Connect 3D Radeon X700 256MB Pro Review
So, all your friends have shiny new Radeon X850s and you are still
getting by with your trusty old GeForce 4. Connect 3D has you covered with
the next best thing, the Radeon X700 256MB Pro. Designed to compete with
the popular GeForce 6600 cards. Lets see how this card measures up.
Connect 3D may be a new name to us here in the USA, but they
have grown to be a major provider of aftermarket and OEM cards in the European arena.
Based on the very successful X800 architecture, the X700 uses
a new processor code named RV410.
Specifications:
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Full-throttle
Gaming
Boost your game play performance with the visual power and instant
response you need to get the most from any DirectX® 9 and OpenGL®
title. RADEON™ X700 delivers beautifully rendered 3D animation for the
ultimate in intense, interactive game play. Experience richer,
movie-quality visual effects than ever before with SMARTSHADER™ HD,
the world's most advanced pixel shader engine. Experiment with your
advanced 3D settings, and check the effect with a real-time 3D-rendered
preview. With up to 8 parallel pixel pipelines and 256 MB or 128 MB of
high performance GDDR3 memory, the RADEON™ X700 has the muscle to meet
the demands of today's fast-and-furious gaming, and tomorrow's new
applications and operating systems.
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420 mhz Engine /
432 mhz
Memory
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Full-thrill
Video
Enjoy the full visual impact of DVD movies with smoother, clearer, more
detailed video playback than before. ATI's VIDEOSHADER™ HD accelerates
video processing and imaging with programmable pixel shaders for
improved DVD playback and better multitasking while watching DVD video,
and ATI's FULLSTREAM™ sharpens image quality by removing blocky
artifacts from streaming Internet video. Record TV programs like a
Personal Video Recorder (PVR). Digitize, edit, and play back your taped
home movies with high performance analog video capture capabilities. The
RADEON™ X700
connects to your television using S-video and composite video outputs,
and supports both High Definition (HD) and Standard Definition (SD)
modes for every type of available display.
Full-featured
Software
Far beyond traditional driver configuration software, ATI's CATALYST™
Control Center is the world's most feature-rich and stable 3D
acceleration control application that puts you in complete command of
your RADEON™ X700. CATALYST™ automatically sets optimal settings for
your system and enables safe GPU overclocking, custom profiles, and
assignable hotkeys. In the unlikely event of a graphics hang, ATI's VPU
Recover automatically resets the graphics processor so you can continue
without interruption or data loss. Featuring frequent updates, reliable
customer service, and an interactive user feedback program, ATI's
CATALYST™ Control Center is backed by ATI's technical confidence,
industry-leading capability, and uncompromising commitment to creating
your ultimate visual experience.
TECHNOLOGY
FEATURES
 8 parallel pixel pipelines
Six programmable vertex shader pipelines
160 million transistors on 0.11 micron
fabrication process
128-bit dual-channel GDDR3 memory interface
PCI Express™ x16 lane native support
SMARTSHADER™
HD
Support for Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0
programmable vertex and pixel shaders in hardware
DirectX 9.0 Vertex Shaders
- Vertex programs up to 65,280 instructions with flow control
- Single cycle trigonometric operations (SIN & COS)
Direct X 9.0 Extended Pixel Shaders
- Up to 1,536 instructions and 16 textures per rendering pass
- 2nd generation F-buffer technology accelerates multi-pass pixel shader
programs with unlimited instructions
- 32 temporary and constant registers
- Facing register for two-sided lighting
- 128-bit, 64-bit & 32-bit per pixel floating point color formats
- Multiple Render Target (MRT) support
Complete feature set also supported in OpenGL®
via extensions
SMOOTHVISION™
HD
2x/4x/6x Anti-Aliasing modes
- Sparse multi-sample algorithm with gamma correction, programmable
sample patterns, and centroid sampling
- Lossless Color Compression (up to 6:1)at all resolutions, including
widescreen HDTV resolutions
- Temporal Anti-Aliasing
2x/4x/8x/16x Anisotropic Filtering modes
- Up to 128-tap texture filtering
- Adaptive algorithm with bilinear (performance) and trilinear (quality)
options 3Dc™
High quality 4:1 Normal Map Compression
Works with any two-channel data format HYPER Z™
HD
3-level Hierarchical Z-Buffer with Early Z
Test
Lossless Z-Buffer Compression (up to 48:1)
Fast Z-Buffer Clear
Z Cache optimized for real-time shadow
rendering
Optimized for performance at high display
resolutions, including widescreen HDTV
resolutions
VIDEOSHADER™
HD
Seamless integration of pixel shaders with
video in real time
FULLSTREAM™ video de-blocking technology for
Real, DivX, and WMV9 formats
VIDEOSOAP™ noise removal filtering for
captured video
MPEG1/2/4 decode and encode acceleration
(requires optional soft DVD player)
- DXVA Support
- Hardware Motion Compensation, iDCT, DCT and color space conversion
All-format DTV/HDTV decoding
Adaptive Per-Pixel De-Interlacing and Frame
Rate Conversion (temporal filtering)
ADDITIONAL
FEATURES
Dual integrated display controllers
Dual integrated 10 bit per channel 400 MHz
DACs
Integrated 165 MHz TMDS transmitter (DVI 1.0 /
HDMI compliant and HDCP ready)
Integrated TV Output support up to 1024x768
resolution
CATALYST™
Software Suite
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