ATIs RADEON 9000 is somewhat deceptively named itd be easy to think of it as the next logical step up from the RADEON 8500 series, but in actuality its more like a step sideways. There are two versions of the card, the Pro which runs at 275/550 core/RAM) and the standard version which is significantly slower at 250/400. Both cards are positioned as budget-oriented siblings to ATIs new 9700.

Think of the R9000 as a tweaked lite version of the RADEON 8500: both are fully featured, DirectX 8.1-compatible cards, and while the R9000 is based on the R8500, its been tuned to reduce costs while maintaining performance. The most important difference between the two cards is that whereas the R8500 can pump through two texture units per pixel pipeline, the R9000 can only handle one. What this effectively means is that the R9000 is slightly slower when it comes to handling texturing.

We tested three 64MB models of the R9000 Pro: two early samples (a Hercules 3DProphet and a Gigabyte MAYA AF64DG-H), and an Excalibur from a newcomer to the Australian market, HIS. They were quite similar in overall performance the highest fluctuation in benchmark scores was less than 2%, which is for all intents and purposes undetectable to the naked eye.

From a price standpoint, the 9000 and 9000 Pro go head-to-head against the GeForce4 MXs and SiSs Xabre400.

The Pro pulled ahead of the Xabre by a significant margin in our benchmarks, although it was no match for our reference GeForce4 Ti4200 or even RADEON 8500.

The area where the three cards significantly fluctuate is in price and bundled extras.

Gigabyte packs its card with a large number of games and cables, and it has the best bundle of the three, but as the card we tested was an early sample we were unable to get a final price.

Hercules has delayed the release of the 64MB version we tested in favor of a 128MB equivalent, which will retail for around $429. This is quite a significant step up from the Excaliburs sticker price of only $275, even when you factor in the extra 64MB of RAM. For the price of the 128MB Hercules youd be better off buying a GeForce4 Ti4200.

The RADEON 9000 Pro is a worthy offering from ATI.While it cant really compete with the R8500 or NVIDIAs Ti4200 in performance, it can be had for a significantly cheaper price than either of these. As far as budget graphics cards go, this ones the new pick of the litter; just be sure to shop around for the right brand.