![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Tuesday , March 09, 2004
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
ABIT 9800XT Review
ABIT’s new Radeon 9800XT versus a GeForceFX 5950Ultra with the newest drivers. We evaluate gameplay and image quality in eleven current games.
Introduction:
Do we really even need to introduce this company? ABIT is a company name that many have come to know in all walks of computer life. ABIT makes some of the best motherboards period. They have excelled at innovating and pushing performance beyond the limit catering to the hardcore enthusiast computer user. Focusing on overclocking while maintaining stability and quality is what ABIT is known for.
ABIT has also done some innovating in the video card arena. They were the first company to make a successful thermal solution on video cards utilizing heatpipes and bringing in cold air from the outside. Their Outside Thermal Exhaust System or OTES for short was introduced a year and a half ago on their GeForce4Ti 4200 video card. ABIT followed up with that design by implementing it on their GeForceFX 5900 last year.
Up to now ABIT has only produced video card solutions based on NVIDIA GPUs. That has all changed. This is nothing but good news to us end users as it strikes up competition and gives us much more choice in choosing the video cards we want.
With that, here we are with ABIT’s first ATI-based video card to hit the market, the ABIT 9800XT.
For you OTES fans out there if you were hoping the ABIT 9800XT uses the OTES system you will disappointed. The ABIT 9800XT does not implement the OTES system and uses ATI’s reference HSF design as you will see below.
Since this video card is based on ATI’s Radeon 9800XT the specifications for it are exactly the same with the same core and memory clock frequencies. To learn about the Radeon 9800XT you may read our review here.
ABIT 9800XT:
In typical ABIT style the box has a dark look to it with a powerful graphic on the front. ABIT makes sure to point out some noteworthy features of the video card on the front of the box such as Dual VGA, TV-Out, DVI and DirectX9. They also let you know the card supports AGP 8X/4X and has 256MB of RAM. Also indicated on the front of the box is the free Half Life 2 logo. On the back of the box ABIT lists the complete product features of this video card along with the packaging contents.
The inside packaging has really impressed us. So far this is the best layout for packaging we have come across for a video card. If you look in the first picture you can see what we saw when we first opened up the box. ABIT has separated the software, cables and video card in three separate compartments. In the second picture above you can see the software. In the third picture we have removed the software section and underneath is the box that holds the cables. Finally in the last picture is the bigger box which holds the video card in bubble wrap.
As you can see above the ABIT 9800XT resembles a design that appears to be strictly taken from the ATI reference design. The only difference is the addition of the ABIT sticker.
Here is a comparison to show you a built by ATI 9800XT on top compared to the ABIT 9800XT. As you can see every component is in exactly the same place on the PCB and the HSF is exactly the same.
Our card is labeled Radeon 9800XT 256M and was made in China. The heatsink is made of copper and a Molex connector is present for external power. The ABIT 9800XT has standard VGA, DVI and TV-Out ports.
The ABIT 9800XT package includes an extra power cable, DVI to VGA adapter, S-Video to Composite adapter, an S-Video and Composite cable. There is a software CD included as well as a user’s manual and a quick installation guide. There is also the offer to get a free copy of Half Life 2.