Benchmarks I
Let's start off with 3DMark 2001SE. The Radeon 9700 has proved to be a sterling performer in this benchmark before.
The default scores are a little higher than before. I've switched back to Windows XP Professional (no Service Pack 1 this time). We can see that overclocking only pays real fruition when the test becomes increasingly card-limited at higher resolutions. That's why there's a greater percentage increase at 1280x1024x32 over 1024x768x32. The latter is, to a greater degree, limited by the subsystem, even a 2.8GHz P4.
Codecreatures Pro, a benchmark that's caught my eye lately, stresses the GPU, or VPU as ATi now call it, like no other benchmark that I've seen. If you've seen the nature test in 3DMark 2001SE, you'll have some idea of the realism involved.
Sheer card power puts the Crucial R9700 Pro ahead of the Ti 4600. Overclocking the card just gives that little bit more oomph at all resolutions. 1600x1200x32 looks smooth.
On to our old favourite in Quake 3. The numbers may be sky-high, but it is still a great game to play.
The Crucial Radeon 9700, in both its stock and overclocked form, puts the hurt on the Ti 4600. Having said that, ~143fps at 1600x1200x32 is perfectly smooth.
