Sapphire Atlantis Radeon 9800SE

Company: Sapphire
Product: Atlantis Radeon 9800SE
Street Price: $180 USD
Date Reviewed: December 22, 2003
Reviewer: Joey Chao

The Sapphire Radeon 9800SE:

The I/O configuration for the card has connections for a standard 15-pin monitor cable, as well as a DVI (Digital Visual Interface) out that is generally used for LCD monitors. There is also a TV-out connection but no TV-in support. This is the same layout that we see on all of ATi's latest cards.

Since ATi does not manufacture a 9800SE video card, there is not a reference card that be compared with our sample. The heatsink that cools the GPU is nothing special and definitely looks just like the one you would see on an ATi reference card. You can see from the picture that a 4-pin floppy connector is required to power the card just like the Radeon 9700 Pro. The 4-pin connector is not on the end of the card but in the top middle. This is somewhat interesting placement but users should not experience any problems with it.

The GPU is based on the R350 core and is clocked at 325MHz. Also note the 9800SE only uses 4 pipelines versus the 9800 Pro's 8. This will be a huge factor in the performance of the 9800SE and you will see it in the performance benchmarks.

The Sapphire 9800SE is equipped with Infineon 3.3ns memory chips, which can run up to 300MHz. Sapphire has these chips clocked at 270MHz on a 128-bit memory bus, unlike the 9800 Pro's 256-bit bus. There is definitely some room for overclocking but by how much will vary from card to card.

End users also get a S-Video cable, RCA cable, DVI to VGA adapter, S-Video to RCA adapter, and the cable to hook the card's 4-pin Molex to the power supply. The power cable is also spilt so that you do not lose the ability to power another device such as a hard drive or a case fan.

Software wise, Sapphire provides the necessary drivers to make sure the card runs flawlessly, Redline overclocking software, PowerDVD and a full version of Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness. It is not often that you will see a bundle that offers a full version game like Tomb Raider. Some stores offer the game at $50, but you get it for free when with your 9800 SE from Sapphire.