One would say that I have a lot of peripherals in this system. One would be right. I don't think anyone actually benchmarks their computers all day, just like no one listens to white noise or test tones on their speakers all day. Computers are a productive tool, which can also provide some entertainment in one's free time.

Installation:

Due to the nature of the beta drivers, I was unable to use a dual Rage Pro - Rage128 config. Thus, before I put the the Rage128 card into my AGP slot, I removed the Xpert@Play. Windows 98 then booted and I guided Win98 to the appropriate directory for the drivers. I let the computer restart. Then I needed to check the box in the display properties to "automatically detect PnP monitors," a bug in the beta drivers, and that was it.

Pictures of Card

Testing Conditions:

Many reviewers on the web say that they do clean installs of everything, on clean partitions, and reboot after every test. I commend these individuals for their dedication to technology, but most of us don't have the time to reboot before we play a game. I will concentrate on how the Rage128 performs in real world conditions. Changing the resolution to 1152x864x16 was a task in itself as the Rage128 showed me a 1024x768 desktop resolution with a virtual desktop of 1152x864. I have later tracked this down to the PnP monitor detection problem (the card did not believe that my monitor could handle the resolution) and after selecting the monitor config file, it went fairly smoothly. ATI is aware of this issue, and it will not be a problem in the final review. I also noticed that the image quality is very good and a little better than that of my ATI Rage Pro. I left everything running in the background as I normally do: WarFTP, ICQ, Netwatcher Pro, Motherboard Monitor, Desktop Menu, and MS Scheduler. Removing these programs may have improved performance a bit, but getting and answering that ICQ in the middle of a game could turn out to be very important.

The cover was left off the system, but the Rage128 card, being a 0.25 micron part, ran cooler than expected. Despite Dr. Pabst's findings, I was only able to measure a maximum temperature of 120F on the chip (while running 3D applications.) That said, the card continued to run stable, and the heat did not radiate to the rest of the system. That is, the ambient temperature just above the chip is well under 90F. I do not expect the Rage128's heat to have any significant effect on the stability of the system as a whole.

Hardware Specifications:

Since most of you have already memorized the spec sheets for all current 3D accelerators, I'll keep this short. The Rage128 is rated at 200Mpixels/s. TV output is achieved through an external ImpacTV2 chip which allows future upgradability to HDTV. The Rage128 has full MPEG-2 decoding and support for alpha blended sub-pictures. As stated before, the chip runs cool, and I do not believe that the Rage128's heat will have any effect on system stability as a whole.

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