FIC Radeon 9800 Pro

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To quote FIC's website: "Many new and innovative products have joined the FIC range and the company is no longer simply known for its award winning range of motherboards." Is it possible for them to drive that point home more effectively than with a shiny new retail ATI Radeon 9800 Pro? With the 9800 Pro being the current leader in the "biggest and baddest video card available" category, I'd say they are definitely making a name for themselves well beyond the scope of a motherboard manufacturer.

Manufacturer:	FIC
Product:	ATI Radeon 9800 Pro
Price:	USD$390
Availability:	NOW
Reviewed By:	Jim "Justi" Miller
Review Date:	June 2003

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FIC ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (R98P) Review

 

INTRODUCTION:

To quote FIC's website: "Many new and innovative products have joined the FIC range and the company is no longer simply known for its award winning range of motherboards."  Is it possible for them to drive that point home more effectively than with a shiny new retail ATI Radeon 9800 Pro?  With the 9800 Pro being the current leader in the "biggest and baddest video card available" category, I'd say they are definitely making a name for themselves well beyond the scope of a motherboard manufacturer.

FIC as a company has come a long way in the past few years.  Originally, at least to me, known for OEM motherboards, and then edged their way into the retail scene of motherboards.  Never were their motherboards known for features, but they've always been known for stability.  They are working rapidly to expand that stability into a complete package solution.  Even with this said, I must admit to more than mild surprise when I heard they were offering not only ATI chipset driven video cards, but the current granddaddy of them all, the Radeon 9800 Pro.   Have no doubt, upon hearing this news we jumped at the opportunity to review one and see if it truly carried the mail, so that is what we're going to do here today, review the FIC Radeon 9800 Pro.

 

 

ABOUT THE CARD:

We are all relatively familiar with the Radeon 9800 card, and if you're not feel free to check out our review of the ATI branded Radeon 9800 Pro, so let's take a look at FIC's offering in the 9800 Pro.

 

 

So as you can see, FIC's release is pretty much right in-line with the ATI reference design.  I recently read a review of a card where the reviewer slammed a company for not straying far from the manufacturers reference design.  Personally, I PREFER a reference design.  The bottom line is that the chipset manufacturer, ATI in this case, knows what they're doing and designs a card to optimally perform with ther products.  So, unless a company is going to get crazy with a design, why mess with it?

 

IN AND OUT OF THE BOX:

Retail Packaging:

 

 

       

       

 

As you can see FIC has finally come up with a retail box that will fit right in on the retail shelves at your local candy store (Best Buy, Fry's, CompUSA, etc..) yet it maintains enough flavor to be interesting.

 

The Card:

 

 

   

   

 

Reference design or not, this thing is pretty!  There's just something about the red PCB of the ATI cards that looks sharp.  Looks aside though, features and performance is where it's at, especially when your putting your wallet on a diet this extreme to get one. 

 

The Card:

Included in the box is your standard video card fair..

• RCA Video Cable

• S-Video Converter

• S-Video Cable

• Analog/Digital Adapter

• Four Pin Molex Plug for card.

• WinDVD Software

• Driver Disk

 

Let's go take a close up look at some of the physical features of the FIC card and then get our hands dirty benchmarking and overclocking it! :)

 

Next: A closer look >>
 

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