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Historically, with the release
of each new core logic chipset, enthusiasts the world over
eagerly anticipate what Abit has in store for them.
From the original BH6, to their current flagship "MAX"
line of motherboards, Abit has consistently released
products that stray from the norm and offer unique
features and best-of-class performance. Their
well deserved reputation for producing high-quality, enthusiast grade
motherboards facilitated Abit's jump into the video card
market a few years back, and they've sporadically released
well received 3D accelerators ever since. Their
video cards also got the traditional "Abit treatment", as
is evident by the unique cooling solutions found on their
popular "O.T.E.S." (Outside Thermal Exhaust System)
equipped products like the
Siluro Ti4200 and
Siluro FX 5900. Traditionally, they have produced video
cards powered solely by NVIDIA GPUs, but on January 12,
2004 that all changed when Abit announced they planned to
release new cards based on ATi's popular Radeon R3x0 cores.
As a result of their newly formed alliance with ATi, today
we're able to bring you a review of Abit's latest flagship
video card based on ATi's top-of-the-line Radeon 9800 XT
VPU. Like other Radeon 9800 XTs, this card is
equipped with 256MB of high-speed DDR memory and sports
all of the features and benefits associated with ATi's
R360 VPU. So, has Abit worked their own special brand of
magic to produce a video card that truly stands-out from
the competition? You're about to find out...
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Specifications & Features of The Abit Radeon
9800XT 256MB |
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Abit & ATi Come Together |
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RADEON 9800 XT Visual Processing Unit (VPU)
- 412MHz Core Clock
MEMORY CONFIGURATION
- 256MB of DDR SDRAM - 730MHz DDR
3D GRAPHICS FEATURES
- Eight parallel rendering pipelines process up to
3.3 billion pixels per second
- Four parallel geometry engines process up to 380
million transformed and lit polygons per second
- High precision 10-bit per channel frame buffer
support
- 256-bit DDR memory interface
- AGP 8X support
SMARTSHADER? 2.1
- Full support for Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0
programmable pixel and vertex shaders in hardware
- 2.0 Pixel Shaders support up to 16 textures per
rendering pass
- 2.0 Vertex Shaders support vertex programs with an
unlimited number of instructions and flow control
- 128-bit per pixel floating point color formats
- Multiple Render Target (MRT) support
- Shadow volume rendering acceleration
- Complete feature set also supported in OpenGL via
extensions
SMOOTHVISION? 2.1
- State-of-the-art full-scene anti-aliasing
- New technology processes up to 18.2 billion
anti-aliased samples per second for unprecedented
performance
- Supports 2x, 4x, and 6x modes with programmable
sample patterns
- Advanced anisotropic filtering
- Supports up to 16 bilinear samples (in performance
mode) or trilinear samples (in quality mode) per
pixel
- 2x/4x/6x full scene anti-aliasing modes
- Adaptive algorithm with programmable sample
patterns
- 2x/4x/8x/16x anisotropic filtering modes
- Adaptive algorithm with bilinear (performance) and
trilinear (quality) options
- Bandwidth-saving algorithm enables this feature
with minimal performance cost
HYPER Z? III+
- Hierarchical Z-Buffer and Early Z Test reduce
overdraw by detecting and discarding hidden pixels
- Lossless Z-Buffer Compression and Fast Z-Buffer
Clear reduce memory bandwidth consumption by over
50%
- Fast Z-Buffer Clear
- 8.8 : 1 Compression Ratio
- Optimized Z-Cache for enhanced performance of
shadow volumes
TRUFORM? II
- 2nd generation N-patch higher order surface
support
- Discrete and continuous tessellation levels per
polygon for dynamic LOD
- DirectX 9.0 displacement mapping |
VIDEOSHADER?
- Seamless integration of programmable pixel shaders
with video data
- High quality, hardware accelerated de-blocking of
internet streaming video
- Noise removal filter for captured video
- Integrated MPEG-2 decode
- Hardware accelerated iDCT, motion compensation,
and color space conversion
- Top quality DVD and all-format DTV/HDTV decode
with low CPU overhead
- Back-end scaler delivers top quality playback
- Upscaling and downscaling with 4-tap horizontal
and vertical filtering
- Filtered display of images up to 1920 pixels wide
- Unique per-pixel adaptive de-interlacing feature
combines the best elements of the ?bob? and
?add-field? (weave) techniques
FULLSTREAM? video
de-blocking technology
- Noise removal filtering for captured video
- MPEG-2 decoding with motion compensation, iDCT and
color space conversion
- All-format DTV/HDTV decoding
- YPrPb component output
- Adaptive de-interlacing and frame rate conversion
- Dual integrated display controllers
- Dual integrated 10-bit per channel 400MHz DACs
- Integrated 165 MHz TMDS transmitter (DVI and HDCP
compliant)
- Integrated TV Output support up to 1024x768
resolution
- Optimized for Pentium® 4 SSE2 and AMD Athlon?
3Dnow!
- PC 2002 compliant
DISPLAY FEATURES
- Dual integrated display controllers
- Drive two displays simultaneously with independent
resolutions and refresh rates
- HYDRAVISION? software provides complete control
over multi-display configurations with a
user-friendly interface
- Dual integrated 10-bit per channel palette DACs
operating at up to 400MHz
- Integrated 165MHz TMDS transmitter supports
resolutions up to QXGA (2048x1536) and complies with
DVI and HDCP specifications
- Integrated TV-Out support up to 1024x768
resolution
- YPrPb output for direct drive of HDTV monitors
DISPLAY SUPPORT
- 15-pin VGA connector for analog CRT
- S-video or composite connector for TV/VCR
- DVI-I connector for digital CRT or flat panel
- Independent resolutions and refresh rates for any
two connected displays
GENERAL FEATURES
- Comprehensive 2x, 4x, and 8x AGP support
- High performance quad-channel DDR or DDR2 memory
interface supports 64/128/256MB configurations
- Fully compliant with PC 2002 requirements
- Optimized for Pentium® 4 SSE2 and AMD Athlon?
3Dnow! processor instructions
- Supports optional THEATER? 200 companion chip for
NTSC/PAL/SECAM video capture
- Highly optimized 128-bit 2D engine with support
for new Windows® XP GDI extensions |
CLICK ANY IMAGE FOR AN ENLARGED VIEW
With Abit's reputation for
catering to the gamer and enthusiast crowds, we had
expected them to offer a unique accessory and software
bundle with their Radeon 9800 XT, but unfortunately they did
not. The card's packaging was attractive, and looked
much like ATi's own retail ready Radeon 9800 XT packaging.
Aside from the card itself,
we found an S-Video cable, a composite "RCA" video cable,
an S-Video to Composite adapter, a Molex power splitter
and a DVI-to-DB15 adapter. Also accompanying the
card were two booklets, a multi-lingual quick installation
guide and detailed user's manual, along with a driver &
utility CD that contained a copy of Cyberlink's excellent
PowerDVD 5 DVD playback software. The last
accoutrement was a voucher for the upcoming first person shooter Half
Life 2. When (hopefully in this lifetime) Half Life
2 is released, Abit Radeon 9800 XT owners will be
able to redeem the voucher for the full version of the
game.
The Card & Some
Screenshots
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