ATI Rage Fury MAXX Review

Video

For a long time now we've considered ATI to be the best video solution for DVD playback, video encoding and video software quality. However, we will be providing a much more in-depth DVD playback reviewing method sometime soon. Currently my testing is limited to playing a couple of DVD's, subjectively analyzing them but nothing much more than that. I plan to work in detailed encoding, decoding and TV-out quality tests in the future. Until then, we'll stick to a more general summary of how the card performed.

DVD playback was smooth with no frames being dropped and without any flaws that I could easily pick out. The DVD software was nothing special but easy to use nonetheless. Another thing to note about the Rage Fury MAXX on the video side of things is that there is no video-out option for those who like to play DVD movies through a PC onto their television set. This is a trivial thing but to some people this might be an issue.

Drivers

After dealing this the Rage Fury MAXX from early on, I saw drivers emerge from very alpha quality drivers to the robust ones I received in the retail package for review. The MAXX ran our full test suite without any issues, which is rare. The only oddity I found was with 3DMark 2000. Many of the performance scores didn't seem to make sense when put in contrast with how it performed in real world applications. That's fine with me being that 3DMark is a synthetic test and the real world is where things really count. Here is what you can expect when checking out the ATI drivers for the MAXX.

I normally don't get into the device driver details of most cards but the MAXX has some unique things to it that I felt you might want to see. Notice that the driver actually detects both of the onboard graphics chips.

When you check into the properties of the device driver, you will also find a few extra options. The information provided is mostly general information but is a welcome addition for people who are troubleshooting or just like to peek into what's going on.

Clicking to the next tab, you'll find another unique feature to the Rage Fury MAXX. You are given the ability to low level test some of the basic components on your video card from video memory to testing the DAC. Not too shabby.

Here is a very general monitor information and adjustment property window. The synchronization option isn't to disable v-sync, that's in another window.