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R9700 Oficially Announced

Shipping on 19th of August

With all the specs and 325 MHZ clock!!! :D At least they will make those 399 USD a bit more worth.

Here is the link

http://mirror.ati.com/companyinfo/press/2002/4523.html

Where do you see in that press release the card will be shipping on Aug. 19?

Also, the release states the 9700 will offer "complete Microsoft® DirectX® 9 support." What exactlhy does this mean? I didn't think the DX9 spec was even finalized yet. :confused:

Here is the whole thing to spare you clicking on the unholy site :D

Quote:

ATI introduces RADEON™ 9700 PRO graphics board based on newly introduced VPU architecture

RADEON™ 9700 PRO delivers double the performance of any graphics card available

Wednesday, August 7, 2002

MARKHAM, ON - ATI Technologies Inc. (TSX: ATY, NASDAQ: ATYT) today announced the addition of the RADEON™ 9700 PRO graphics board, featuring the RADEON™ 9700 PRO visual processing unit (VPU), to its successful retail lineup. Based on the RADEON 9700 series VPUs introduced in July, the RADEON 9700 PRO board will deliver breakneck performance to the gaming and enthusiast market.

"In this fast paced industry, customers demand that products ship soon after announcement," said Rick Bergman, Senior Vice President, Marketing and General Manager, Desktop, ATI Technologies Inc. "We are on target for our mid-August shipping date, when customers will be able to experience first hand the major innovations that the RADEON 9700 VPUs deliver to gaming and the computer graphics industry."

Featuring eight parallel rendering pipelines, complete Microsoft® DirectX® 9 support, AGP 8X support and a fully programmable floating point architecture, the RADEON 9700 PRO leads the industry into a new era of cinematic-quality real time graphics.

ATI's feature-rich RADEON 9700 PRO retail offering includes:
128MB of DDR memory;
Dual-display configuration including VGA, DVI-I and s-video connectors with independent resolutions and refresh rates for any two connected displays;
Fast engine (325MHz) and memory (620MHz) clock speeds;
CATALYST™ software support including WHQL (Windows Hardware Quality Labs) certified driver and HYDRAVISION™ desktop management software;
RADEON 9700 PRO visual processing unit featuring SMARTSHADER™ 2.0, SMOOTHVISION™ 2.0, HYPER Z™ III, and VIDEOSHADER™ technologies; and
Suggested retail price of US$399.
The RADEON 9700 PRO has been selected as the official graphics card of QuakeCon 2002. Competitors in ATI's Quake and Return to Castle Wolfenstein Tournaments will compete on systems powered by the RADEON 9700 PRO, the fastest, most feature-rich graphics solution available.

ATI will begin shipping the RADEON 9700 PRO board to retail customers and distributors beginning August 19, where it will join the recently introduced RADEON 9000 PRO, and ATI's other strong retail products in stores and online. RADEON 9700 PRO boards will be available from ATI's board partners later this month.

Other retail products based on the RADEON 9700 and RADEON 9000 architectures will be introduced later this year.

The shipping date is in bold.

Quote:

ATI will begin shipping the RADEON 9700 PRO board to retail customers and distributors beginning August 19, where it will join the recently introduced RADEON 9000 PRO, and ATI's other strong retail products in stores and online. RADEON 9700 PRO boards will be available from ATI's board partners later this month.

Gotcha - I was doing something else at the time and only took a cursory glance at it.

I have been enlightened.

But that still doesn't answer my query as to this statement:

Quote:

Featuring eight parallel rendering pipelines, complete Microsoft® DirectX® 9 support, AGP 8X support and a fully programmable floating point architecture, the RADEON 9700 PRO leads the industry into a new era of cinematic-quality real time graphics.

Well they might have the final specs of the API and have a working implementation for it.

DX9 should be out in October and knowing that it will get installed on 50% of computers WW, I bet they have rather lenghty testing procedures just to make sure that the rollout is as clean as possible. So I believe that the beta DX9 Ati is working with is the close to final albeit some copmatibility corrections. (that will be addressed in DX9 drivers when they come out).

The press release isn't about the R9700 it's the R9700 PRO.

I can't wait to hear how good or horrible the drivers are for the ATI 9700. I hope they are good but i am not holding my breath.
I can just see it now all kind of posts about people who brought the ATI 9700 having all kinds of problems hehe. It would be like ibm HD posts all over again just this time with video cards.

Considering there were no problems with the beta drivers that were used in the previews, I would say that there should be very few problems with them. There will always be some issues, but many times they are as a result of other componants in combination. But the biggest cause of most problems is on the outside of the computer.

Quote:

Originally posted by Spiritwalker
Considering there were no problems with the beta drivers that were used in the previews, I would say that there should be very few problems with them. There will always be some issues, but many times they are as a result of other componants in combination. But the biggest cause of most problems is on the outside of the computer.

as i've often stated before the forums were obliterated, i highly doubt that reviewers test the cards on any games other than those they ran benchmarks on. that doesn't constitute "no problems" exist in other games that i may play.

the fact of the matter is this, reviews are nice, but the true test is in the hands of the consumer. and until i hear of no complaints from users, i will remain uncommitted, no matter who produces the cards.

The truth is that forums are typically flooded with problems during the introduction of any new graphics card. This has always been the case, and it will probably remain this way.

It sucks, but that's life.