ATI's New Radeon X850 and X800 Lines: A Smorgasbord of GPUs
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on December 1, 2004 9:41 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
ATI Radeon X800 XL
This is probably the most interesting and oddly priced part we've taken a look at today. At a $350 MSRP, we need to compare it to $399 and $299 parts. Since it's a 16 pipeline part with 256MB of RAM and a 1GHz memory data rate, we can expect some very good numbers on this card, even at lower core clock speeds. The width of the architecture really helps when scaling down.
Performing as good or better than a part that's $50 more expensive in every test we run is quite an acheivement. Yes, the the X850 Pro has a 30% higher core clock speed, but the 30% increase in pixel pipelines from 12 to 16 negates that. Eventhough the X850 Pro has a little more memory bandwidth, the fact that the X800 XL is wider give is the advantage in parallelism. The X800 XL is just a better card than the X850 Pro, especially at the $349 price point ATI is shooting for.
Clearly the X800 XL is worth the added $100 investment over the vanilla X800 if it's in the budget. In every game we tested but UT2K4 the difference was larger than 24%, and could even mean playability under Doom 3 or Farcry under high stress conditions.
At a $350 price point, the X800 XL stacks up to be a very nice part. Unfortunately for ATI, it also elimiates their own current $400 incarnation of the X850 Pro as a viable entity. We find it very hard to believe that ATI would release a $350 card that would outperform a $400 card they just released a few weeks earlier so either, the clock speeds of the X800 XL and/or X850 Pro will dramatically change between now and when they are actually available, or the X800 XL and X850 Pro will be priced differently than what we've been told.
There's a quick evaluation of ATI's new lineup, but if you want to see all cards compared side by side, here you go...
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kmmatney - Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - link
Man, It's way too confusing buying a card these days. There were already way too many ATI model numbers out there, and now this! Why can't they have an entry, Low Mid-range, High Mid-Range and high-end card and leave it at that.sophus - Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - link
model numbers are out of control. just go look at pricewatch.com and get bombarded by all of the models...i've heard that the purpose of the all the numbers/acronyms is to confuse the consumer into buying a "newer" part, read: more profitable for them.
the prices are getting too high. $500 for a card?! too much money for a (practical) gamer's most frequently upgraded part.
also, the availability for these cards is way too low. How long after the release do we have to wait until we can actually see these in stores? is demand that high and supply that low? is there a leak in their bank accounts? are their manuf processes too high?
a small tweak in their product and they demand top-dollar? or rather, "well this NEW product is just a little bit better then our last one. so instead of lowering the price on our OLD product, we'll just set the bar higher for our NEW product."
Mykal Starclem - Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - link
Quote:I just hope that the large increase in the variety of cards means that a couple of them which actually be available to buy
lol
Kasper4christ - Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - link
*cough* Spell check :PPage 2
"before it's clock soeeds are officially set in stone."
Steve Guilliot - Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - link
#31Software HDTV decoders/encoder require working DxVA (i.e. ATI cards) for best performance, and sometimes to work at all. For people intersted in going the HTPC route, the video processor is very important, just not to you.
miketheidiot - Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - link
extremely unimpressive. My 6800 is still fine.Regs - Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - link
This does not look like a refreash to me. Just seems more like overclocked parts trying to win the performance crown that "no 'one'" can afford. I expect Nvidia to do the same. ATI even has the nerve to charge 400 dollars for a 12 pipe design. At least have it include Dual Dvi. I know it may not need the extra 4 pipes enabled, but it just seems like their taking you for a ride for a few extra MHz.Araemo - Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - link
#24:I stand corrected, though iDCT is VERY old tech, that nVidia had around from at least the geforce 4 series(if not the gf2 series), and ATI has had since sometime in the RAGE series.
And the "Motion compensation" sounds like what ATI has enabled via their drivers in a couple aps (Divx Player and Realplayer, if I'm not mistaken.)
Motion estimation is what I was thinking the only new use was, my mistake. Though I DO hope that nvidia at least has iDCT working, if not the motion compensation as well. The main selling point I saw w/ regards to the video processor was the ENCODE.. since I've never had a cpu usage problem while decoding a video.. even on a pentium 2 running windows 2000.
#26: I don't think 'decent' is the right word.. their drivers are decent, they just aren't fast.
I draw the distinction because of the number of video cards I've had with UNSTABLE drivers. I am very happy with the stability of the Catalyst 4.x series drivers.
That said.. nVidia has stable AND fast openGL drivers.. hello ATI?
ViRGE - Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - link
#4, it's not worth getting worked up over anyone's video processor at this point. Nvidia's 68xx processor may be broken, but even if it worked, it doesn't make a difference. There are not any MPEG4 decoders on the market that can use either company's card, and WMV acceleration on my X800 Pro is having no impact: frame rates and CPU usage stay the same. And let's not even talk about hardware assisted encoding...The whole "video processor" idea has so far turned out to be a joke from both sides.
Zebo - Wednesday, December 1, 2004 - link
#10 the USD has lost 33% of it's value since GF4 days so in reality Vcards are the same price just your dollar is'nt worth anything.