[Dave Baumann]

It's been a while since ATI’s spring line-up was announced, and its taken even longer for them to come to market. While Radeon 9800 PRO’s were reviewed in early March, but only made available in April, and 9600 PRO’s have only recently been seen, oddly it’s the low end Radeon 9200’s that have taken the longest to break cover. Today, however, courtesy of Sapphire we take a look at the very entry level of ATI’s Spring line up with a review of the Sapphire Atlantis 9200 64MB.

"In comparison to the Radeon 9000 PRO we see that the 9200 Sapphire board is relatively simplified with few components on it. The board itself is only marginally lower profile than the 9000 PRO boards, but the DVI and VGA connections are the opposite way around. Although the core is running at 250MHz, only 25MHz lower than the 9000 PRO, ATI and Sapphire feel that it produces sufficiently low heat output that passive cooling only is warranted, however it would be advisable not to touch it when in use!"

Read the Full Review Here

[Evildeus]

Good review.

first chart Diff from 4200, should be 9000 pro

and the naming.... Does Ati has decided to renamed weaker chips with higher numbers? :?

[snk]

I would have liked to see a clock-to-clock comparison between 9000 and 9200 with AA enabled. It would have shown the difference (if any) between AGP 4x and 8x.

Edit: on the other hand, i845GE lacks AGP8x support, right?

[Anonymous]

I see no mentioning of it... besides, there are minor errors in the text (9500 pro instead of 9000 pro etc ) but nothing serious. I would like to see more synthetic tests, like overdraw reduction and performance with many textures.

[Anonymous]

well lets hope there will be a radeon 9300 in the near future,
which will beat all low market cards (9000, 9100, 9200).

BUT until then i guess Entry Level Customers have to decide:

1. PERFORMANCE ----> 9100

or

2. QUALITY (e.g. better multi monitor support) ------> 9200

or

3. a cheap and good capture board ------> 9200 ViVo


why i am not mentioning the 8500, well look at the prices

[Anonymous]

however it would be advisable not to touch it when in use!

You know, I probably would have touched it just to see how hot it gets . Good looking out bud!

[mczak]

Good review, though uninteresting. Not your fault, but we already knew this card is going to perform the same as a 9000...
Though there is at least one interesting thing about that board IMHO, the rage theater chip. On a board which screams "cheap" all over the place, that sounds like overkill for a simple tv-out (of course they probably do this so they can use the same layout as for the ViVo boards, but it still seems odd).
I'd also like to know what the voltage of the chip is and how far it can be overclocked (though it surely has that annoying clock-lock which needs a different bios to get rid of), that would be interesting since it might allow some comparisons between the 0.15um processes at TSMC and UMC (so UMC is 20% cheaper, but are the chips you get just as good?). Though it would be difficult to draw any conclusions in case it overclocks higher than the 9000 (since the RV280 is basically a "new stepping" of the RV250, and newer steppings tend to overclock better because of optimized speed paths usually).
And are you sure about the clock speeds of the 9200pro? I've seen some references of 275/275 already, but I can't remember where. IIRC however the mobile part should be clocked slightly higher than the mobile radeon 9000.

mczak

[Anonymous]

ATI Radeon 9000 = Should have been Radeon 8300
ATI Radeon 9200 = Should have been Radeon 8200
ATI Radeon 9100 = It is the same card Radeon 8500 (Why bother changing the number)


I thought 9x00 should represent DirectX 9

Like Radeon 7x00 for DirectX 7
Like Radeon 8x00 for DirectX 8

[Anonymous]

Originally Posted by Anonymous

I thought 9x00 should represent DirectX 9

Like Radeon 7x00 for DirectX 7
Like Radeon 8x00 for DirectX 8

We've all already gone over this, the first number represents product generation.

[Dave Baumann]

Originally Posted by Evildeus

first chart Diff from 4200, should be 9000 pro

Thanks.

Originally Posted by snk

Edit: on the other hand, i845GE lacks AGP8x support, right?

Yeah, no AGP8X. With Canterwood about I think I'll try and set about updating the test system with one of these at some point.

Originally Posted by ........

I see no mentioning of it... besides, there are minor errors in the text (9500 pro instead of 9000 pro etc ) but nothing serious. I would like to see more synthetic tests, like overdraw reduction and performance with many textures.

HeirZ was all packaged up as part of HyperZ, which is explained in the other reviews. Seeing as there is virtually no architectural difference between this and 9000 its not really worth going too indepth for this board, I would just suggest looking at the Reference/Retail ATI 9000 PRO review for that.

Originally Posted by Anonymous

You know, I probably would have touched it just to see how hot it gets . Good looking out bud!

Yes, the heat sink does get hot.

Originally Posted by mczak

On a board which screams "cheap" all over the place, that sounds like overkill for a simple tv-out (of course they probably do this so they can use the same layout as for the ViVo boards, but it still seems odd).

Now that ATI have Theater 200 they may still have some inventory on Rage Theater that they are knocking off cheap or something.

Originally Posted by mczak

And are you sure about the clock speeds of the 9200pro? I've seen some references of 275/275 already, but I can't remember where.

Thats according to Sapphire. ATI had said 9200 PRO would be faster than 9000 PRO, but they have always been cagey about its clocks, especially since I've heard they have issues at these speeds.

[Anonymous]

i sure hope the 9200pro 300/300 will be better cause right now my 8500 275/275 beats all the 9000/9100/9200 and my 8500 is an older card.

[micron]

[quote="Anonymous"]ATI Radeon 9000 = Should have been Radeon 8300
ATI Radeon 9200 = Should have been Radeon 8200
ATI Radeon 9100 = It is the same card Radeon 8500 (Why bother changing the number)
The 9100 isnt the same as an 8500...it has a lower core/memory clock, and a missing ramdac...which would make it equal to the 8500LE.

[Pete]

Originally Posted by Tagrineth (not logged in)

We've all already gone over this, the first number represents product generation.

That still doesn't excuse the 9100. :P

Whatever, buuuddy</PaulyShore>. As the saying goes, "A rose by any other name would perform as sah-weet, even though the marketing department is being rather sneaky about it."

[2senile]

The use of an Intel Pentium4 3.06GHz might have been a bit over the top IMO. Using a lower spec system for the review would have been better. (IMO again.)

Surely most people with that cpu wouldn't consider an entry level card?

[Lezmaka]

This is getting sad. Both ATI and nvidia have put out new cards that perform worse than the cards they're supposed to be replacing, yet the new cards cost the same or even more! 9000 Pro costs $99/$89 while the 9200 non-pro costs $129.

[micron]

Fry's in Ca. the 9000Pro is still $130 dollars....the 9100 is under $100....?