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When
manufacturing video cards, most companies tend to adhere
strictly to the chip maker's reference designs (which
isn't necessarily a bad thing). This is the case
with Sapphire's Atlantis Radeon 9800 XT. The only
thing that differentiates this product from a "Built by ATi"
Radeon 9800 XT, is the "Sapphire" decal adorning the fan
guard.
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The
Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9800XT |
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Up
Close and Personal |
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Like ATi's own
Radeon 9800 XT, this card is outfitted with a large, all
copper heatsink on the front that cools not only the GPU,
but the 256MB of RAM on the card as well. The cooler
is equipped with an 80mm-ish, variable-speed fan that pushes
quite a bit of air, while operating at near-silent levels.
The cooler isn't completely silent, but it is inaudible next
to a stock Pentium 4 heatsink for example, and it requires
only a single slot, unlike some competing high-end products.
Cooling the RAM on the back of the card is handled by a
copper heat-plate, that actually makes contact with the rear
of the GPU as well. On the back of the card, a metal
clip is used to keeps the heat plate pressed firmly against
the backside of the GPU. This clip could use a
redesign, however, as it can easily be removed with one
finger. Luckily, this simple clip is not the only
thing keeping the coolers in place. There are also two
spring-loaded screws (visible in the second to last
picture) that secure the entire assembly together and
ensure the plates are properly mated. As you can see
on the external plate, the Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9800 XT
has a single DB15 analog monitor output, along with DVI and
TV-Out connectors. Using the supplied adapter, this
card can drive dual independent analog displays, or a single
analog and single digital display simultaneously.
Owners of this card will also need to supply it with
additional power, so make sure you've got an extra 4-pin
Molex connector available in your system. If not,
don't fret - Sapphire includes a power cable splitter with
the card.
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Screenshots of Sapphire's Redline Utility v1.93 |
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Lots
of Options |
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As we mentioned
earlier, Sapphire bundles a copy of their Redline utility
with the Atlantis Radeon 9800 XT. We normally don't
get very excited over these proprietary, bundled apps, but
we found the Redline utility to be quite useful. With
this application, users can tweak virtually every driver
setting, along with some more advanced options that aren't
available from within ATi's drivers alone. Specific
setting profiles are set for some popular games and
benchmarking applications, which makes it easy to bounce
between different options without having to manually
configure each setting manually. Users can also
overclock their card with the Redline utility, with simple
sliders available on the "Overclocking" tab. Generally
we found the Redline utility to a solid software addition
and think it does add some value to the package, but we do
have some gripes.
First, the font
used on all of the menus is a bit "cartoon like" for our
taste. There are other easier to read fonts that could
have been used but this is a subjective issue so we won't
dwell too much on it. Secondly, the copy included with
out card wasn't compatible with the Atlantis Radeon 9800 XT.
We had to download a new copy from Sapphire and request an
installation code from their technical support department to
get it working. Obviously, we were able to get the
Redline utility up and running, as is evident by the above
screenshots, but Sapphire needs to take care of this problem
with the bundle, to prevent end users from having to jump
through hoops just to use the utility.
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In-Game Screenshots With The Sapphire Atlantis
Radeon 9800 XT |
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Call
of Duty |
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For more
comprehensive image quality comparisons between a Radeon
9800 XT and GeForce FX 5950 Ultra,
Click Here.
1024x768
NO AA |
1024x768
4X AA |
1024x768
6X AA |
1024x768
4X AA / 8X ANISO |
You can't
evaluate a video card using benchmarks alone, so before we
got down to the business of testing the Sapphire Atlantis
Radeon 9800 XT's performance, we spent some time with a few
popular games. There's no point is dropping serious
money on a video card, if the games you want to play don't
look the way you would like them to, especially when there
are so many options at the moment. We played some
Medal of Honor, Max Payne 2 and Need For Speed: Underground
with the Atlantis 9800 XT and every one of these games
looked and played great. We found these games ran best
at 1280x1024 with 4X AA and 16X anisotropic filtering, with
all of the in-game options maxed out, but your tastes may
vary. To demonstrate what Call of Duty looked like on
this card, we snapped off a few screen shots at 1024x768,
with the same settings we use while benchmarking (No AA, 4X
AA, 6X AA and 4X AA + 8X Aniso). Pay special attention
to the wires dangling between the building, and you'll get a
good idea of the benefits of anti-aliasing. Looks
pretty good, doesn't it? The same can be said for
Aniso Filtering. Look at the cobblestones in the
street area around the building. The benefits are
obvious and dramatic for both AA and AF.
The Test System, AquaMark3 & Halo
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