Time is nearing the New Year, and the X-mas sales have already started. So, what do NVIDIA and ATI have to offer 3D gamers?
Trade companies offer a real mishmash! There are remains of the former bestseller RADEON 9700 PRO, new RADEON 9800/9800 PRO based solutions, a strange controversial RADEON 9800SE, a great deal of the 9600/9600 PRO and remains of the RADEON 9500. As to NVIDIA, it offers already unneeded GeForce FX 5800, GeForce4 Ti of all kinds (who needs the FX 5600 the cards on which are slower than the GeForce4 Ti 4200, except the fast anisotropy?); the current bestseller is FX5200 (which replaces the MX series), and the FX5900 is selling worse.
The new and old products got mixed. All previous mid-to-high processors had 8 texture units, and now this is a privilege of only High-End solutions, while the rest have only 4. The developers make up for it by increasing the clock speeds and even improving the architecture to speed up calculations or improve caching of texture operations. But judging by the test results the new models are often less speedier than the old ones.
However, today we have the High-End RADEON 9800XT which is definitely stronger than its predecessors. In contrast, the RADEON 9800SE demonstrates careless attitude of the developers and marketers. Before we proceed to the cards have a look at the reviews devoted to the new R3XX/RV3XX architecture.
Theoretical materials and reviews of video cards which concern functional
properties of the GPU
The RADEON 9800XT based card is made by Sapphire. As you will see, this is actually a copy of the reference card.
As to the RADEON 9800SE, first of all I should say that ATI has no desire to discuss such cards. Probably because we blame it for using R350 cullage in less expensive products. But they will have to give their explanations.
Firstly, because there are THREE (!) variations of such cards. One is officially approved by ATI (its partners have ATI's permission for production of such cards) - it's built on the 256bit PCB of the RADEON 9700. But some guys from ATI unofficially said that there are a couple of partners (including Sapphire) who violate the half-official specs of the RADEON 9800SE.
If ATI is right, the Hong Kong partner's behaviour is disgusting, especially because the memory interface and clock speeds, which are different in these cards, are nowhere mentioned (neither on the site nor on the box). The 256bit cards have the clock speeds equal to the normal RADEON 9800 PRO and twice fewer rendering pipelines. The cards from Sapphire and some other partners have the clock speeds reduced to the level of the RADEON 9800 (plus, they have 128bit buses and the number of rendering pipelines halved).
I believe that Sapphire gets such R350 cullage not from ATI (otherwise ATI wouldn't blame Sapphire) but from the gray market. How such chips get into this market is another question, because ATI says that ASUS, Gigabyte, C.P.Tech and other partners buy the 9800SE chips from the Canadian company and follow all the recommendations.
However, in contrast to the RADEON LE, ATI's partners officially release RADEON 9800SE based cards, even in Retail packages. On the other hand, ATI doesn't mention the RADEON 9800SE on its site as if it isn't in charge of this chip, as well as of such a mixture of cards based on this chipset (what a smart move!).
The rumour has it that the shader version 3.0 is already ready. I'd like to know how it will be served? Magical bubbles again (ŠOleg Solodkov from FIDO)? Beautiful demo programs that deliver advantages of the v3.0 and can't do without the v2.0?...
According to our research it's clear that the most part of users still have DX7 cards (and this is the result of overpricing! Look how many people actually need shaders). Look at the figures of the High-End cards with supershaders. The manufacturers keep on lifting up prices... Soon they will get 0.01% of sales instead of 0.1%..
A great deal of people use integrated graphics and weak 3D. But the guys at ATI and NVIDIA shut their eyes to it! The price is $499 for a High-End card! The market is overfilled! DX9 cards are hardly in demand... Users are tired of seeing new solutions being slower than the old ones...
Maybe it's not that painful for the Europe and USA but cards over $300 are far not affordable for many. Plus, sellers try to make a profit out of everything even if it's senseless (one can see former High-End products still lying on the store shelves: they were not sold out because of the greedy sellers and because of cheaper new solutions).
However, guys at ATI and NVIDIA will just grin reading this review as they are sure that money is easy to make on users' long-suffering... That is why I'd better stop complaining and turn to the new cards. :)
| The cards have AGP x8/x4 interface, the RADEON 9800SE
has 128 MB DDR SDRAM, the RADEON 9800XT has 256MB in 8 chips on
both PCB sides. |
|
| Sapphire Atlantis RADEON 9800XT | |
| Hynix 2.5ns memory chips (corresponds to 400 (800) MHz), memory clocked at 365 (730) MHz, GPU at 412 MHz. 256-bit memory bus. |  |
| Sapphire Atlantis RADEON 9800SE 128bit | |
| Infineon 3.3ns memory chips (corresponds to 300 (600) MHz), memory clocked at 270 (540) MHz, GPU at 325 MHz. 128-bit memory bus. |  |
| Comparison with the reference design, front view | |
| Sapphire Atlantis RADEON 9800XT | Reference card ATI RADEON 9800XT |
 |
 |
| Sapphire Atlantis RADEON 9800SE 128bit | Reference card ATI RADEON 9500 PRO |
 |
 |
 |
|
| Comparison with the reference design, back view | |
| Sapphire Atlantis RADEON 9800XT | Reference card ATI RADEON 9800XT |
 |
 |
| Sapphire Atlantis RADEON 9800SE 128bit | Reference card ATI RADEON 9500 PRO |
 |
 |
|
The package indicates that this is the RADEON 9800SE card (ATI not mentioned) and gives its brief specs (4 pipelines).  The package of the Sapphire Atlantis RADEON 9800XT has relief symbols which make it looking effective.  The coolers are entirely identical to the reference one. Here are the processors:
RADEON 9800SE
RADEON 9800XT
And here are the Retail boxes.
|
| Sapphire Atlantis RADEON 9800XT | |
| ATI's partners finally made a different box for the High-End product. Sapphire was one of the first companies to develop a pretty good box with a window (the box is wrapped in polyethylene film). |  |
 |
|
 |
|
| Sapphire Atlantis RADEON 9800SE 128bit | |
| This is a stylish black and red box, ATI's favourite colors. The marking is clear and distinguishable. |  |
Note that the company now uses the mark "Fueled by Sapphire" or "Fueled
by Atlantis" instead of "Powered by ATI".
 It's also curious to look at the coupon which comes with the RADEON 9800XT card instead of the Half-Life2 game: 
 According to this coupon, on release of this game you should call at the phone numbers indicated and the game will be sent to you. To activate it use the code under the protection layer. Here are the accessory packs:
|
| Sapphire Atlantis RADEON 9800XT | |
| User manual, software CD, RedLine CD, PowerDVD, Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness, coupon for Half-Life2, TV extenders, S-Video-to-RCA and DVI-to-d-Sub adapters, external power supply adapter. |  |
| Sapphire Atlantis RADEON 9800SE 128bit | |
| All the same except the coupon for the Half-Life2. |  |
| Sapphire Atlantis RADEON 9800XT | 1600x1200x85Hz, 1280x1024x120Hz, 1024x768x160Hz |
| Sapphire Atlantis RADEON 9800SE 128bit | 1600x1200x85Hz, 1280x1024x120Hz, 1024x768x160Hz |
Test results: performanceConventional 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:
|
|
If you need patch 49 which is not easy to find and the demo benchmarks
let me know by email.
Attention! Since this is a leaked beta version, we won't take into
account the cards' scores obtained in this test.
The quality issues will be examined next time in the Hercules RADEON 9800XT review. Quake3 Arena
     Light modes without AA and anisotropy: the R9800XT loses a little, the 9800SE is far behind its competitors. AA enabled: Sapphire's babies look even worse. Anisotropy enabled: fiasco again. AA & anisotropy enabled: both cards lose the game. So:
Serious Sam: The Second Encounter
    
