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Sapphire ATLANTIS 9700 PRO Ultimate Review December 11, 2002 |
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Summary: Tired of all the noise coming from the components within your PC? Then Sapphire's ATLANTIS 9700 PRO Ultimate is just for you! Rather than come up with a noisy heatsink/fan combination to defeat heat, Sapphire has implemented a heat pipe to keep the RADEON 9700 PRO core cool. In theory, the end result is a graphics card that runs completely silent and offers top notch performance. Does Sapphire have what it takes to pull it off? Find out in our review!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 17 ) |
Although Comdex was a little slow this year, we still managed to find quite a bit of newsworthy hardware. FIC’s small form-factor Athlon 64 system was one example and the dual-channel VIA KT400A was another.
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Sapphire treated us to a different sort of surprise – an adaptation of the already-popular ATI RADEON 9700 PRO card that utilized a unique heat sink design, negating the need for a noisy fan. Dubbed the RADEON 9700 ATLANTIS PRO Ultimate Edition, Sapphire would be making the card its new flagship and shipping the board into the retail market within a matter of weeks.
Despite its end-all name (can you get any better than Ultimate?), Sapphire never claimed the card would offer tweaked core or memory frequencies. Rather, the ATLANTIS PRO Ultimate was designed specifically to appeal to the growing number of enthusiasts who would prefer silent running to a noisy rig. And it isn’t hard to see why. Nobody wants to watch a DVD on their PC with an 80mm fan pushing 85cfm in the background. Gaming isn’t nearly as fun when a case full of fans is louder than the game you’re playing. Though there will always be a market for powerful cooling devices, many would prefer to sacrifice some overclocking headroom in the interest of owning a PC that fits well in the living room or even in a bedroom. Aesthetics and acoustics both play important roles in this regard.
The Making of an Ultimate
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By now you’re familiar with the RADEON 9700 PRO and what it can do. You know that it trounces the GeForce4 Ti 4600 and excels especially in anti-aliased 3D rendering. More than likely, you also know the RADEON 9700 VPU consists of eight rendering pipelines, it is manufactured on a .15-micron process and is comprised of about 110 million transistors. Understandably, the core gets extremely hot running at 325MHz, so up until now, every add-in board partner has implemented some form of active cooling to maintain stability. The result is a careful balance between the size of the fan, the speed at which it spins, and consequently, the noise that is generated. Of course, this also means that the heat sink itself doesn’t need to be as large.
SIDEBAR: Sapphire’s RADEON 9700 ATLANTIS PRO Ultimate product page
| The Ultimate (Continued) | Page:: ( 2 / 17 ) |
All of that ‘active cooling’ business goes out the window with Sapphire’s ATLANTIS PRO Ultimate, as the card’s most distinguishing characteristic is its biggest feature. That is, Sapphire has implemented an oversized passive cooler to compensate for the absence of a cooling fan. It isn’t just any cooler, either. The card features Zalman’s ZM80 series VGA Heat Pipe Cooler. The heat sink assembly is comprised of a large front and a comparably sized back section. A gold plated copper heat pipe connects the two sections, transferring heat through a constant condensation – evaporation cycle, as explained in our ABIT Siluro GF4 Ti4200 OTES Review.
Rather than use copper though, which possess more ideal thermal transfer properties, the large heat sink is made of less-expensive aluminum. This doesn’t seem to impact performance too much, as we took measurements under load (3D Mark 2001 SE loop) to test the card’s thermal characteristics. Using a Raytek ST30, we measured the front of the card at 130 degrees Fahrenheit, while the back was a slightly cooler 123 degrees. The memory heat sinks also measured a toasty 130 degrees.
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Zalman’s website wisely advises anchoring the AGP card to your chassis with a screw as the whole assembly weighs in at nearly 400g. We’re not surprised though, as the heatsink provides more than 1,000 square centimeters of surface area to dissipate heat. On a related note, the back of the cooler comes awfully close to the DIMM slots on a couple of our motherboards. We didn’t see any problems, but if your motherboard doesn’t offer much room between the DIMM and AGP slots, you might want to be extra careful.
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SIDEBAR: “I am very sneaky, sir” – Mr. Deeds
| Overclocking, the Package and Compatibility | Page:: ( 3 / 17 ) |
Overclocking
In the confines of a case, we didn’t expect much from the ATLANTIS PRO Ultimate in terms of overclocking. After all, the system isn’t designed to extend performance; it’s designed to eliminate noise. We reached a plateau of stability right around 337.5/330.8MHz – not exactly stellar, but noteworthy nonetheless.
Then we were struck with the idea to actively cool the massive heat sink. Sure, it’d invalidate the card’s main purpose, but it seemed like an excellent alternative for an enthusiast looking to push a RADEON 9700 PRO to its limit. Using a strategically situated 80mm fan, we pushed the highest stable frequency up to 344/344MHz, yielding an extra three percentage points in 3D Mark 2001 SE.
