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ATI Ships 256 MB Radeon 9800 Pro Mac Special Edition Video Card

by , 7:30 AM EDT, June 9th, 2004

ATI has announced it is shipping its newest video card for the Mac market, one that dramatically steps up the company's Mac offerings. The Radeon 9800 Pro Mac Special Edition is the first 256 MB video card for the Mac platform, and comes with both DVI and ADC connections. From ATI:

ATI Technologies Inc. announces today that its RADEON 9800 PRO Mac Special Edition is now shipping. Announced at MacWorld in January, the first 256MB retail card available for the Mac market continues ATI's commitment to providing built in and upgrade card options for Mac enthusiasts. New and existing Power Mac G5 users can now upgrade to realize graphics performance improvements to meet the demanding requirements of high end applications on the Mac platform.

A first in the Mac market, the RADEON 9800 PRO Mac Special Edition has 256 MB of ultra fast DDR memory, with 680 MHZ data rate and a core engine speed of 380 MHZ. The RADEON 9800 PRO Mac Special Edition enables a direct connection with Apple branded displays through dual output ADC and DVI connectors.

The new card is priced at US$399 -- between the $299 Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB AGP and the $499 Radeon 9800 XT 256MB AGP card for PCs -- and you can find more information at ATI's Web site.

The Mac Observer Spin:

This is a very, very carefully worded press release from ATI, one that is careful not to mention any Apple products that it might be used with. Some Observers may remember when ATI let the cat out of the bag about new Macs several hours before a Macworld Expo keynote where those new Macs were to be introduced. The uproar that resulted included Steve Jobs not mentioning ATI's video cards during the keynote, and those cards not initially being available through Apple for a few months.

It would seem ATI learned something from that.

As for the card itself, it's a big boost in graphics performance for the Mac platform. Many Mac users have been clamoring for a 256 MB card, and now they can, as long as they are willing to pay for it. The Mac version of the card is 33% more expensive than its closest PC version, but then it has to support Apple's absurd ADC connectors, something the PC versions don't have to include.

Observer Comments

Show: Subjects Only | Full Comments
Close Name:jimothy Posts: 581 Joined: 04 Jun 2004
Subject: 9800 XT

You can get the 9800 XT as a build-to-order option on the new G5. I don't know what the differences between the XT and the Pro are, though.

Close Name:oldmacfan Posts: 1 Joined: 09 Jun 2004
Subject: XT...

Was not the BTO for the 9800XT available on the Rev A PM's at 256MB?

View Name:Guest
Subject: XT
View Name:Guest
Subject: XT again
Close Name:jadams Posts: 33 Joined: 03 Nov 2003
Subject: ADC connectors

Won't have to support them for much longer... See http://www.thinksecret.com/news/newdisplays.html Maybe this will lead to lower prices.

Close Name:NoVaMac Posts: 121 Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Subject: So what if it blocks out a PCI slot

Who needs 3 of them anyway, or 1 really. If you want 256 megs of video I think it quite worth the loss.

View Name:Guest
Subject: Don't buy this yet!
Close Name:SWFan Posts: 484 Joined: 23 Jan 2002
Subject:

What, no X800? The 9800 is so yesterday.

View Name:Guest
Subject: Get more details about these cards at barefeets.com
View Name:Guest
Subject: right and wrong
View Name:Guest
Subject: dork
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