VGA Card Buyer's Guide 07/2003

Radeon 9800

ATi's flagship model is called the R350. It differs from its older sibling primarily in its higher clock speed, which gives it a performance advantage, especially in situations where FSAA and anisotropic filtering are used. Several technologies already implemented in the R300 have also been refined, although these have only a limited effect on practical performance. The chip is produced on a 0.15µ process and weighs in at roughly 107 million transistors. Its main advantages compared to its smaller siblings are its eight pixel pipelines as well as the 256 bit memory bus and the resulting high memory bandwidth.

Recently, ATi also introduced a 256 MB version, which is equipped with DDR-II memory.

Versions:

• Radeon 9800 128 MB 256 bit DDR; official price: $349
• Radeon 9800 PRO 128 MB 256 bit DDR (380/ 680); official price: $399
• Radeon 9800 PRO 256 MB 256 bit DDR II (380/ 700); official price: $499