No dull green PCB this time
around, oh no, ATi is at least learning the value of sex appeal
when it comes to marketing their graphics products. As you can
see Connect3D have what is basically the reference design card
with stock ATi cooler. Unlike NVIDIA's Ti series cards however
the GPU sink isn't designed to funnel air out over the BGA memory
chips, well the top two might benefit from a passing breeze
but the two on the right won't to any great extent. This alone
might be a good reason to splash out on some decent quality
copper RAM sinks. Top right is the connector for the auxiliary
power feed. Connect3D supply a pass through cable that lets
you use a standard PSU Molex and I tried connecting a variety
of devices to the other end from neon tubes to high flow case
fans and none seemed to have any real affect on stability once
running.
Front - Click For a Larger Image
Rear - Click For a Larger Image
As
you've no doubt guessed from the price the Connect3D Radeon
9700 is a white box, no frills option and considering the target
market I don't really see this as a bad thing. Perhaps the most
useful inclusion for this type of graphics card is a DVD player
and this comes as standard as part of the ATi driver installation
suite. Most power users are hardly likely to miss a bundle of
games they either already own or don't own because they don't
like them and to compound the problem with no DirectX 9 available
yet most of the "show off" demos are going to be pretty
stunted at this stage anyway so are not likely to be missed.
The included cables are pretty much the basic DVI-analogue dongle
for those who want to run dual CRTs and cable for handling the
video out.
The
connector lineup is now fairly familiar to most of you. In addition
to the obligatory analogue out there's also a DVI connector
and video out
Memory wise the Connect3D Radeon 9700 Pro comes
equipped with 128MB of Samsung 2.4v, 144 ball BGA memory. Rated
at a maximum of 350MHz and 3.3ns we never actually got it quite
that high but I'm sure a little cooling would help.
Part
No.
Max
Freq.
Max
Data Rate
Interface
Package
K4D26323RA-GC2A
350MHz
700Mbps/pin
SSTL_2
(VDD/VDDQ=2.8V)
144-Ball
FBGA
2.8V ± 5% power supply for device operation
2.8V ± 5% power supply for I/O interface
SSTL_2 compatible inputs/outputs
4 banks operation
MRS cycle with address key programs
- Read latency 3,4,5 (clock)
- Burst length (2, 4, 8 and Full page)
- Burst type (sequential & interleave)
Full page burst length for sequential burst type only
Start address of the full page burst should be even
All inputs except data & DM are sampled at the positive
going edge of the system clock Differential clock input
No Write-Interrupted by Read Function
4 DQS's ( 1DQS / Byte )
Data I/O transactions on both edges of Data strobe
DLL aligns DQ and DQS transitions with Clock transition
Edge aligned data & data strobe output
Center aligned data & data strobe input
DM for write masking only
Auto & Self refresh
32ms refresh period (4K cycle)
144-Ball FBGA
Maximum clock frequency up to 350MHz
Maximum data rate up to 700Mbps/pin
As you can see the GPU/VPU core is quite a monster
thanks to its 0.15micron process. The sink uses traditional
thermal gum to contact the GPU surface and though a higher grade
thermal grease might do a better job I'd need to be absolutely
certain that plate used to steady the sink wasn't sat proud
of the GPU's surface first!
As
you've no doubt guessed from the price the Connect3D Radeon
9700 is a white box, no frills option and considering the target
market I don't really see this as a bad thing. Perhaps the most
useful inclusion for this type of graphics card is a DVD player
and this comes as standard as part of the ATi driver installation
suite. Most power users are hardly likely to miss a bundle of
games they either already own or don't own because they don't
like them and to compound the problem with no DirectX 9 available
yet most of the "show off" demos are going to be pretty
stunted at this stage anyway so are not likely to be missed.
The included cables are pretty much the basic DVI-analogue dongle
for those who want to run dual CRTs and cable for handling the
video out.
The
connector lineup is now fairly familiar to most of you. In addition
to the obligatory analogue out there's also a DVI connector
and video out
