Introduction

Sapphire X850 XT card

The Sapphire card poses with an X850 XT PE (bottom)

While any hardcore gamer who craves performance lusts over the latest and greatest hardware, only a small minority can afford to remain on the bleeding edge of technology. Both Intel and AMD are constantly releasing new processors, while ATI and NVIDIA typically refresh their product line every six months. As a result, performance generally doubles every 12-18 months. With today’s high-end graphics cards and CPUs costing in excess of $500, keeping up with the latest hardware advancements can get expensive pretty quickly.

It is because of this that we generally recommend most enthusiasts fantasize about the flagship product(s), but spend their hard-earned cash on the level just beneath the top. These products typically support all the same features as the flagship product, and contain most of its key ingredients, only they cost significantly less. In the CPU world, AMD’s Athlon 64 4000+ is nothing more than a multiplier-locked Athlon 64 FX-53. The Athlon 64 4000+ runs at the same speed as the FX-53, features a dual-channel memory controller, 1MB L2 cache, and sits on a 1GHz HyperTransport bus. The Athlon 64 4000+ also sells for $100 less than the FX-53. Another popular solution for gamers looking to save a little more money is the Athlon 64 3500+. The 3500+ runs 200MHz slower than the 4000+ and ships with a smaller L2 cache, but also sells for half the price of the Athlon 64 4000+ while delivering 90% of the Athlon 64 4000’s performance in most games and software applications. This is an incredible value.

Sapphire X850 XT and GeForce 6800 GT

High-end PCI-E graphics cards

It’s these types of products that most enthusiasts really rally behind. NVIDIA’s GeForce 6800 GT has enjoyed an incredible amount of success since it was first introduced last year, despite its expensive $400 price tag. This is because the GeForce 6800 GT shares all of the same key features as its more expensive brother, the GeForce 6800 Ultra, including the same 16 pixel pipeline architecture and 256-bit memory interface with 256MB of GDDR3 memory (for most 6800 GT cards), only it ships at slower clock speeds: 50MHz slower on the graphics core, and 50MHz slower memory. ATI employed a similar strategy with their X800 XT card, only it was introduced to address the supply issues ATI was experiencing with X800 XT Platinum Edition. If the PE hadn’t run into these issues, consumers never would have seen an AGP variant of the X800 XT at the retail level.

ATI’s first true effort to capture the same spirit NVIDIA enthusiasts currently enjoy with the GeForce 6800 GT are the X800 XL and the X850 XT. Both of these cards feature 16 pipeline architectures and high-speed memory interfaces with 256-bit memory controllers, giving them the same fundamental elements that are found in ATI’s flagship X850 XT Platinum Edition card. The one key difference between the two lies in their underlying plumbing: X800 XL is built on TSMC’s 0.11-micron manufacturing process, while X850 XT is built at 0.13-micron.

The larger, 0.13-micron process TSMC uses for the X850 XT and X850 XT PE features low-k black diamond dielectric, which allows these graphics cores to scale to higher clock frequencies. The X850 XT’s 0.13-micron R480 core runs 120MHz faster than X800 XL, and only 20MHz slower than the X850 XT Platinum Edition. X850 XT cards also ship with the same dual-slot cooler that is found on the X850 XT PE, giving them better cooling than the X800 XL.

Dual DVI on the PE card

Dual-slot cooling

For the gamer that truly wants everything that is found in ATI’s high-end flagship, only at a lower price, the X850 XT is technically the ideal solution.