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- Date:
- Monday , November 17, 2003
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
Asus Radeon 9800XT/TVD
Are you contemplating upgrading that GeForce4 or Radeon 8500 but first want to know how much of a benefit you will really get out of the latest video card? Let's find out how upgrading to an Asus Radeon 9800XT can benefit your gaming experience.
Preface:
We all know that these video card evaluations get to looking fairly similar after you have seen a few of them. So this time around we wanted to focus on the guy that has been waiting to upgrade and might have a card in his box from a couple of generations back. Today we focus on where a current generation flagship like the 9800XT will get you in terms of gaming performance and image quality if you are coming from a GeForce4 or Radeon 8500. We picked these two with good reason. From reading all the mails we have gotten lately, there are a lot of you with these, or similar cards, in your boxes and you are getting ready to make the leap!
Introduction:
In the past Asus has primarily been the sole producer of NVIDIA based video cards. Not anymore, with their new partnership with ATI they now produce a line of ATI based video cards as well. With the slow year NVIDIA has had in the enthusiast market Asus saw that they needed to get in on what is selling the best right now, and the hot items right now are the ATI series of VPU.
The card that we have to test for you today is the Asus Radeon 9800XT/TVD. This is the highest end card Asus currently offers. If you aren’t familiar with what the Radeon 9800XT VPU offers I suggest you take a look at our Radeon 9800XT review. Basically the Radeon 9800XT from ATI provides a tweaked PCB and core silicon to offer higher core and memory clock speeds with a re-designed HSF with hardware monitoring and smart overclocking.
Here are the Asus 9800XT/TVD specifications:
What is most interesting to note is that it specifies Video Input. The Asus Radeon 9800XT/TVD features the Rage Theater chip on board. This means that it fully supports VIVO (Video In/Video Out). The retail Radeon 9800XT from ATI does not include this chip, but the Asus Radeon 9800XT/TVD does.
The bundle that is included is what really makes this card unique. We will go over everything that is included on the next page.
Asus Radeon 9800XT/TVD:
Hope you like orange, because that is what you are going to get with this card. The color of the PCB is the first thing you will notice when you take this card out of the box. We haven’t seen many, if any, orange PCB’s. This card is the exact same size and design lay out as the ATI Radeon 9800XT.
The HSF is copper based and does use heat pipe technology with two fans. It is held down tight with screws.
It does come with the Rage Theater chip to allow for VIVO. It has DVI, VGA and a multimedia connection for the included breakout box that lets you input and output video.