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3DNews Vendor Reference English Resource - All you need to know about your products! |
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Like in previous level cooling systems by Asus, on the front and rear sides of the RADEON 9800 XT there are massive copper plates. But the plate on the rear side is more plain than that on V9950 Ultra - there are merely 4 memory chips on each side, and these are not heating elements dubbed DDR2, but simply a regular DDR. The remaining 4 memory chips and the graphic processor is cooled with two front coolers using heat pipes. The solution is disputable enough, but it will appeal to overclockers. The thing is that the core and memory chips are positioned in a compact way, and on the ATI reference card they are covered with a huge cooler. The tradeoff of the redundant cooler is the increased noise level.
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Inside, we found the card itself, a software-box, a VIVO connector (Video Input/Video Output), a DVI-adapter and three instruction manuals:
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Bundled software:
- A drivers & utilities disk (ASUS WHQL driver, WDM Capture driver, AGP Gart driver, DirectX9, ASUS SmartDoctor2, VideoSecurity, DigitalVCR, GameFace)
- Game "Battle Engine Aquila" - full version
- Game "Gun Metal" - full version
- Game Power disk with demos:
- Tom Clancy Splinter Cell
- Warcraft: Reign of Chaos
- Big Mutha Truckers
- BREED
- Colin McRae Rally3
- TOCA Race Driver
- PowerDirector 2.55 ME - allows creating almost professional video content :)
- Ulead Cool 3D SE 3.0
- Ulead Photo Express SE 4.0
- ASUS DVD XP - a DVD player
- Medi@Show SE 2.0 - a software for creating slide shows
The package bundle deserves better than 10/10. What was missing is an LCD monitor which would easily fit inside the box.
R360 chip
In fact, RADEON 9800 XT cards on the base of the R360 chip are modernized RADEON 9800 Pro (R350). We summed up all the differences in the following table:
| Video card | RADEON 9800 Pro 256MB | RADEON 9800 XT 256MB |
| GPU | R350 | R360 |
| Memory (Max) | 256 MB - DDR-II SDRAM | 256 MB - DDR SDRAM |
| Q-ty of memory chips: | 16 | 8 |
| Memory access time: | 2.8 ns | 2.5 ns |
| Memory/processor clock speed | 380/350(700) MHz | 412/365(730) MHz |
| Dynamic overclocking | No | Yes |
All the difference from R350 is in the core operation frequency increased to 412 MHz. Remember that RADEON 9800 PRO offers 380 MHz. On the face of it, the 8% gain is not the result worth of the mess or inventing new names - any user will easily overclock 9800PRO to much higher values. But video cards based on the R360 chip are able increasing the core operation frequency dynamically to 432 MHz in case "overkill" applications are used, which already gives 13% plus a new functionality. How dramatical the difference between the "overclocked 9800Pro" and the 9800XT you will see from our benchmarking section.
*900x656; 136 K
The R360 chip is manufactured following the same 0.18 mk process technology. For now, ATI introduced the 0.13 process technology only for the mainstream chips as more amenable to manufacture.
Memory
The DDR memory of BGA form-factor made by Hynix is marked as HY5DU573222 and, as per the information from the manufacturer's web-site, its access time is 2.5 ns, which is equivalent to 400(800) MHz, i.e. there is a margin. The modules are produced in Korea. The 256 MB is made up of 8 chips, which substantially reduces the wiring and layout complexity, signal timing, latency time and other issues... A substantial advantage.
Dynamic overclocking (Overdrive)
It's been the first time ATI became aware of the the class of users called "overclockers". As I remember, they used to be strongly against any overclocking. And not only became aware, but even suggested a comprehensive solution of the problem - the Overdrive tab appeared in the settings window of Catalyst 3.8.
The idea behind the function is the automatic control of the frequency of the graphics processor R360 depending on the chip temperature in 3D applications.
- below 52 C - 432 MHz;
- below 65 C -418 MHz;
- above 65 C - 412 MHz;
- at 75 C, the critical temperature, the "alarm" snaps on.
The function works fine on ATI's reference card, and on the Asus card it turns out to be completely blocked. Instead of the "Overdrive" tab, Asus suggests its own solution - the "SmartDoctor" utility.
ASUS SmartDoctor2
Upon the installation of the video card, the core frequency is set a bit understated - 405 MHz. At first, we were surprised and thought Asus had decided to get reinsured. On the box and in the instruction manual, the frequency values were also missing. The first tests showed a regular (although minimal) lag behind the standard 9800XT of ATI. In the end, it turned out that complete control of settings and monitoring of the card condition is performed solely through the proprietary utility SmartDoctor2. Also there standard working settings of the card are defined or overclocking is performed. That is, in any case we have to install SmartDoctor.
After numerous revisions, the development turned into a really unique program - never before has the user acquired such a complete kit of settings of every kind and tools for blocking, warning and undo operations. It seems like this card is practically impossible to burn down (and even avoid system re-restart) with the installed SmartDoctor and new Catalyst 3.8 driver (in it, there appeared a kit for the protection against overheating and bringing it out of the stupor with VPU Recover).
Upon installation of the card, the core frequency is 405 MHz, that of memory - 728 MHz
Core frequency - 411 MHz, that for memory - 728 MHz.
To set the normal frequency mode, just press the "Default" button, and then "Set/Test".
The cooler is also able regulating the rotational speed.
The function for regulating the cooler's rotational speed is dubbed as "Smart Fan". Oh, those marketing people again ... The cooler's maximum rotation speed is 10000 rpm, that standard in the 2D mode is 5000 rpm, with the lowest critical speed 3000 rpm.
SmartDoctor also works fine with the old Catalyst 3.7 driver - we verified that fact. It communicates directly with the card and takes the readings from integrated sensors for temperature and rotation. But this time the VPU Recorder won't work - it simply is not there in the old driver.
VIVO
The TV-Out support is natively implemented in the VPU itself, so no additional chips are required for that in the card. But to implement the TV-In, you anyway have got to use external chips. In this case, the video input is implemented with the "ATI Rage Theater" chip on the reverse side of the video card:
This is the only difference in the wiring between the reference card and our versions of ASUS RADEON 9800 XT/TVD. The chip has been known for quite a while, so there is not need to dwell on it. The only what is worth noting is this: even if you are not planning to use the ATI Rage Theater, you will anyway have to install the WDM driver - otherwise it will be hard to get rid of the continuous reminder "New hardware found..".
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