Reviewed by Stuart "Veridian3" Davidson
Design/graphics by Allan "Zardon" Campbell

 

Introduction:
Back when the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro was launched were privileged to receive and review one of the first samples of the card. It has been a few months since that article and today we have the opportunity to see what one of ATI’s “Powered By” partners has been able to produce based around the Radeon 9800 Pro chipset. Has the chipset improved over time, read on to find out as we review the Hercules 3D PROPHET 9800 PRO.

Key Features:

8 pixel-pipeline architecture for increased rendering power.
High-quality onboard 256-bit DDR RAM interface: no bottlenecks, faster frame rates.HyperZ™III+: intelligent memory bandwidth optimization technology.
AGP 8X / 4X / 2X support for maximum performance with the latest motherboards.
Full DirectX® 9 & OpenGL® hardware accelerator.
Movie-quality 3D images provided by ATI’s latest 3D technology innovations:
• SMARTSHADER™ 2.1: Programmable Pixel Shaders 2.0 & Vertex Shaders 2.0
• TRUFORM™ 2.0 and DX9 Displacement Mapping
SMOOTHVISION™ 2.1: hardware engine for 2X/4X/6X FSAA (Full Scene Anti-Aliasing) mode and advanced anisotropic filtering – no more jagged edges or speed compromise.
High-quality TV display on CRT and flat panel monitors.
VIDEOSHADER™ engine: fluid playback of DVD movies on TV set or CRT and flat panels monitors. FULLSTREAM™ technology for improved Internet streaming.
Dual display on VGA, DVI or TV-Out (HYDRAVISION™).
Dual integrated 400MHz RAMDACs, maximum resolution of 2048x1536 @ 85Hz.

What’s in the Box?

The Extras:
Supplied with the card is the now standard power cord splitter for those with no spare Molex plug, s-video and composite video cable as well as a Dvi-Vga converter.

The Disc and Documentation:
The Hercules 9800pro comes with a manual which is well laid out and easy to follow. The disc supplied with the card is one of the most comprehensive I have seen in a long time. Included on the disc are:

Catalyst 3.2 for Windows 98/Me and 2K/XP
Electronic version of the user manual
3d Tweaker software – for overclocking
Hyrdavision software – multiple display software
3deep software – image calibration software
Wallpapers
Tech Demos
Screensavers
Adobe Acrobat
DirectX 9

I can’t think of anything else a user, average or enthusiast would need!

Additional Software:
Power DVD XP
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3 : Raven Shield (full game)

The Card:
This card really stands out from the other Radeon cards on the market. Firstly Hercules has chosen to use a blue PCB rather than the standard red. Each memory chip has a copper ramsink attached to aid cooling and the core has a copper heatsink attached to the front and back. Hercules didn’t stop the modifying there, the final touch is the fan mounted on the core. Its plastic fins are almost transparent however upon powering up the system you see there is a blue led in the centre of the fan which illuminates the fins. The stock speed of the 3D Prophet is 380mhz core and 340mhz RAM.

 

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