ATI Radeon 9800 Pro Released Today

halfab

The Radeon 9800 Pro is really putting up a good show and is in fact more than just an overclocked R300 (9700 Pro) GPU. Here are a few Previews that went live today.


http://www.anandtech.com/guides/showdoc.html?i=1794 - Anandtech

http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/r350/index.htm - DriverHaven

http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NDM5 - HardOCP

http://simhq.com/simhq3/hardware/previews/radeon_9800/ - SimHQ

http://www.hexus.net/review.php?review=520 - Hexus

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,917575,00.asp - ExtremeTech

http://www.bjorn3d.com/_preview.php?articleID=237 - Bjorn3D

http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20030306/radeon9800pro-33.html - Tom's Hardware

http://www.ukgamer.com/article.php4?id=220&page=1 - UK Gamer

http://www.hothardware.com/hh_files/S&V/atiradeon9800pro.shtml - HotHardware

http://tech-report.com/reviews/2003q1/radeon-9800pro/index.x?pg=1 - Tech Report

http://www.rage3d.com/previews/r350/ - Rage3D

http://www.gamersdepot.com/hardware/video_cards/ati/9800pro/001.htm - Gamer Depot

Eric

BKtje

man ATI really are hitting nvidia where it hurts atm.
Im really surprised they managed such a large increase over the r300.

Myg

Ati has stolen the lead again... poor nvidia, and all they did was o/c it a bit and streamline some of the features. Genious

Lucutus

When can we expect the Radeon 9700 Pro prices to drop then?

DiscoStu

are ati still flinging out unfinished drivers that severly affect performance of the chips? when the 8500 appeared the drivers held it back and with the launch of the 9700 the drivers again stopped the card performing to its full potential.

even though nvidia are slipping behind 90% of the time you are guarenteed that they have written stable and highly optimised drivers that always perform(with the exception of the 40.xx series launch) very well.

halfab

The drivers at the release of the 8500 were very poor and a lot of games either crashed or had corrupt graphics.

At the launch of the ATI 9700 Pro , stability was the most imortant thing. And it was stable. 8x AGP was a very new thing and a lot of motherboard manufaturers had to release new BIOSes to fix their problems. The drivers took care of the boards that were slightly out of spec. Yea the performance was held back a little, but that also happened with the Ti4600.

For about the last 6 months ATI have pulled the finger out and their drivers are quite good. There was a bit of trouble a bit ago with OpenGL, but that is sorted now. ATI image quality has never been better and for some its better than nVidia cards.
(especially 16x ANISO with no performance hit.. sweeet )

True, nVidia have excellent drivers, and their midrange cards are excellent. But this is a marketing game and for now ATI still retain the performance crown.

You wont see a price drop on the R9700 Pro until nVidia has some competing product on the market (apart from the FX Utra) or until the R9800Pro is available in quantity at the right price. For now though the have the high end tied up.
Aparently nVidia has something else up their sleeve. And we might see that soon enough.

Gerry

This is cool, I'll buy a 9700 pro when prices drop to reasonable levels.