Taipei,
Taiwan, R.O.C., February 25, 2003 - One of the largest and most
frequented hardware sites specializing in ATI video cards, Rage3D has
recently reviewed the newest ABIT ATI card, the 9800XT. Here are the highlights:
"Not content with being the driving force behind the motherboard
market, ABIT branched
out and put considerable attention into graphics card manufacturing. They
quickly
showed innovation in this market as well by introducing the first cooling
system
designed to pull cool air directly from outside of the PC case to cool
a graphics
card. Called "Outside Thermal Exhaust System", or OTES for short,
the design proved to
be quite effective at cooling even the hottest running graphics cards...The
people
that benefit the most from this are us, the end users, so it was exciting
news when it
was announced that ABIT would start manufacturing graphics cards based
on ATI Radeon
graphics cores.
Taking advantage of the new thermal sensing setup on the 9800XT
is OverDrive.
OverDrive monitors and dynamically adjusts the 9800XT core speed based
on the
temperature reported by the sensor. If the temperature is between 0°C
and 56°C
OverDrive increases the core speed to 419MHz.
General Features
Comprehensive 4x and 8x AGP support
High performance quad-channel DDR memory interface supports 256MB configurations
Windows® Logo Program Compliant
Supports optional THEATER™ 200 companion chip for NTSC/PAL/SECAM video
capture
Highly optimized 128-bit 2D engine with support for new Windows® XP GDI
extensions
ABIT also really impressed me with the attention they put into
packaging the card.
Everything is grouped and packaged inside three separate white boxes which
neatly fit
together inside the main box. While that may not be important to some
people, little
things like this really show that ABIT quality and attention to detail
we've come to
expect from them.
If
you're running a mid-range card like the 9600XT or Pro however, and would
like to
step-up to the high-end, then the 9800XT will easily impress you with
its performance
- particularly when using high anti-aliasing and resolution settings.
Keep in mind
though that we're getting closer and closer to the next generation of
cards from both
ATI and nVidia as every new day passes. As such it's likely that the amount
of money
you spend for a 9800XT today is going to be similar to what you would
have to spend
for one of those next-generation cards. If you can't wait until then,
and you must
have arguably the fastest graphics card around right now, then the 9800XT
is as about
as good as it gets.
The Good
Fast as fast can be
256MB of high-speed DDR ram
Quiet
Only needs a single-slot
Half-Life2 included
The fact that it's ABIT"
For the full review go here:
http://www.rage3d.com/content/reviews/video/abit9800xt/
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