ATI's Radeon 9800, 9600 & 9200: Still Fighting Strong

Around the Comdex timeframe there were rumors that NVIDIA's GeForce FX would not only be severely delayed, but it would also have a tough time outperforming the Radeon 9700 Pro. Although tough to believe at the time, when push came to shove, a combination of issues surrounding anisotropic filtering quality, drivers that weren't ready for prime-time and a launch that should never have happened left the GeForce FX as an product inferior the Radeon 9700 Pro.

As we concluded in our review of the GeForce FX however, the true test of ATI's and NVIDIA's might will not come at the absolute high-end, but rather in the rest of the market. Today ATI is continuing to extend their dominance at the high-end with the introduction of their much talked about R350 core, but alongside that you'll find two new products that carry the ATI name - the RV350 and RV280.

Much like NVIDIA, we find ATI refreshing all members of their product line this Spring (although not to the same degree NVIDIA is, as you'll find out shortly) in order to remain competitive until the Fall. Historically, it is the Spring refresh parts that are the most attractive to purchase, since they are essentially more refined, higher clocked versions of the parts that were released last Fall - at the same price.

With all of the products we're talking about today shipping in the next two months, let's find out if any of them are worth waiting for…