Radeon 9800 Pro Stumbles At Gate
Drivers suspected in hit-and-miss results.Alexandra Krasne
Most graphics enthusiasts expected ATI's Radeon 9800 Pro to easily outrun NVidia's recently launched GeForce FX 5800 Ultra, as well as ATI's still-competitive Radeon 9700 Pro. But exclusive PC World tests indicate otherwise.
The PC World Test Center benchmarked a preproduction board carrying the 380-MHz Radeon 9800 Pro graphics chip, 128MB of 680-MHz DDR memory, and support for DirectX 9 and OpenGL 2. The retail price for 9800 Pro boards will be about $400.
In tests using the game Unreal Tournament, set at 1024 by 768 resolution with 32-bit color, the 9800 Pro card hit 174 frames per second--faster than a preproduction 5800 Ultra board's 168 fps, but slower than a production Radeon 9700 Pro card's 176 fps. The 9800 Pro did perform best at 1280 by 1024 resolution, but trailed the 5800 Ultra at 1600 by 1200.
Similarly, in our Return to Castle Wolfenstein test the Radeon 9800 Pro lagged at 1024 by 768, reaching 62 fps versus 66 fps for both competing boards. It hit 61 fps at 1600 by 1200; the others nailed 63 fps.
The 9800 Pro's one clear edge was in antialiasing. For testing purposes, ATI recommends 4X antialiasing, while NVidia suggests 2X (to maintain higher frame rates). Despite the 9800 Pro's resulting lower frame rates, testers preferred its image quality.
ATI's preproduction drivers could be to blame for the 9800 Pro's relatively weak scores; retail boards should perform better. If you want the best combination of price and performance on today's games, seek out a 9700 Pro board.