ATI’s Radeon 9700 (R300) – Crowning the New King

Unreal Tournament 2003 (DM-Asbestos)

Our second benchmarking level in UT2003 is DM-Asbestos, which is primarily an indoor level and garners noticeably higher frame rates.

Unreal Tournament 2003 (DM-Asbestos) 1024x768x32 High Detail Settings Normalized to GeForce4 Ti 4600 ATI Radeon 9700 (128MB) GeForce4 Ti 4600 (128MB) Matrox Parhelia (128MB) 1.18 1.00 0.57 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1

At "lower" resolutions, the DM-Asbestos benchmark is more CPU limited than GPU limited which is why the Radeon 9700 outperforms the Ti 4600 by "only" 18%.

Unreal Tournament 2003 (DM-Asbestos) 1280x1024x32 High Detail Settings Normalized to GeForce4 Ti 4600 ATI Radeon 9700 (128MB) GeForce4 Ti 4600 (128MB) Matrox Parhelia (128MB) 1.25 1.00 0.57 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2

Cranking up the resolution helps a bit as ATI can extend the lead to 25%...

Unreal Tournament 2003 (DM-Asbestos) 1600x1200x32 High Detail Settings Normalized to GeForce4 Ti 4600 ATI Radeon 9700 (128MB) GeForce4 Ti 4600 (128MB) Matrox Parhelia (128MB) 1.27 1.00 0.57 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2

And at 1600x1200 the biggest lead the Radeon 9700 can maintain is 27%, which isn't bad for a benchmark that is very CPU bound.