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The Hercules 3D Prophet 9800 XT is one of the first cards to use ATI's new 9800XT graphics chip. It is an update to the 9800 core, not the next-generation product. With this revision, ATI has squeezed every last bit of performance out of the 9800.
The VPU now runs at 412MHz and, with the Catalyst drivers, can support ATI's Overdrive technology. This monitors the ambient temperature of a PC and, when it's cool enough, speeds up the VPU to a maximum of 460MHz. The 256MB of DDR memory runs at 365MHz, although, due to the dual-channel memory controller, is effectively 730MHz.
The 9800 XT doesn't disappoint in performance. This is the fastest card we've seen. It managed a huge score of 6,508 in 3Dmark 2003 at 1,024 x 768 without anti-aliasing, and 3,491 with four-times anti-aliasing.
In a real-world situation running Unreal Tournament we got a score of 82.88fps at 1,024 x 768. Even increasing the resolution to 1,600 x 1,200 and turning on four-times antialiasing, it achieved 62.3fps.
The card is well built, and uses a single heatsink and fan, powered by a separate connector, to keep cool. It comes with DVI-I, analogue and S-Video connectors, and all the cables and adaptors to use them.
While the box proclaims a free copy of Half-Life 2, only PowerDVD is in the box. Half- Life 2 is a mail-in offer when the game is finally released.
Contact:Dabs
www.dabs.com
Specifications:
- 412MHz VPU
- 256bit DDR
- Dual Ramdacs (400MHz)
- 256MB of Ram running at 365MHz
- DVI-I, D-Sub, S-Video
- DirectX 9
- OpenGL 2.0
- 8x AGP
See also:
A graphics card with an adjustable fan speed - a top selling point. 10 Nov 2003
All Graphics Cards
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