The Tyan Tachyon G9500 Pro
A Power-packed card for the mainstream

"Burned in" by Robert Maloney
May 8, 2003

   

The Hot Hardware Test System
The lowdown on the showdown

 

VIDEO CARDS:
 

Tyan Tachyon G9500 Pro

 

Chaintech A-GT61 GeForce 4 Ti4600
Asus V9280S GeForce 4 Ti4200


 

TESTBENCH SETUP:


Abit BH7 (i845PE) Motherboard
Intel Pentium 4 2.53GHz 533MHz FSB
512MB Corsair PC3200 DDR (2-5-2-2)
Creative Labs Audigy Soundcard
Western Digital WD200BB ATA100
 7200rpm 20GB Hard Drive
Creative Labs 52x CD-ROM
Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 1
DirectX 9.0a

Abit BH7 board using:
Intel Chipset Drivers, version 4.30.1006

Intel Application Accelerator, version 2.3

 

GeForce 4 Video Cards using:
nVidia Detonator Drivers, version 43.45

Tyan Tachyon G9500 Pro using:

ATi Catalyst Drivers, version 3.2
 


TESTING METHODOLOGY:

To help fully explain the scores we listed in the following benchmarks, we felt it was necessary to explain how the test system was setup before running the benchmarks. On the Abit BH7, we started off by manually optimizing the BIOS settings to the most aggressive system options available to us. The memory frequency was manually set to DDR333 with the CAS timings set to 2-5-2-2. The hard drive was formatted, and Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 1 was installed. After the Windows installation was complete, we installed the latest drivers for the Intel 845PE chipset and also installed the Intel Application Accelerator.  We then installed the drivers for the rest of the components. For the GeForce cards, we downloaded and installed the latest nVidia reference drivers at the time of testing, version 43.45.  For the Tyan Tachyon G9500 Pro, we went to ATi's website and downloaded the Catalyst version 3.2 drivers, and also got the accompanying Control Panel, version 6.14.10.4029.

Auto-Updating, Hibernation, and System Restore were disabled, we set up a 768MB permanent page file, and set the visual effects for Windows XP to "best performance".  All of the tests were run with ATi's and nVidia's drivers configured for maximum visual quality.  ATi's "Quality" Antialiasing and anisotropic filtering methods were employed throughout our testing, while the Performance slider available on nVidia's "Performance and Quality" driver tab was set to "Application".  Lastly, we installed all of the benchmarking software, defragged the hard drive, and rebooted one last time. 
 
Futuremark's 3DMark03
Fill Rate & Features
 
We thought that we would start off testing with Futuremark's controversial "DirectX 9" benchmark, 3DMark03.  3DMark03 is similar to its older cousin, 3DMark2001, but it uses a mixture of DX9 and DX8 pixel and vertex shaders to assess a video card's performance.  This test is meant to be run only on "DX9 Class" hardware, which is why the GeForce 4 cards are not represented here.  Thus, the results are displayed simply for your perusal since no comparisons can be made.

 

MadOnion / Futuremark 3DMark2001SE (Build 330)
DX8 Gaming Performance With The MaxFX Engine

After displaying the 3DMark03 results, we settled in with the more familiar 3DMark2001 SE (Build 330).  The "MaxFX" gaming engine, from Remedy's popular Max Payne, is used to simulate actual in-game environments.  3DMark2001 makes use of DirectX 8 Pixel and Vertex shaders, and if you've ever looked at 3DMark2001's detailed results, you'll know that this benchmark is broken up into groups of "High" and "Low" quality tests.  The final score is generated by taking the results of these tests and adding them together using this formula:

  • (Game 1 Low Detail + Game 2 Low Detail + Game 3 Low Detail) x 10 + (Game 1 High Detail + Game 2 High Detail + Game 3 High Detail + Game 4) x 20

What we saw in these tests really impressed us.  The Radeon 9500, essentially a mainstream card, easily trounced both GeForce 4 cards, including what used to be considered the "big daddy", the GF4 Ti4600.  We're not talking about simply beating the other two, but putting up numbers that are 16-20% better without any optimizations in the driver settings.  While everyone knows the R300 outclasses the GeForce 4 for the most part, the numbers we got were more indicative of results we have seen with Radeon 9700 cards, not 9500s. When we started applying Anti-Aliasing techniques in the drivers, we saw the performance drop some across the board at roughly the same rate at 1024x768.  At 1600x1200, the drop-off was less for the Tyan Tachyon than for the two GeForce cards.  Where the Tyan Tachyon really began to shine was when 4 samples of Anti-Aliasing were applied.  If you take a look at the graphs above, with each optimization of the graphic settings, the Tyan Tachyon dropped off in almost equal proportions, much like doorsteps.  The GF4 cards take the first step well.  However, when using 4XAA, with or without 8 samples of Anisotropic Filtering (8XAF),the GF4 cards really start to lose their muscle and fall behind the Tyan Tachyon by as much as 60%.

Onto some real-world scores