Introduction

You may remember not too long ago when we took a look at a Radeon 9700 Pro video board that made the distinctive claim of being totally silent. That board was from a manufacturer called Sapphire, and used an innovative heatpipe cooling assembly that is completely passive. With the power of one of the worlds most powerful video boards and the concept of total silence, the board made a huge hit with the enthusiast crowd.

Well, the folks at Sapphire figured that if this idea would work with a 9700 Pro, then why not use it on the 9800 Pro to keep up with the new technology being brought to fruition by ATI?

Today we'll take a look at the new Sapphire Radeon 9800 Pro "Ultimate Edition" and see if it can continue the legacy started just a short while ago. We'll be looking at the 128MB version of this new powerhouse VPU and making a direct comparison to the very popular 9700 Pro model. Since the 9700 is getting very scarce and this version has a comparative cost, we'll see if it is worth the effort to make the jump.

So sit back and enjoy as we take a gander at the 9800 Pro from Sapphire. If it can live up to the claims of the manufacturer, then we may just have a likely candidate for that new system we've been dreaming of!