1. Introduction | 2. Benchmarking(1) | 3. Benchmarking(2) | 4. Benchmarking(3) | 5. Image Quality | 6. O/C & Conclusion |


ATI 9800 Pro 256 mb review



Reviewed by Stuart "Veridian3" Davidson
Design/Flash/Graphics by Allan "Zardon" Campbell

 

Introduction:
In our last review we looked at the Hercules 3D Prophet 9800 pro 128mb, today we have our first look at ATI ‘s 256mb version of the Radeon 9800 pro. Does the move to DDR-2 in the 256mb version improve performance and overclocking? How does the increased memory speed of the 256mb version affect performance? Read on to find out as we compare the two cards…

Specifications

Graphics Technology

  • RADEON™ 9800 PRO graphics technology
Memory Configuration
  • 256MB of double data rate 2 memory
Features
  • Eight parallel rendering pipelines
  • Four parallel geometry engines
  • 256-bit DDR memory interface
  • AGP 8X support
SMARTSHADER™ 2.1
  • Full support for Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 programmable vertex and pixel shaders in hardware
  • 2.0 Vertex Shaders support vertex programs up to 65,280 instructions with flow control
  • 2.0 Pixel Shaders support up to 16 textures per rendering pass
  • New F-buffer technology supports pixel shader programs with unlimited instructions
  • 128-bit, 64-bit & 32-bit per pixel floating point color formats
  • Multiple Render Target (MRT) support
  • Shadow volume rendering acceleration
  • Complete feature set also supported in OpenGL® via extensions
SMOOTHVISION™ 2.1
  • 2x/4x/6x full scene anti-aliasing modes
  • Adaptive algorithm with programmable sample patterns
  • 2x/4x/8x/16x anisotropic filtering modes
  • Adaptive algorithm with bi-linear (performance) and tri-linear (quality) options
HYPER Z™ III+
  • 3-level Hierarchical Z-Buffer with early Z test
  • Lossless Z-Buffer compression (up to 24:1)
  • Fast Z-Buffer Clear
  • Z cache optimized for real-time shadow rendering

TRUFORM™ 2.0

  • 2nd generation N-Patch higher order surface support
  • Discrete and continuous tessellation levels per polygon
  • Displacement mapping
VIDEOSHADER™
  • Seamless integration of pixel shaders with video
  • FULLSTREAM™ video de-blocking technology
  • Noise removal filtering for captured video
  • MPEG-2 decoding with motion compensation, iDCT and color space conversion
  • All-format DTV/HDTV decoding
  • YPrPb component output
  • Adaptive de-interlacing and frame rate conversion
  • Dual integrated display controllers
  • Dual integrated 10-bit per channel 400 MHz DACs
  • Integrated 165 MHz TMDS transmitter (DVI 1.0 compliant and HDCP ready)
  • Integrated TV Output support up to 1024x768 resolution
  • Optimized for Pentium® 4 SSE2 and AMD Athlon™ 3Dnow!
  • Windows® Logo Program compliant

Warranty:
3 year limited warranty

What’s In The Box?
Included with the card is:
Molex 4-pin splitter
S-video Cable
Composite Video Cable
DVI-VGA converter
Manual
ATI Software CD (DVD Player, CD player, Hydravision Software etc)
Catalyst Drivers

 

Next: The card and the test setup

 

1. Introduction | 2. Benchmarking(1) | 3. Benchmarking(2) | 4. Benchmarking(3) | 5. Image Quality | 6. O/C & Conclusion |