Radeon 9800 Pro

[stano]

Can anyone tell me when the 9800 will be out and what the price will be?

Isn't this just a 9700 with extra ram? Will it improve games?

18r
StanO

No Cats or Geese where actually harmed in the making of Might & Majic IX

 

[Crashman]

No, it's not just a 9700 with more RAM. It's a revised version that supports newer versions of ATI features and runs at a higher clock speed. You'll want to go to the main page of THG and read the review of the 9800.

<font color=blue>Watts mean squat if you don't have quality!</font color=blue>

 

[Twitch]

It's a product refresh. It's kinda like when nVidia whent from GeForce 2 to GeForce2 GTS. Not a huge upgrade but enough to justify waiting a bit if you don't already have the 9700 PRO. If you do already have the 9700 PRO, I don't know that there would be enough of a benefit to justify the upgrade. The NEXT release (9900 PRO?) in a couple months will feature 256 Megs of DDR2, so that might be what you're thinking of.

<-----Insert witty sig line here.

 

[stano]

DDR2.....what will they think of next?!?

No Cats or Geese where actually harmed in the making of Might & Majic IX

 

[Twitch]

DDR2 should improve Radeon's performance in high-quality and high-resolution texturing. It probably won't have much of an effect at 1024x768, but the most noticeable benefit will be at 1600x1200 / 32-Bit color / 4XFSAA / 16 X Aniso, since those are the memory-intensive settings.

<-----Insert witty sig line here.

 

[AciDBurN]

...Next thing you know, they'll have Dual GPU...

 

[stano]

Twitch???...Where u getting ur "The NEXT release (9900 PRO) in a couple months" from?
While checking up on all of this,I went to the ATI site, where they say 2004.

As it stands right now I'll probably get the 9800. Its release is due out at the end of this month and will cost $400. Whatever


No Cats or Geese where actually harmed in the making of Might & Majic IX

 

[Twitch]

Actually, the mistake I made was assuming they would up the product number for the 256 meg DDR2 version. I think they might just call it a 9800 PRO 256 or a 9800 Ultra, or something like that. Anandtech intimated they would release that card about the time nVidia releases the nv35 based card, and that it would be in "a couple months."

Regarding DDR 2, here's a quote from the THG review of 9800 PRO...

Although all R350 chips are DDR-II ready, according to ATI, only the 9800 PRO model, due out later in H1/03, will use the newer memory. Like its predecessor, the R300 has eight pixel pipelines and four vertex shader units.

Now, in the specs, the 9800 PRO shows as DDR/DDR2 memory, whereas on the FX-Ultra it only shows DDR2. This tells me that initial versions of 9800 PRO will be regular DDR, and that DDR2 will be a refresh.

Regarding the 256 meg memory, here is another quote from THG:

The planned launch and introduction into the market is March 2003. Here's a list of the different versions of the card:

Radeon 9800 PRO 256MB DDR II (?/?); available: April 2003; price: $499

Like I said, MY mistake was calling it a 9900 PRO. It's still a 9800 PRO (only better) so I assumed it would have a different name.

Regarding nVidia's NV35 core, here's the quote at Anandtech to which I referred:

NVIDIA will not have a chance to respond to the Radeon 9800 Pro for another couple of months, with their NV35 part. NVIDIA has NV35 up and running and it is already significantly better than the lackluster NV30; although we're not sure if it will be able to outperform the Radeon 9800 Pro, at this point we can say that from what we've seen, NVIDIA has regained some of our confidence.

Maybe ATI is going to just release the newer 9800 PRO with 256 megs of DDR2 as 9800 PRO 2?





<-----Insert witty sig line here.

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Yeah Twitch, all the articles I've read refer to it as the 9800pro-256, I think they will stay away from ultra (forever) as it is associated with Nvidia, and the 9900 is going to be the 0.13 core with DDRII that will replace the 9800 series, or so I've read. THAT one should come out around the time of the NV35 (although NVIDIA may like people to beleive it will arrive sooner) I think the PRO-256 will arrive many months before the NV35, and will not be meant to compete with it, that will truely be the 9900 which should arrive by the fall or Xmas (may trail the NV35 by a month or two at most). People still doubt the release dates of Nvidia while ATI's been pretty dependable so far. However remember that the Reviewer at the developers conf. said that the 4 nymph demo of Nvidia's was runnign on a pre-production NV35 so they may not be that far off. Who knows !?!

Anywhoo, I'd love to see a Sign of the Beast version R9999LE (Lotsa Evil), just to freak out some people.



- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! <font color=red>RED</font color=red> <font color=green>GREEN</font color=green> :tongue: GA to SK

 

[Twitch]

Have you thought about what improvements NVIDIA might be making to the FX with the NV35 core? I'm thinking they'll go to a 256-bit memory bus to improve FSAA and Anisotropic filtering performance. They'll certainly have a 256 megabyte version. Is it possible they'll have improved their .13 manufacturing process enough to ramp the spped of the core up to 550 or even 600 mhz? If ATI can attain 400+ mhz on the .15 process, it seems like .13 should have some outstanding potential for raw speed.

Back to ATI, there is one thing I'm anxious to see in regars to R400: This will be their move into .13 process, right? Are they going to also have difficulty making the transition, like NVIDIA did? Only time will really tell, I guess, though it sounds like they are pretty confident the transition will go smoothly.


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<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Twitch on 03/10/03 01:50 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

The R400 won't be their move into 0.13, remember that will be the 9600. Ati did it the slow and smart way. Use the value process on the value chip, and sell alot of them, perfect it, and then put the technology to use in your Marquee core.
We'll see what problems they encounter later, but from what I've read, they aren't having problems with the 9600, but both ATI and Nvidia may have problems with the higher clocked silicon, so the R400 may indeed be delayed, but that is speculation based on lack of info from the core builder 'TCMS'?
Anywoo, yes the Nvidia architecture has alot of potential, the question is whether it will be used. And the question is whether the Xabre II will be better than the NV30 as it will use 256bit DDRII but have a slower core. We shall see. However for my 'gaming' box I will stick with the 9600 for now as the reduced power consumption and heat looks attractive. And I will be help Lord ATI with it's EVIL R&D, and I will own the Retail box with the GOALIE MASK OF DOOM!

And yes I will also check my medication.

- You need a licence to buy a gun, but they'll sell anyone a stamp <i>(or internet account)</i> ! <font color=red>RED</font color=red> <font color=green>GREEN</font color=green> :tongue: GA to SK