ATI Radeon 9000 Pro
The newest mainstream card from ATI gives you lots of bang for your buck.
Alexandra Krasne
WHAT'S HOT: In all of our game tests, the Radeon 9000 Pro consistently trounced cards based on NVidia GeForce4 MX 460, 440, and 420 chips. In Unreal Tournament 2003, it hit 148 frames per second, while our GeForce4 MX 460-based board earned just over 100 fps. The Radeon 9000 Pro costs about $10 more than the highest-end MX 460-based cards for its $129 price you also get dual-display support.
WHAT'S NOT: Cards with ATI chips, such as the Radeon 9000 Pro, were about 5 to 18 fps slower than those based on NVidia or Matrox chips in our 3D modeling tests with 3D Studio Max.
WHAT ELSE: In addition to dual-display support, the Radeon 9000 Pro includes DVI-out, S-Video-out, and composite-out; and at the moment, it's the least expensive card on the market with support for DirectX 8.
To test image quality, a three-person panel watched demos of our test applications and observed each card's ability to render complex textures and to display colors and contrast. We saw little difference in image quality between this lower-priced board and the faster, high-end models.
UPSHOT: This version of the Radeon offers a fine combination of speed, price, and some advanced features.
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