This is obviously a copy of the reference card. Although earlier all RADEON 9800 PRO based cards were made at the same factory, released with ATI's part number and then sent to ATI's partners, Hercules's cards had their own peculiarities (blue textolite, copper coolers on GPU and memory chips). Now all RADEON 9800 XT based cards except those for ASUS are produced at the same factory, and the partners only attach their stickers.

The cooler was already discussed in the basic RADEON 9800 XT review. Let me just briefly repeat it. 
 

Hercules 3D Prophet 9800 XT 256MB
This beautiful cooler is also very efficient. Moreover, its dimensions let the card take only one AGP slot. On the back it has a copper plate that is reliably pressed against the memory chips with two buckles (both sinks are screwed to the card). A special jut on the plate is attached to the PCB in the place where the core is located.

Remember that the cooler takes only one slot, and the fist PCI slot is free and doesn't hamper to cool the card:

 

The fan is pretty quiet (but it starts buzzing when the card overheats). Some owners of the 9800XT based cards say that the reference system is not that quiet but we didn't come across such cards.

The card supports VIVO provided that the Rage Theater 200 chip is installed (there is space for for it).

Have a look at the box and accessories. 
 

Testbed and drivers

Testbed: 

• Pentium 4 3200 MHz based computer:
• Intel Pentium 4 3200 MHz CPU;
• DFI LANParty Pro875 (i875P) mainboard; 
• 1024 MB DDR SDRAM; 
• Seagate Barracuda IV 40GB HDD; 
• Windows XP SP1; DirectX 9.0b;
• ViewSonic P810 (21") and ViewSonic P817 (21") monitors.
• ATI drivers v6.396 (CATALYST 3.9).

VSync off, S3TC off in applications. 

Video cards for comparison:

• ATI RADEON 9800 XT (412/365 (730) MHz, 256 MB DDR).
• NVIDIA GeForce Fx 5950 Ultra (475/475 (950) MHz, 256 MB DDR, driver 52.16).

Let me explain you why this card is considered the most powerful one among RADEON 9800 XT based ones. The matter is that starting from the CATALYST version 3.8 such cards possess the OverDrive function which allows increasing the GPU clock at certain temperatures.

On all the RADEON 9800 XT cards tested the clock speed lifted mainly up to 418 MHz and sometimes up to 432MHz. On the Hercules card it jumped up to 445(!) MHz just occasionally dropping down to 432 MHz. The RivaTuner proves it:

When overclocked, the card reached 470/760 MHz. 

Test results

Before we start examining 2D quality, I should say there are no complete techniques for objective 2D quality estimation because: 

1. 2D quality much depends on certain samples for almost all modern 3D accelerators; 
2. Besides videocards, 2D quality depends on monitors and cables; 
3. Moreover, certain monitors might not work properly with certain video cards. 

With the ViewSonic P817 monitor and BNC Bargo cable the cards showed excellent quality at the following resolutions and clock speeds: 

Test results: performance

Conventional signs: ANISO 8xP - Anisotropic 8x Performance (earlier it was called Balanced), ANISO 8xQ - Anisotropic 8x Quality, ANISO 16xQ - Anisotropic 16x Quality. 

Some time ago we decided not to compare anymore ATI's maximum anisotropic quality of 16x to two NVIDIA's modes. The ANISO 8x Quality mode delivered the real maximum quality with both trilinear filtering and anisotropy working to their full capacity. The ATI 16x Quality showed sharper images due to the 16th degree but on some surfaces the filtering quality was lower. That's the way ATI's anisotropy works. That is why we thought it was more correct to compare this ATI's mode with NVIDIA's Performance and Quality. 

But NVIDIA's optimization policy changes the things and we do not know anymore if there are applications where NVIDIA's anisotropy works to its full capacity. That is why we consider that it's correct to compare ANISO 16xQ (ATI) to ANISO 8xQ (NV). Both have their strong and weak points, but in general they compensate each other. 

Test applications: 

