ATI unveils top-end mobile Radeon

Mobile 9800 based on desktop X800 not desktop 9800. Confused?

ATI has begun shipping its latest mobile graphics chip, the Mobility Radeon 9800, which - despite its name - is based on the company's X800 desktop chip.

As such, the 130nm 9800 provides eight pixel pipelines fed by four vertex pipelines. It supports ATI's 3Dc 'normal map' compression system, which the company reckons offers more performance and image quality value to games developers than DirectX 9's Shader 3.0, which the 9800 does not support.

The chip features a 256-bit quad-channel memory interface, and operates across a 4x or 8x AGP bus. For PCI Express, notebook makers will need the recently announced Mobility Radeon X600, which, just to keep us confused, is based on older technology than the 9800.

The 9800 also provides ATI's PowerPlay mobile power-preservation system.

You can read a full spec. list here.

ATI did not reveal pricing for the product - or clock and memory speeds, for that matter - but it did say the part is already available on Dell's gamer-oriented Inspiron XPS and Inspiron 9100 laptops aimed at the North American and European markets, respectively. ®

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