Gigabyte Radeon 9800 Pro (GVR98P128D)

Gigabyte Radeon 9800 Pro (GVR98P128D) - Page 1

The Gigabyte GV-R98P128D
Powered by the ATi Radeon 9800 Pro

By - Marco Chiappetta
July 17, 2003

At the moment, gamers looking for a "Top-of-the-Line" graphics card, basically have two GPUs to choose from, either an ATi Radeon 9800 Pro or an NVIDIA GeForce FX 5900.  Video cards based on these two GPUs are so evenly matched, they swap the first place position in most of today's popular benchmarks, depending on what resolutions or settings are used.  And to further complicate matters, the performance landscape changes slightly with each driver release.  It's very difficult to determine which product is superior or whether one is better for your personal needs versus another.  Today on HotHardware.Com, we'll be looking at a Radeon 9800 Pro based video card from Gigabyte, the GV-R98P128D.  For the sake of comparison, we've also benchmarked a similarly priced GeForce FX 5900.  In the past, we've been very pleased by Gigabyte's video cards.  The Maya II 9700 and 9500 Pros were both excellent performers, that came with top-notch bundles.  Has Gigabyte continued the tradition with the GV-R98P128D Radeon 9800 Pro?  Continue reading and find out...

   
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Specifications & Features of the Gigabyte GV-R98P128D Radeon 9800 Pro
Yup, It's A Beast Alright!
 
RADEON? 9800 Visual Processing Unit (VPU)
  • 380MHz Core Clock

MEMORY CONFIGURATION

  • 128
MB of DDR SDRAM - 340MHz DDR (Effective 680MHz)

3D GRAPHICS FEATURES

  • Eight parallel rendering pipelines process up to 3.04 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

     

       

    Gigabyte included an impressive array of software and accessories with the GV-R98P128D.  Bundled with the card, were full versions of four games, Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, Heavy Metal F.A.K.K. 2, Motocross Mania and Serious Sam.  There were also "lite" versions of two more games included, 4x4 Evo and Oni.  We also found a very complete owners manual, a copy of PowerDVD XP 4 and the obligatory driver CD that also contains Gigabyte's V-Tuner overclocking utlity in the box.  In addition to all this software Gigabyte included a DVI-to-15 Pin adapter, a composite video cable, an S-Video cable, an S-Video-to-RCA adapter and a Molex power cable splitter.  The games may not be the most cutting-edge titles available, but all in all Gigabyte did a great job with the GV-R98P128D's bundle.

    The Card & Some Gaming... 


    Tags:  Radeon, Gigabyte, P128, 8P, 980, pro, VR, R9

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