The Package
Sapphire’s $379 asking price includes more than just the oversized heat pipe cooler. Two games also come bundled, Soldier of Fortune 2 and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Further, Sapphire includes its custom Redline tweak utility that controls many of ATI’s hidden driver features, in addition to custom game profiles and an overclocking applet. PowerDVD 4.0 is also included to take advantage of the 9700 PRO’s excellent DVD decoding capabilities.
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Since the card supports TV and multi-monitor output, Sapphire took care to include an S-Video cable, a composite cable and a DVI-VGA adapter, enabling the possibility of two VGA outputs.
Compatibility
Despite its success as a powerful 3D accelerator, the RADEON 9700 PRO continues to exhibit compatibility issues with SiS’ 648 chipset. Simply, games lock up after a period of use, if they start at all. We’ve tried driver revisions, motherboard PCB revisions, different RADEON 9700 PRO cards, power supplies and voltages. Nothing seems to help that particular configuration get along.
Luckily, Intel chipsets fare much better, as does the nForce2 from NVIDIA. VIA’s KT400 originally had OpenGL issues, but the recently released Hyperion 4-in-1 drivers seem to have addressed those.
SIDEBAR: The included Redline utility offers an overclocking applet.
| System Setup | Page:: ( 4 / 17 ) |
System Setup
Intel Pentium 4 3.06GHz (HyperThreading Enabled)
Intel D850EMV2 i850E Motherboard
512MB PC800 RDRAM Memory
Sapphire RADEON 9700 ATLANTIS PRO Ultimate 128MB (Catalyst 2.4)
ATI RADEON 9700 PRO Reference 128MB (Catalyst 2.4)
NVIDIA Reference GeForce4 Ti 4600 128MB (Detonator Driver 41.09)
30GB IBM Deskstar DTLA 307030 ATA-100 Hard Drive
Windows XP Professional
DirectX 8.1
Desktop resolution 1024x768, 32-bit color, 75Hz refresh
All power saving options were turned off, as were the Automatic Update and System Restore services. Graphics options under the ‘Performance’ tab were all disabled for maximum performance.
Benchmarks
Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo
3D Mark 2001 Second Edition Build 330 – 32-bit color
Quake III: Arena version 1.17 ‘Demo001’ demo
Serious Sam: The Second Encounter – 32-bit color, Elephant Atrium demo
Jedi Knight II
Comanche 4
Lab Notes
Despite using the latest drivers, we are still experiencing texture problems with the GeForce4 Ti 4600 in Serious Sam SE, Elephant Atrium Demo.
Our infrared tests were conducted with a Raytek ST30 Series Non-contact Thermometer with +/- 1% accuracy and 500ms data logging.
SIDEBAR: Raytek’s ST30 uses an eight point circular laser sight, which helps makes it a useful tool.
| 3D Mark 2001 SE | Page:: ( 5 / 17 ) |
3D Mark 2001 SE v.330 – DirectX 8
Notes
Interestingly, overclocking doesn’t benefit the ATLANTIS PRO Ultimate until we hit 1280x1024 and even then, the gains are minimal. Running at its stock speed of 325/620MHz, though, Sapphire’s flagship manages to beat ATI’s reference card by almost three percent at 1024x768. Of course, both cards are able to make quick work of the GeForce4 Ti 4600.
SIDEBAR: You can order Papa John’s Pizza online! For $14.99, you get a large pizza, 2-liter of Coke, and breadsticks delivered to your door.
| 3D Mark 2001 SE – Frame Rates | Page:: ( 6 / 17 ) |
3DMark 2001 - Car Chase
3DMark 2001 - Dragothic
3DMark 2001 - Lobby
3DMark 2001 - Nature
SIDEBAR: Sapphire isn’t new to this business – they’ve been manufacturing boards for ATI since 1996!
| Serious Sam SE | Page:: ( 7 / 17 ) |
Serious Sam SE (Elephant Atrium) – OpenGL
Notes
The Sapphire RADEON 9700 ATLANTIS PRO Ultimate and reference 9700 PRO cards are about even throughout Serious Sam SE. Even the GeForce4 Ti 4600 is able to keep pace right up until we hit 1600x1200. Keep in mind we use Beyond3D’s Maximum Quality script to ensure that the cards are all subjected to the same graphical settings.
SIDEBAR: Check out Zalman’s product page for its ZM80-HP heat sink.
| Quake III: Arena | Page:: ( 8 / 17 ) |
Quake III v.1.17 Demo001 – OpenGL
Notes
In working with another add-in board partner on a totally difference graphics processor, we were able to determine that small discrepancies in memory timing between different manufacturers would account for performance variation, even if a product was supposedly modeled after a reference design. In Quake III, the ATLANTIS PRO Ultimate is clearly the fastest card in every resolution, despite getting outperformed in Serious Sam. This could be related to the game itself, or could quite possibly be a memory timing advantage possessed by the Sapphire.
