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Written by Benjamin Sun
Editing & Design by Giovanni Glass
August 26, 2002

RADEON 9700 and 9000 Launch Party and RADEON 9000 Pro Review

Let's talk ATI. I'm going to do this review a little differently than any review I've ever done. As I attended ATI's launch party in San Francisco for the product being reviewed here, I thought it would be fun to include the launch coverage and some of the shenanigans that occurred at the launch trip. As many others have covered the launch day and the 9700 in depth already, I thought it would be a little fun to include a bit about the festivities and how a company throws a launch party beyond just the details of the new card.

ATI launch party event
It's interesting that in the three years that I've been reviewing hardware, I've never visited a hardware product launch from any manufacturer before. As PCRave has been a NVIDIA affiliate since its inception, Joe has gone to every event on our behalf. However, I've been able to develop excellent relations with ATI and others like Matrox and SiS. Not to make a big deal out of it since it costs a lot of money for a manufacturer to throw a launch party, and not everyone can go, but it's interesting that ATI was the first company to invite me to a launch party. I appreciate the hospitality ATI showed me very much. A few weeks ago, ATI invited me to San Francisco to take part in their next generation product launch. Codenamed R300, I was excited to take part and made arrangements with ATI to attend. ATI made the airplane reservations, hotel arrangements, and transportation back from the hotel for the return trip. After arranging some time off from work and letting everyone know I'll be incognito for three days, I was ready to go.

ATI Spotlight
Founded in 1985, ATI Technologies Inc. is a world leader in the supply of graphics, video and multimedia solutions for the personal computer and Mac platforms. The pioneer, innovator and market leader in the graphics industry, ATI provides cutting-edge technologies for the PC, workstation, set-top box, game console and other consumer appliances markets. The Company has more than 1,900 employees supporting customers from its headquarters in Markham, Ontario, Canada, as well as from offices in Barbados, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, Malaysia, the United Kingdom and the United States. ATI common shares trade on NASDAQ (ATYT) and the Toronto Stock Exchange (ATY).