Return to Castle Wolfenstein (Multiplayer)
     Light modes without AA and anisotropy, and AA mode: both cards lose. Anisotropy enabled: the RADEON 9800XT takes the lead, but the RADEON 9800SE is still behind. AA & anisotropy enabled: all the same. So:
Code Creatures
     Light modes without AA and anisotropy, AA mode: both cards lose. Anisotropy enabled: R9800XT comes out a leader. AA & anisotropy enabled: the R9800XT catches up with its competitors, but the 9800SE looks bad. So:
Unreal Tournament 2003
     Light modes without AA and anisotropy: R9800XT looks equal to its competitor, the 9800SE is still behind. AA enabled: R9800XT comes out a leader Anisotropy enabled: FX5950U and 9800XT look equal. AA & anisotropy enabled: the R9800XT wins. So:
Unreal II: The Awakening
     Light modes without AA and anisotropy: 9800XT turns out to be a leader AA enabled: 9800XT looks even better Anisotropy enabled: the same AA & anisotropy enabled: the 9800XT wins So:
RightMark 3D
     In this shader test (in spite of the awful quality) the RADEON 9800XT has a chance to win the competition while the 9800SE still underperforms... Light modes without AA and anisotropy: the victory is after ATI AA enabled: defeat Anisotropy enabled: defeat AA & anisotropy enabled: the same... So:
TR:AoD, Paris5_4 DEMO
 
TR:AoD, Paris1c DEMO
 
TR:AoD, Paris2g DEMO
 
HALO: Combat Evolved
   Light modes without AA and anisotropy: the R9800XT and the FX5950U go on a par, the 9800SE loses the game The game doesn't support the AA mode. Anisotropy enabled: the 9800XT comes out a leader, the 9800SE is hopeless. So:
Half-Life2 (beta): ixbt07 demo
   Half-Life2 (beta): coast demo
   Splinter Cell
   Light modes without AA and anisotropy: both RADEONs lose. AA is not supported in this game. Anisotropy enabled: the R9800XT takes its leadership back, the 9800SE drags behind. So:
ConclusionAs you can see, the RADEON 9800SE 128bit performs equally to the RADEON 9500 128bit but its price is too high. The price should be $150 at most. I tried to unlock 4 pipelines, but the card's operation after that wasn't flawless. The RADEON 9800XT is a pure leader. The today's test prove that such cards are the strongest. But remember about ATI's drivers. The CATALYST 3.9 will be examined in detail in the November 3Digest. However, NVIDIA's drivers are not sinless as well. By the way, the developers recently released the patch 340 for the 3DMark03, and according to some test labs the drivers 52.16 had cheats. They were disabled by this patch, and the speed of the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra fell down by 15-20%. Note that almost all RADEON 9800XT based cards (except ASUS) are made by ATI (made to ATI's order at the same factory), that is why such cards have absolutely identical features and quality though they ship in boxes from different vendors. The designers at Sapphire successfully used an idea from Half-Life2 on stickers on the package. The RADEON 9800SE is the same RADEON 9500, only based on the R350 instead of the R300. The new processor hardly speeds up the performance, but the price is greatly increased. Note that the market offers several kinds of the 9800SE, that is why it's possible that such big prices are inherited from the 256-bit cards: the trade firms simply play on identical names selling 128-bit 9800SE at too high prices. In our 3Digest you can find full comparison
characteristics for video cards of this and other classes.
Andrey Vorobiev (anvakams@ixbt.com)
[an error occurred while processing this directive] |