SIDEBAR: Does anyone have a recommendation for a good, affordable digital camera? Let me know
| Comanche 4 | Page:: ( 9 / 17 ) |
Comanche 4 – DirectX 8
Notes
Comanche 4 is heavily dependant on platform performance, so all the way through 1600x1200 we see very little difference between the RADEON 9700-based cards. The GeForce4 Ti 4600 begins to really drop off at 1280x1024 and is easily outperformed at 1600x1200.
SIDEBAR: To buy an Xbox or to buy an APR ECU upgrade, that is the question.
| Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo | Page:: ( 10 / 17 ) |
Unreal Tournament 2003 Flyby – DirectX 8
Unreal Tournament 2003 Botmatch – DirectX 8
Notes
The Flyby demo again shows the Sapphire card’s prowess and for the first time, overclocking seems to benefit the high solution tests by a couple of percentage points. Those same tests also show the GeForce4 Ti 4600 bested by up to 40 percent!
SIDEBAR: If you get a chance, pick up Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance sometime. It’s a great book, even if it’s old.
| Jedi Knight II | Page:: ( 11 / 17 ) |
Jedi Knight II – OpenGL
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Notes
As it did in Serious Sam SE, the GeForce4 Ti 4600 jumps out to an early lead at 800x600 and 1024x768. The RADEON 9700 PRO cards come back quickly though, and by the time we hit 1600x1200, ATI’s flagship holds a 27 percent performance advantage.
SIDEBAR: For those of you in the Los Angeles area – try Asakuma on Wilshire; it’s a great spot for sushi.
| 4x Anti-Aliasing | Page:: ( 12 / 17 ) |
Quake III – High Quality
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SIDEBAR: Soldier of Fortune 2 and Return to Castle Wolfenstein, both bundled with the ATLANTIS PRO Ultimate, are published by Activision.
| 8x Anisotropic Filtering | Page:: ( 13 / 17 ) |
Quake III – High Quality
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SIDEBAR: VIA recently branded its 4-in-1 driver Hyperion.
| 4x Anti-Aliasing and 8x Anisotropic Filtering | Page:: ( 14 / 17 ) |
Quake III – High Quality
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SIDEBAR: This quarter alone, I’ve had to write roughly 40 pages in final papers.
| Unreal Tournament 4x Anti-Aliasing, 8x Anisotropic Filtering | Page:: ( 15 / 17 ) |
Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo Flyby
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Unreal Tournament 2003 Demo Botmatch
SIDEBAR: The AGP 3.0 (8x) specification calls for .8V, compared to 1.5 for the 2.0 (4x) spec.
| Ballistics Report | Page:: ( 16 / 17 ) |
Pros:
Zalman ZM80 Series Cooler: Of all the RADEON 9700 PRO cards we’ve seen thus far, the Sapphire RADEON 9700 ATLANTIS PRO Ultimate is the most innovative. Tyan has implemented a few interesting features and FIC is supposedly working on an even higher-performance model, but Sapphire has taken a different initiative, delivering the fastest graphics card on the market that is completely quiet. The cooler alone costs nearly $40, making the card ideal for enthusiasts that believe silence is golden.
Performance: It’s a RADEON 9700 PRO, for goodness sake. To beat it, you’ll need either a faster RADEON 9700 PRO card or a GeForce FX and currently, neither is available. As you just saw, the card still manages playable frame rates in Unreal Tournament with 4x anti-aliasing and 8x anisotropic filtering enabled. With DirectX 9 expected soon and several tech demos already posted on ATI’s site, we should get a better idea of what the card is capable of (if you’re feeling brave, ATI already offers a DX9 release candidate driver).
Bundle: Bundled software rarely does much for us. However, Sapphire is including Return to Castle Wolfenstein and Soldier of Fortune 2. Both games fit nicely in the hardware’s target demographic (primarily FPS gamers). Furthermore, PowerDVD 4.0 allows you to take advantage of the card’s impressive video decoding capabilities.
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Cons:
Compatibility: It’s certainly not Sapphire’s fault, but the RADEON 9700 ATLANTIS PRO Ultimate suffers from the same SiS 648 chipset incompatibility that continually plagues our test beds. We’ve tested different power supplies, different drivers (both ATI and SiS), AGP voltages, AGP operating modes, different motherboards and different R300-based cards. This is one problem that we haven’t seen addressed, though it should be noted we have heard of people running this combination without a problem.
Price: Sapphire will initially be offering the Ultimate for $379 – lower than ATI is selling its own RADEON 9700 PRO without all of the extras included in this package. However, we’ve found RADEON 9700 PRO boards online for under $320. If you already own the games that Sapphire bundles with the card and cool your processor with a Vantec Tornado (and consequently won’t mind a little noise coming from your video card), this package probably won’t appeal to you.
SIDEBAR: Sapphire also offers RADEON 9700 PRO, RADEON 9700, RADEON 9500 PRO and RADEON 9500 cards, among others.
| Final Verdict | Page:: ( 17 / 17 ) |