X-bit labs

MSI RADEON 9800 XL Benchmarked [UPDATED].

Category: Video

by Anton Shilov

[ 11/20/2003 | 09:24 AM ]

Update: Adding a picture, a new link on benchmarks. Removing assumptions about PCB design.

A German web-site has published some benchmarks of a RADEON 9800 XL graphics card that is supplied in Aldi desktop personal computers from Medion this Fall. Graphics cards for Medion are manufactured by MSI and the RADEON 9800 XL series seem to be the company’s second RADEON product this year made for the well-known European retailer, in case the suggestion that it is made by MSI is correct.

The RADEON 9800 XL graphics cards are equipped with 128MB of DDR SDRAM memory and fully-functional RADEON 9800 graphics processor with 8 pipelines functioning at 350MHz, Hardware-Mag.de said. The VPU speed is 25MHz above the speed for the RADEON 9800 [non-PRO] graphics cards, but 35MHz below the core-clock for the RADEON 9800 PRO part. The Aldi 9800 XL also features memory clocked at 620MHz – 40MHz above typical speed for the RADEON 9800 and 20MHz below the speed of the RADEON 9800 PRO equipped with 128MB of memory.

It is now known that MSI has developed its own reference design for the Aldi RADEON 9800 XL with 256-bit memory bus – one of the main peculiarities that drive performance of the RADEON 9700 and RADEON 9800-series up. The picture is courtesy of PC-Welt.de.

Thanks to the power of the RADEON 9800 and 256-bit memory bus, the RADEON 9800 XL scores 15 320 points in the 3DMark 2001 SE and 5200 marks in 3DMark03 in a machine powered by AMD Athlon XP 2400+, NVIDIA nForce2 mainboard, 512MB of PC3200 DDR SDRAM memory and CATALYST 3.9 drivers. The results of the RADEON 9800 XL are better than those of the RADEON 9700 PRO, but are lower compared to the RADEON 9800 PRO. More performance details in 3DMark03 and 3DMark 2001 SE are available over here. There is also a detailed review of the Aldi 9800 XL over PC-Welt.de.

This Spring Medion ordered 300 thousands of performance mainstream RADEON 9600 TX graphics cards from MSI. In late August we reported about MSI making another batch of Powered by ATI products for Medion this time based on the RADEON 9800 XL. The deal accounted for 500 thousands of graphics cards.