 · Processor Roundups

Inno3D GeForce GTX 670 iChill, Inno3D GeForce GTX 660 Ti Graphics Cards

A couple of mid-range adapters with original cooling systems.
January 30, 2013 · Video cards: NVIDIA GPUs

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Surround 5.1

An external X-Fi solution in tests.
September 9, 2008 · Sound Cards

AMD FX-8350 Processor

The first worthwhile Piledriver CPU.
September 11, 2012 · Processors: AMD

Consumed Power, Energy Consumption: Ivy Bridge vs. Sandy Bridge

Trying out the new method.
September 18, 2012 · Processors: Intel
  Latest Reviews More    RSS  

i3DSpeed, September 2013

Retested all graphics cards with the new drivers.
Oct 18, 2013 · 3Digests

i3DSpeed, August 2013

Added new benchmarks: BioShock Infinite and Metro: Last Light.
Sep 06, 2013 · 3Digests

i3DSpeed, July 2013

Added the test results of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 and AMD Radeon HD 7730.
Aug 05, 2013 · 3Digests

Gainward GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST 2GB Golden Sample Graphics Card

An excellent hybrid of GeForce GTX 650 Ti and GeForce GTX 660.
Jun 24, 2013 · Video cards: NVIDIA GPUs

i3DSpeed, May 2013

Added the test results of NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770/780.
Jun 03, 2013 · 3Digests
  Latest News More    RSS  

Platform  ·  Video  ·  Multimedia  ·  Mobile  ·  Other  ||  About us & Privacy policy  ·  Twitter  ·  Facebook


Copyright © Byrds Research & Publishing, Ltd., 1997–2011. All rights reserved.