ATI Technologies 100-435002 Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB

by ATI

Product Details

Product Manual [773kb PDF]

• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00008ZPJP
• Item model number: 100-435002
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #51,419 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)
  • #3 in Electronics > Car Electronics > Car Video > Surround Processors
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 29, 2004

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

RADEON 9800 Series of visual processors is the most visually advanced 3-D performer on the planet, delivering an immersive, cinematic experience for the most demanding next-generation games with up to 256 MB of DDR memory and a 256-bit memory interface. Merging advanced stability with revolutionary features, RADEON 9800 Series is the only Visual Processing family in its 2nd generation.

Features

Cinematic Rendering

• Up to 256 MB of DDR memory provides increased performance when rendering high resolution textures, characters, and environments
• 256-bit memory interface delivers the bandwidth for real-time 3-D graphics and barrier-free performance
• 8-pixel pipeline architecture doubles the rendering power of other graphics processors

Maximum 3-D

• SMARTSHADER 2.1 supports the latest Microsoft DirectX 9.0 feature set, enabling cinematic quality lighting and shadow effects.
• SMOOTHVISION 2.1 delivers the sharpest, clearest textures without sacrificing frame rates.
• 128-bit full floating point precision enables billions of color variations to render the same lighting and effects as Hollywood studios.
• Featuring CATALYST, the industry's most stable 3-D acceleration software.

Generation Now Technology

• Supports the latest Microsoft DirectX 9.0 and OpenGL feature sets, ensuring long-term compatibility with the hottest gaming releases.
• FULLSTREAM removes blocky artifacts from streaming Internet video to deliver smoother looking, higher quality online content.
• VIDEOSHADER integrates features to provide unprecedented support for digital and high definition video.

Only Products designed and built by ATI offer:

• Hassle-free manufacturers warranty
• Responsive and knowledgeable Customer Service Team
• Extensive online user resources and updates through ATI.com
• Feature-rich, frequently updated, ATI designed CATALYST software

Product Description

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro - For those of you who like to ride on the bleeding edge of technology, the Radeon 9800 Pro offers you the ultimate in PC gaming graphics! Supporting today's latest video games, as well as those yet to come, this video card features 128MB of DDR SDRAM, support for both 4x and 8x AGP bus configurations, 8 parallel rendering pipelines, 4 parallel geometry engines, support for Microsoft DirectX 9.0 specifications, and much much more. Support for 2 displays simultaneously with independent resolutions & refresh rates Dual integrated 10-bit per channel 400 MHz DACs Supports up to 2048x1536 @ 85Hz with 16.7 Million Colors Supports - Microsoft Windows Me, 2000, & XP

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Clearly the best gaming card currently available., March 27, 2004

By 

Spathi (Charlottesville, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: ATI Technologies 100-435002 Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (Personal Computers)

You may want to ignore the reviews of these other people who spent hundreds on a top quality video card without knowing what it is used for. If you don't know how to resize your desktop, do not buy this video card. If you think an expensive video card will help you to play DVDs, do not buy this video card.

But if you're into gaming or other applications that need serious graphics processing power, the 9800 Pro is without a doubt the most powerful video card out there, excluding the ones that are crazy expensive. In benchmark tests, it consistently rates #1 across the board of all commonly used video cards. Sure, you can get OK graphics with cheaper video cards, but if you want to pay a bit more for the best quality graphics, this is the one you want. It's worth the investment... it will be a very long time (2 years + minimum) before this will be anywhere near the low end of the spectrum, and probably twice as long before an application will even be invented that the Radeon 9800 Pro can't handle.

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best for the price., July 13, 2004

By 

Travis Burke (Brielle, NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: ATI Technologies 100-435002 Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (Personal Computers)

This card is very close to the 9800 XT, and not very noticably different from the X800, which was just released. Both of these cards are much more money, and only increase video quality by very little and unnoticable amounts. The 9800 Pro is half the price of all its competitors and just as good in my mind. This card is top shelf now and will be for years to come. It is compatible with every game coming out, and every game that is out now. I now turn up all my quality on all my games to as high as it can go, and I experience no lag. I dont recommend for people who wont be using high end applications and gaming, because those are these cards main purpose. Excellent quality, very reliable.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars boo-yah grandma, boo-yah...., August 14, 2003

By 

W. Barber (the dumpster behind Winkies.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: ATI Technologies 100-435002 Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (Personal Computers)

my current system:
intel motherboard (i'm at work and i don't know exactly which one)
p4 2.5GHz
768mb rd ram
120gb hard drive
audigy2 sound card
(all of which came in a Dell Dimension 8250)

i picked up the 9800 last week after using an ATI 9700tx card for several months. the 9700tx is a sweet card if you play all but the most intense games. even with the most demanding games, the 9700tx made the games look great, but i started to run into issues with the frame rate dropping on games like Unreal 2 and ut: 2003 when there was a lot going on at once (like multiple characters all fighting at the same time and/or large, seriously cpu-intensive environments, etc.). this issue was also caused by the resolution being turned up all the way and all of the bells and whistles being turned on (including EAX audio features). so, with the res and some details turned down, the 9700tx was able to take on everything out there (including the Tron 2.0 demo, with no problems and the demo looked sweet!)... but i didn't want any of the goods turned off. for once, i wanted to see everything a game had to offer.

i installed the 9800 pro card with no issues (the card comes with directions if needed). you uninstall the old drivers, turn the machine off, pull out the old card, slide in the new card, turn your machine back on, pop in the cd included, install the new drivers = you're set. i haven't had a problem with this card on any of my games or apps yet.

basically, this card is a monster. frame rates jumped so much that i had to turn the mouse sensitivity down on most games because the games were running so much faster than what i was used to. the more demanding games didn't see as much of a jump in frame rate, but they did become very stable and the issue with the frame rate dropping was completely eliminated (so taking on a server full of folks playing ut: 2003 was no problem). details in games looked better with more features turned on, but the increase in frame rate was the big plus of the 9800. no skips, no jerks, no lag, no problems with games running on full tilt, on or off-line.

i'm not sure what else to say about this card since i don't test hardware for a living or hobby and i don't have any specs to throw out. most games now run at 60-80 fps with all of the details and filtering abilities turned on. other games that are more demanding ran at 40-50 fps, but were very stable and i'm really happy with the overall performance of the 9800.

yeah, the card is pricey but if you can swing the $$$, definitely give the ATI 9800 pro card a look. basically, there's no game out right now that this card cannot take on (and then some). i played the following pc games using the 9800 with no issues: Aliens vs. Predator 2 (and the PH mission pack), NOLF 2, Unreal II, Unreal Tournament, Unreal Tournament 2003, GTA: III, GTA: Vice City, Quake III, Red Faction, Ghost Recon (and both mission packs), Max Payne (and the Kung-Fu mod), Mafia (demo), Vietcong (demo), Tron 2.0 (demo), XIII (demo - cool game), Serious Sam II (demo), and Battlefield 1942 (demo).

(the price is the only thing that kept this one from five stars... but that will drop soon enough.)