Mick Lockey

ATI Radeon 7000

The Radeon 7000 costs only $79, making it a viable option if price is your top priority and your favorite games tend to be sedate. Installation was a snap-in-and-go affair as we encountered no problems installing drivers or setting it up.
The Radeon 7000's graphics chip is less than state-of-the-art. With one pipeline, a 64-bit rendering engine, and only 32MB of DDR SDRAM, the Radeon 7000 has less processing horsepower than most current-generation cards. As a result, the board is not only relatively slow, it also can't run some of the more demanding games--we were unable to run our Unreal Tournament 2003 antialiasing test because the 7000 does not support hardware-based texture and lighting. In gaming tests, our review unit sputtered its way through all games, at all resolutions. It was particularly weak when displaying resolutions above 1024 by 768 and 32-bit color, rarely eking out 10 frames per second or faster. On the other hand, it did manage to handle 3D Studio Max, our 3D modeling application, as well as other value cards we tested at the same time. The 7000 is also one of the few boards we've tested that does not have a DVI-out port for connecting to digital LCD displays.
As you'd expect from a board in this price range, the 7000 doesn't offer much in the way of extras. It comes with drivers and DVD playback software on a CD; the included S-Video-out cable will allow you to display games on a TV, though this component is found with most cards these days. To test image quality, a three-person panel watched demos of our test applications and observed each card's ability to render complex textures and to display colors and contrast. This board was unable to complete tests in Unreal Tournament 2003, but in the tests we did watch, we saw mild jittering and stuttering. Radeon provides a few more hours of technical support than others do--12 hours on weekdays--but it's a toll call, so you'll have to pick up the tab. The user's manual is a scant eight pages.
This board is suitable for bargain hunters whose computing is limited to occasional, simple gaming or undemanding business tasks. Gaming enthusiasts will want to look elsewhere.

Buying Information

ATI Radeon 7000 ATI Radeon 7000 chip, 64MB of DDR SDRAM, 300-MHz RAMDAC; S-Video-out; DVD software. $ 79 ATI Radeon 7000 chip, 64MB of DDR SDRAM, 300-MHz RAMDAC; S-Video-out; DVD software. http://www.ati.com 905/882-2600