L
et’s get this out of the way. The
Radeon 9800 XT is the fastest
DirectX 9 videocard we’ve ever test-
ed. The question isn’t how fast it is, but
how much faster it is than the last
Radeon we tested. In fact, it’s only about
10 percent faster than either of the
Radeon 9800 Pros, 256MB or 128MB.
Like the Radeon 9800 before it, this card
isn’t a particularly good upgrade if you’ve
already shelled out for an ATI card based
on the R300 GPU. However, if you’ve
been biding your time with a DirectX 8
(or older) card, the 9800 XT
is the perfect upgrade for you.
The XT’s R360 GPU runs at 412MHz
and is paired with 256MB of 365MHz
DDR SDRAM. For those keeping score
at home, this core is about 8 percent
faster than what runs stock in the 256MB
Radeon 9800, and the memory is a whop-
ping 4 percent faster. But there’s a little
bit more to the 9800 XT than just anoth-
er clock bump.
The first thing you’ll notice when you
open the box is that ATI replaced the
small heatsink used on older cards with
a single, massive copper heatsink/fan
combo that covers both the core and
memory. Instead of a small fan that turns
faster, ATI is using a single giant fan that
rotates more slowly but moves the same
amount of air. The back of the card gets
its share of cooling love with a large cop-
per plate that covers the back of the core
as well as remaining memory. To accom-
modate this new cooling scheme, ATI
redesigned its board layout.Of course, you don’t buy a
$500 videocard because of a
novel heatsink design, do you?
You don’t shell out that kind
of cash unless it’s the fastest
thing in an AGP slot. The
Radeon 9800 XT isn’t the
fastest card we’ve tested in
every benchmark (the higher-
clocked GeForce FX 5900 maintains a
slight lead in older tests where memory
bandwidth is the limiting factor), but it’s
undeniably faster in benchmarks that
stress DirectX 9 programmable shaders.
The majority of upcoming games—titles
like Half-Life 2 and Deus Ex 2 —will
demand top-notch programmable shader
performance, and the only cards we’ve
tested offering compelling performance in
DirectX 9 titles are from ATI. The GeForce
FX 5900 Ultra is almost 20 percent slower
than the original 9800 Pro in Halo , one
of the few titles on shelves now that uses
DirectX 9’s Pixel Shader 2.0 instructions.
Of course, just because nVidia hard-
ware is faster in non-pixel shader games
doesn’t mean the Radeon isn’t plenty
fast in older apps. The Radeon 9800 XT
has more than enough memory band-
width—23.4GB/sec to be exact—to satisfy
any fill rate-limited game. We were able
to run UT2003 at 1600x1200 with 4x
antialiasing and 8x anisotropic filtering at
almost 60fps. She’s fast enough for you,
old man.
The real question is: Is the Radeon
9800 XT fast enough to justify an upgrade
from whatever I’m running right now?As always, it depends on your current
silicon. The Radeon 9800 XT is a great
upgrade for anyone currently sporting a
DirectX 8 (or lower) class videocard. If
you already made the plunge and pur-
chased a DirectX 9-class board—GeForce
FX 5600 and higher or Radeon 9500 and
higher—you’re probably not going to see
a substantial performance boost, at least
not until more shader-intensive games
become available.
Keep in mind that the 9800 XT is an
exotic videocard, not for mass consump-
tion. It’s only for people who absolutely
must have the fastest videocard on the
planet, and are willing to pay a huge
premium. When you factor in the dearth
of titles that really stress pixel shaders
(there were three as we went to press) and
the delay of Half-Life 2 , we recommend
that anyone thinking of shelling out for
a premium videocard consider waiting
until next spring. We expect to see new
videocards from nVidia and ATI based on
brand-new silicon at that time.
Tune in next month when we’ll pit
ATI and nVidia’s latest $200 videocards,
the Radeon 9600 XT and the GeForce FX
5700, in a cage battle to the death.
—WILL SMITHATI Radeon 9800 XT
&astEr WhErE it MattErs !4I rEtains thE sPEED croWn
Even with its new copper heatsink
and giant fan, the Radeon 9800 XT
takes up only one AGP slot and is
quieter than many competing cards.clocked GeForce FX 5900 maintains a Even with its new copper heatsink100
Reviews
DARE TO COMPARE
Radeon 9800
Pro 256MBATI Radeon 9800 XTnoAA/noAniso noAA/noAniso 4xAA/8xAniso
Halo 1.02 23.1 25.62 -
UT2003 Flyby 135 146.3 85
UT2003 Botmatch 71.2 71.3 58.5
Quake3 MPC 141.3 145.1 91
3DMark 2003 Game2 37.8 45.1 17.8
3DMark 2003 Game4 33.3 36.2 26.5
3DMark 2003 Overall 5640 6322 3282
Shadermark 2.0 (average) 116 126.4 101
We tested both the Radeon 9800 XT and the Radeon 9800 Pro on our videocard test bench, a 2.06GHz Pentium 4 with 512MB of RAM. All
benchmarks are run at 1600x1200, except 3DMark 2003 and Shadermark 2.0, which are run at their default resolutions. The Shadermark score is
the average frame rate of 22 individual tests. Pygmy hippopotamuses weigh only about 400 pounds.MAXIMUMPC DECEMBER 2003Fast as fast can be, especially when you fire up
the programmable shaders.SILLY PUTTYSILLY STRING
Stupid expensive. We’ve seen cars that are
cheaper.
$500, http://www.ati.comMAXIMUMPC VERDICT 9