ATi Mobility Radeon 9800 Preview
Preliminary Performance & Conclusion
ATi also sent over some benchmark results for the Mobility Radeon 9800. We should mention that we were not present when these benchmarks were run. They were completed by ATi in one of their internal benchmarking labs. We present these results to you only as a frame of reference. When we get our hands on a laptop powered by a Mobility Radeon 9800 (which should be very soon), we'll update you with much more performance information...
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These benchmarks were run on a 3.2GHz Pentium 4 notebook, with 1GB of RAM, powered by an ATi Mobility Radeon 9800 equipped with 256MB of video memory. The Mobility Radeon's core was clocked at 350MHz and its memory was clocked at 300MHz (600MHz DDR). If these ATi supplied numbers hold true (and all indications are that they will), the Mobility Radeon 9800 should prove to be a very capable performer. These benchmark scores rival that of a desktop Radeon 9800.
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Benchmarks Run at 1280x1024x32
ATi tell us this next batch of benchmarks were run on the exact same notebook (3.2GHz, 1GB RAM, 256MB video memory) - only the GPU was changed between runs. When ATi compared their Mobility Radeon 9700 to their Mobility Radeon 9800 in a side-by-side comparison, their new mobile GPU put up scores that were roughly 60% - 80% higher than their previous high-end part in four popular gaming benchmarks. Not bad considering the Mobility Radeon 9700 was already the fastest mobile GPU available.
The Mobility Radeon 9800 is big step forward in mobile graphics. With this product, ATi closes the feature gap between their desktop and mobile GPUs, and they should dramatically increase performance as well. Dell has 30 days exclusivity on the Mobility Radeon 9800, but we suspect most of the major players in gaming notebooks will also have them available in the not-so-distant future. Once we get our hands on our own Mobility Radeon 9800 to evaluate it for ourselves, we'll be able to give you much more information, so stay tuned.