• Return to Castle Wolfenstein (MultiPlayer) (id Software/Activision) - OpenGL, multitexturing, ixbt0703-demo, test settings - maximum, S3TC OFF, the configurations can be downloaded from here 
• Serious Sam: The Second Encounter v.1.05 (Croteam/GodGames) - OpenGL, multitexturing, ixbt0703 demo, test settings: quality, S3TC OFF 
• Quake3 Arena v.1.17 (id Software/Activision) - OpenGL, multitexturing, ixbt0703 demo, test settings - maximum: detailing level - High, texture detailing level - #4, S3TC OFF, smoothness of curves is much increased through variables r_subdivisions "1" and r_lodCurveError "30000" (at default r_lodCurveError is 250 !), the configurations can be downloaded from here 
• Unreal Tournament 2003 v.2225 (Digital Extreme/Epic Games) - Direct3D, Vertex Shaders, Hardware T&L, Dot3, cube texturing, default quality 
• Code Creatures Benchmark Pro (CodeCult) - the game that demonstrates card's operation in DirectX 8.1, Shaders, HW T&L. 
• Unreal II: The Awakening (Legend Ent./Epic Games) - Direct3D, Vertex Shaders, Hardware T&L, Dot3, cube texturing, default quality 
• RightMark 3D v.0.4 (one of the test scenes) - DirectX 8.1, Dot3, cube texturing, shadow buffers, vertex and pixel shaders (1.1, 1.4). 
   
• Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness v.49 (Core Design/Eldos Software) - DirectX 9.0, three demo scenes, maximum quality, Depth of Fields PS20 off. The settings are equal for all the cards tested.

If you need patch 49 which is not easy to find and the demo benchmarks let me know by email. 
 

Apart from testing the performance we'll also check quality of the RADEON 9800 XT and GeForce FX 5950 Ultra based cards in some benchmarks. First of all, the rumor has it that ATI's drivers have some cheats that reduce quality, and secondly, the developers released a new driver version (3.9) which should be tested as well. But it will be thoroughly tested in our 3Digest. 
 

Quake3 Arena

Light modes without AA and anisotropy: parity

AA enabled: the card loses in 1024x768 but takes the lead in 1600x1200

Anisotropy enabled: Hercules R9800XT loses the game

AA & anisotropy enabled: it's different
 
 

Serious Sam: The Second Encounter

Light modes without AA and anisotropy: loses

AA enabled: loses

Anisotropy enabled: parity

AA & anisotropy enabled: loses
 
 

Return to Castle Wolfenstein (Multiplayer)

Light modes without AA and anisotropy: parity

AA enabled: it goes on a par and sometimes falls a little behind 

Anisotropy enabled: Hercules wins

AA & anisotropy enabled: the same
 
 

Code Creatures

Light modes without AA and anisotropy: a bit behind

AA enabled: fiasco

Anisotropy enabled: victory

AA & anisotropy enabled: Hercules 9800 XT goes faster than the others but this mode is hardly playable
 
 

Unreal Tournament 2003

Light modes without AA and anisotropy: Hercules wins the battle (though it's generally parity)

AA enabled: victory

Anisotropy enabled: victory

AA & anisotropy enabled: victory

Quality (Attention! The large screenshots are made in BMP and RAR packed, each measuring over 2 MB)
 

The bit-per-bit comparison shows the difference only for moving objects (sky, weapon, shadows). I didn't resort to the AutoContrast not to distinguish the pixels that have slight color difference. Gamers won't notice it. 

I don't know how the guys from NVIDIA managed to reveal such difference between the RADEON and GeForce at their conference, but our benchmarks don't show such a great difference. By the way, earlier we analyzed quality in this test and found out that NVIDIA simplified the trilinear filtering in some modes. 

I don't understand why NVIDIA used exactly this benchmark to discredit ATI if they are not stainless themselves?
 
 

Unreal II: The Awakening

The Hercules card wins in all modes.

Quality (Attention! The large screenshots are made in BMP and RAR packed, each measuring over 2 MB)
 

Again, there is no much difference except for the moving objects.
 
 

RightMark 3D

Well, this test uses a lot of shaders, and the Hercules R9800XT easily wins the battle.
 
 

TR:AoD, Paris5_4 DEMO

The scenes with a great number of shaders make the RADEON 9800 XT a victor.
 
 

TR:AoD, Paris1c DEMO

The same.
 
 

TR:AoD, Paris2g DEMO

This scene uses much fewer shaders that is why the NV38 comes very close to the 9800XT, though the is still faster.
 
 

HALO: Combat Evolved

Light modes without AA and anisotropy: victory

This game doesn't support AA.

Anisotropy enabled: Hercules R9800XT win this round!
 
 

Splinter Cell

Light modes without AA and anisotropy: parity.

AA is not supported. 

Anisotropy enabled: Hercules is a little ahead.
 
 

Quality

As you can see, the competitors don't differ much in quality. Let's also have a look at the game the shader quality in which much depends on the driver version. I mean the Morrowind.

Attention! The large screenshots are made in BMP and RAR packed, each measuring over 2 MB.
 

There's difference again only for moving objects (well, it's impossible to make a screenshot at the same moment). The screenshots are also a response to those who blame ATI's anisotropy on sloping surfaces: its anisotropy doesn't differ from NVIDIA's "true" one.

The last comes the AquaMark3.