Conclusion
Tyan has always been a manufacturer that's prepared to do things a little bit different. Others are quite prepared to surrender to ATi's reference design and add in an extra or two. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that, as the reference design works without question. We, though, are always on the lookout for companies that make a decent design that little bit better.
Aesthetically speaking, the Tyan Tachyon G9800 PRO-M has been modified from the standard form with a floppy-style power connector, blue PCB and double-sided heatsink. A variable-speed fan and handy Winbond monitoring chip add to its appeal. However nice these extras may be, they're still superficial enhancements. The basic speed of the card is no better than a regular 9800 PRO, that is, 380MHz core and 680MHz memory. We're of the opinion that a special edition model, and this one does fall into that kind of category, needs to marry enhanced aesthetics to enhanced clock speeds.
The benchmarks laid down by the Tachyon G9800 PRO-M are in line with what we'd expect from a R350-based card. Depending on how you look at it, it's just behind or on a par with NVIDIA's finest, and it will more than match a standard 5900's performance. The variable fan setting, though, is most useful when switching between 2D and 3D modes. We wouldn't feel comfortable in running anything less than full speed during intense 3D gaming.
Tyan has to be congratulated on producing a non-reference 9800 PRO card, yet we somehow cannot stop the nagging feeling that it could have gone further with the G9800 PRO-M. Give us the same model with pre-inflated clocks for both VPU and memory, a bigger, more comprehensive bundle that included a few cutting-edge games and the Tyan Tachyon G9800 PRO-M would have been an almost perfect card. As it is, it's another decent addition to the Tyan range. Solid but unspectacular.
