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RADEON X800 XL Roundup March 22, 2005 |
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Summary: With 16 pipes, a 400MHz core with 256MB of 500MHz memory, and most importantly of all, a $299 price tag, ATI's RADEON X800 XL is the card of choice right now. But which X800 XL card is best? That's where today's article comes in. We've gathered six of the top RADEON X800 XL cards on the market. Manufacturers include ATI, ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, PowerColor, and Sapphire. Some cards have dual DVI and VIVO, while the Gigabyte card runs completely silent! See how the cards stack up against one another, as well as the GeForce 6800 and 6800 GT, and don't forget the overclocking!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 19 ) |
Traditional retailers appear to be taking the lead this time around on pricing, as ATI’s own X800 XL board has been available for weeks at $299.99 both online and on store shelves at CompUSA and Fry’s Electronics. Meanwhile, online e-tailers such as Newegg and Zipzoomfly – the guys who usually get the latest products first and sell them for the lowest price – were selling these cards for anywhere from $30-$60 over MSRP. Fortunately prices have taken a dramatic nosedive at Newegg however, with Rosewill and ATI X800 XL cards priced right around $300, so it appears that the days of X800 XL cards selling with ridiculous markups is beginning to end.
On paper, the RADEON X800 XL is unmatched. It features a 16-pixel pipeline graphics core running at 400MHz, 50MHz faster than NVIDIA’s GeForce 6800 GT. This gives the RADEON X800 XL a theoretical fill rate advantage over the 6800 GT, 6.4 Gigatexels/second on X800 XL versus 5.6 Gigatexels/second for GeForce 6800 GT. Both graphics cores feature a similar memory subsystem with quad 64-bit memory controllers (for a 256-bit memory interface) running at 500MHz (1.0GHz effective) with 256MB of GDDR3 memory.
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The real kicker for X800 XL though is its $300 price tag. This is $100 below the GeForce 6800 GT, and the same price as NVIDIA’s 12-pipeline GeForce 6800, which runs at just 325MHz. As a result, the RADEON X800 XL is considered to be the new price/performance king among most enthusiasts.
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With this in mind, we’ve rounded up six of the hottest RADEON X800 XL cards on the market right now. Each of these manufacturers enjoys Tier One board partner status with ATI, and can be found online or at the retail level for sale. Typically ATI holds a vice grip on their partners board designs, we saw this most recently in our RADEON X800 XT shootout, where three out of the four boards were practically identical to each other, but this isn’t the case with the X800 XL cards we’re evaluating today. While all six boards stick pretty close to ATI’s reference board design, many board partners have incorporated features that are unique to their X800 XL board, with the most striking example being Gigabyte’s silent-running GV-RX80L256V SilentPipe.
Gigabyte’s engineers really went out of their way to do something different with this board, and it certainly shows, but more on that later. Right now let’s look at a quick features comparison of the boards represented here today:
| The RADEON X800 XL cards compared | |||||
| Card | Noise Level | Copper Cooling | Dual DVI | VIVO | HDTV cable? |
| ASUS EAX800XL/2DTV | 5 | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| ATI RADEON X800 XL | 3 | No | No | No | Yes |
| Gigabyte GV-RX80L256V SilentPipe | 1 | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| MSI RX800XL-VT2D256E | 2 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PowerColor RADEON X800 XL | 3 | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sapphire RADEON X800 XL | 6 | Yes | No | No | Yes |
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| ATI RADEON X800 XL | Page:: ( 2 / 19 ) |
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Essentially ATI’s RADEON X800 XL card is the “base” most of ATI’s board partners start around, and customize their own cards from there, so this wouldn’t be a very complete X800 XL roundup if we didn’t include ATI’s own RADEON X800 XL card; therefore we’ll start here first.
Quite frankly a number of enthusiasts prefer purchasing ATI’s retail cards (which are sold under the “Built By ATI” label), simply for return and warranty purposes. If something goes wrong, ATI tends to be pretty good at processing returns, with a solid 3-year warranty. ATI’s boards also tend to be priced competitively at the retail level, with Built By ATI boards often priced below some of the others included in this roundup.
There was a little bit of confusion initially concerning the X800 XL’s reference cooling design, as X800 XL board shots from the R480 launch (X850 XT PE) depicted a card with a small, box-shaped heatsink with a ducted fan design:
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Only a few weeks later, ATI shipped reference boards to online reviewers for R430 previews with the same cooling unit that was borrowed from the X800 XT/X800 XT PE, complete with a copper heatsink/fan unit:
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ATI’s revised cooler is considerably larger than the original, nearly taking up the entire board. The heatsink is composed of aluminum and still relies on a ducted design, with the card’s fan providing a fresh supply of air for the card’s cooling system. Air passes within the duct, over the R430 chip and its memory, and finally, out the side of the X800 XL card. The fan is located offset of the graphics core, making the duct longer; this allows more air to be channeled across the heatsink and thus increases its cooling potential. In addition, this also has the added benefit of keeping heat from the VPU off the fan’s motor, improving fan longevity (heat and dust are the predominant causes of premature fan failure).
OVERDRIVE Support
One feature ATI touts with their newer CATALYST drivers is OVERDRIVE 3 (CAT 4.12) and OVERDRIVE 4 (CAT 5.2). OVERDRIVE 3 brought with it core and memory clock speed adjustment in 1MHz increments, in addition to the hardware monitoring capabilities and dynamic clock speed ranges older OVERDRIVE releases were known for. OVERDRIVE 4 took things one step further by providing 3D Test, which will test your overclocked settings.
Unfortunately, the only VPUs supported by OVERDRIVE 3 and 4 are the X850 XT/X850 XT PE. ATI has made a habit of only providing all the goodies for their very high-end cards, much to our disappointment. NVIDIA doesn’t skimp on their mainstream and value cards in this regard, providing the same overclocking functionality on all their products, regardless of the GPU, so we don’t understand why ATI continues to skimp consumers in this regard. