"ATI Technologies Inc. today reached a remarkable milestone, shipping its one millionth DirectX® 9 compliant cinematic visual processing unit (VPU). One million users are now able to experience cinematic-quality graphics and blistering performance with RADEON™ 9700- and RADEON™ 9500-based products powered by the world’s fastest and most advanced VPUs. ATI and its board partners continue to be the only source for DirectX® 9 graphics products. Most, if not all, DirectX® 9-class games currently on the market or in development have used ATI products as the development platform. ATI has seeded the game development community with thousands of RADEON 9700 and RADEON 9500 products. With stable hardware and software, the products have provided an excellent platform for development of DirectX® 9 games in many game studios. Game developers are also excited about the install-base this has provided, creating a strong market for DirectX® 9 games."
http://www.ati.com/companyinfo/press/2003/4609.html
1 million before nVidia has even released 1...
And leaked from FIC
"New additions to the range include the A98 and A98P based on the ATI Radeon 9800 and 9800 Pro graphics engines respectively. The A98 and A98P both feature 400MHz RAMDAC, 8 pipeline architecture, 256 bit data width, 512Kb of serial flash ROM, AGP 8X/4X/2X compatibility, TV-out, support for simultaneous dual displays and DirectX 9.0/OpenGL support. In addition, the A98 will support 128MB of DDR memory and a core/memory clock speed of 325/310MHz. The A98P will support up to 256MB of DDR memory and has a core/memory clock speed of 400/460MHz."
http://www.fic.com.tw/aboutfic/press....aspx?pr_id=91
The memory is still supposedly DDR-I, and the chip is still on the .15 micron process!