3DMark 2001SE

We ran four tests from the 3DMark 2001SE suite: Game1, Game2, Game3 and Game4. They all ran at 32-bit color depth, the first three tests ran with high level of detail.

Game 1 named no definite winner. The both cards show similar results and even overclocking brings no great advantage. So, the two cards are at even here.

The second gaming test produces a larger gap between the results in overclocked and nominal modes. And once again, the graphics card from Tyan loses to the competitor.

It’s all like in the Game 1 test: overclocking brings about no significant performance growth.

Game 4 shows that even extra 5MHz of graphics chip frequency and 10MHz of memory frequency may seriously affect the card’s performance in games using pixel shaders.

To sum it all up, the graphics cards show similar results in two of the four tests and overclocking brings no serious advantages here. But in the remaining two tests every megahertz is of some help. Overclocked SAPPHIRE RADEON 9700 PRO wins them as it has 5MHz higher frequency.

The last benchmark in our review is AquaMark.

AquaMark 2.0

AquaMark 2.0 uses the graphics engine from AquaNox game, which is a mixture of arcade, shooter and futuristic submarines simulator. It’s a rather old game, but has excellent graphics. AquaMark 2.0 uses Direct3D. It’s possible to specify the amount of textures to be used in the test demo. We chose 24MB of textures, which is more than enough for modern games.

Once again we see significant performance growth from overclocking. It can be as high as 20% depending on the screen resolution. The card from SAPPHIRE wins this test, just like all the previous ones.

Conclusion

To our regret, the powerful cooler installed in Tyan Tachyon G9700 PRO didn’t help it at overclocking that much. Although the card features two heatsinks bracing it up from both sides, Tyan engineers didn’t even increase the graphis chip and memory frequencies above the nominal recommended by ATI. Moreover, the graphics card proved even less overclockable than a simpler SAPPHIRE RADEON 9700 PRO card. While the two cost about the same, you will hardly want to buy Tyan Tachyon G9700 PRO for overclocking purposes, although its stable and reliable functioning will surely be a determinative for those of you who need a good and securely working system.