Advantages: Great performance
Disadvantages: Better cards now available for just a little more

...Ever since the release of the original GeForce graphics processor several years back, Nvidia have been the manufacturer to beat. After a couple of years in the technological wilderness, ATI came back with a new range, the Radeon range, and did beat them. The Radeon 9600 is the mid range ATI chip. This means that it will offer far greater performance than the bottom of the range cards, currently the 9200 series, but not as much as the normally rather expensive 9800 series. Each ATI chip comes in several versions. Originally there is the normal version, in this case it would have just been the simple Radeon 9600. This is then followed up by a faster version, called the Pro. Then after that is a slower version called the SE. And finally, we have this one. The XT. The XT versions, no matter whether it is the 9200, 9600 or 9800 XT... Read review

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Advantages: Good performance, pretty quiet
Disadvantages: None

...Recently brought one of these cards to replace by Nvidia7900. I was a little dubious to go back to ATI having had a bad experiance with my Radeon 9800 SE (yes I should have got the pro - but was being cheap :D). However, this card has restored in ATI cards, it performs a hell of a lot better than my Nvidia - as you'd expect it being a newer card. I think if your buying a card on budget to play the latest games you couldn't really go wrong with getting an 3870, I mean they are cheaper than the equivilant Nvidia card. Might as well get two if you can and run them in Crossfire! Another benefit is that this card is pretty quiet. Also having said a lot of this, the 4870's are out now, so might be worth waiting for a price drop there.... Read review

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Advantages: Small, practically weightless, high tech, durable, gives you KILLER graphics, perfect for games.
Disadvantages: Quite expensive, uses up a lot of pc power

...The ATI Radeon 9800 is amazing. But it isnt cheap. That has to be the first thing to be pointed out. You can get an acceptable laptop at such a price: 200 GBP. Unless you are REALLY into games and 3D game designing and developing, I dont reccommend you buy it. Seriously- you dont need that much power! Me...I just bought it because I'm a computer geek, and because I had quite a large budget. If you are buying a laptop or PC with this graphics card, then the price will obviously increase significantly. If you have recently bought a laptop or PC over the last year, you seriously do NOT need to buy this graphics card. Your laptop would almost certainly have a graphics card, and if its a high tech one then it will probably have ATI Radeon 9600 or 9200 with 64MB of RAM. That is enough to run the most complicated and most performance... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful

Advantages: Reliable, Fast, Overclockable to an XT Easily
Disadvantages: Slightly dated compared to X800/850

...The 9800 Pro is a very good card by itself, but it is a pure case of ATI's greediness. Certain chipsets are identical to the XT, only with certain features disabled. One specific chipset of the 9800 Pro has the temperature monitoring chip of the XT installed, but disabled. Therefore, ATI can obviously manufacture cards for very low prices, becasue they take one chipset, disable some of the more advanced features, and sell it for less. When you think about it, its is just plain wrong, because there people are, purchasing XT cards for extreme prices when all they had to do was buy a Pro and mod it. The most adractive feature is that you don't even need to phisically mod the card, so by modding it, you do not void warranty (as long as you remember to switch it back to its former, less powerful state before you claim warranty). All you... Read review

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Advantages: Awesome graphics
Disadvantages: None

...Working in distribution, this is one the card's that just fly off the shelf the moment it is in stock. RADEON 9800 series is one of the most visually advanced 3D performers on the planet, delivering an immersive, cinematic experience for the most demanding next-generation games with up to 256MB of DDR memory and a 256-bit memory interface. The 9800 in its 3rd generation, merges advanced stability with revolutionary features. Features: The 9800 series powers through the most demanding next-generation 3D titles, scenes and environments. Featuring highly programmable cinematic shader engines and support for DirectX 9.0 and OpenGL feature sets. Experience impeccable 3D visual realism with the advanced engineering of ATI technology. The 9800 series beats with the heart of a champion, backed by the latest CATALYST™ software suite... Read review

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Advantages: Quick n' Quiet, Passive cooling
Disadvantages: Not as fast as XT equivilents

...The ATi Radeon 9600 is in my opinion one of the greatest advances in modern GFX technology. Yet it seems to have completly passed most people by. I used to be asked what the best Graphics card would be for a quiet system, and now I always say the Radeon 9600 non-pro. The reasons? It is completly passive, it will work in pretty much any case as long as there is some air flow. It's a Direct-X 9 core, so it will play most of the modern upcoming games, and has all the nice pixel shader effects, bump mapping etc. It's surprisingly fast. This is where I think most people don't really appreciate what a brilliant piece of engineering this was on ATis part. In a reasonably fast system say 2.8ghz P4 with 1024mb ram, you can expect scores of about 9000-11000 in 3DMark 2001SE. To give you an idea of comparison, a radeon 9700 will get... Read review

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Advantages: Lightning fast, superb image quality
Disadvantages: About to be replaced, runs hot

...The 9800 series of graphics cards are the last of the current chipset, and as such are the fastest cards to date. The pro model has faster core and memory timings than the standard 9800, and is currently very cheap compared to most other versios of the 9800 on the market. In terms of performance, its a monster. This card eats most games and benchmark tests for breakfast, with high framerates, and with most details taken to the maximum. Its going to be a good 3-4 months before any game comes out which will truly push this hardware to its limit. ATi graphics cards run a driver called CATALYST, currently at version 4.2. Although some people have had stability issues with this driver, I have had no such problems and the card has run solid for several weeks now without conflicts. One slight issue to look out for is the heat this card... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Great speed, great value!!!
Disadvantages: Not the fastest now.

...one up with their 9700 and 9700 pro cards, wiping the floor with the Geforce4 range and also giving the FX cards a run for their money. Then just as Nvidia thought they might regain some face, ATI released the FX killer! The 9800 pro is one of the most popular graphics cards to date. Rock stable in all display features used by modern games, giving great frame rates and able to cope with top settings on all current games, the 9800 pro set the standard for over a year. Now of course we have the 9800 xt and indeed the new cards from ATI the X800 series as well as recent offers from Nvidia which are more promissing than their fx range of cards. HOWEVER, one much not get carried away with the latest and greatest, and must focus on what one actually needs to play the current range of games, and indeed be able to play up and coming titles... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Speed, stability, image quality
Disadvantages: No RAM cooling - not much else!

...ATI's graphics cards have had a somewhat chequered recent past, in my opinion. Not only outclassed by Nvidia's offerings from the original Geforce through to the Geforce 4xxx series, the hardware was often underpinned by less than robust drivers - and driver updates and support from the manufacturer were sporadic at best. With the advent of DirextX 9 class graphics cards, all that has changed and ATI are back out in front with the long-dominant Nvidia playing catch-up. This is not only a reflection of Nvidia's poor delivery of it's Geforce FX series cards (the ill-conceived FX5800 'vacuum cleaner' model perhaps being the best example) but also of the sheer quality of the 9800 Radeon's graphics core. The high end Radeon cards from ATI are now top notch performers at competitive prices supported by frequent 'Catalyst' driver updates... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Fairly fast mid-high range card, excellent DVD playback
Disadvantages: Need a good CPU, beaten on performance by the 9700Pro

...to get the most from any of these cards. Overall - the Radeon 9700 graphics card represents good value for money, drivers are solid and performance is good. However, this card is easily out performed by the 9700Pro / 9800Pro.... Read review

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