ATI Unveils Mobility Radeon 9800

Now that the dust has settled after the arrival of the Radeon X800 XT and GeForce 6800 Ultra, it's time to begin the rollout of follow-up parts. These usually take the form of $200 price/performance cards based on cut-down versions of the high-end GPUs and mobile GPUs for laptops that also are reduced versions of their desktop brethren. There's often a considerable lag between the initial roll-out of desktop GPUs and the mobile follow-ns, but this time around, ATI has gotten the jump on nVidia by debuting its Mobility Radeon 9800, the first eight-pipe mobile GPU to hit the market.

This new mobile GPU moves mobile gaming forward by a sizeable leap, but also won't likely adorn many low-end or light laptops. Instead, look for it in the big, heavy-chassis gaming monsters from Dell, Alienware, and VoodooPC. The Mobility Radeon 9800 also brings a nice surprise along with it, but for that, and the full story on the 9800's performance, you're going to have to turn the page.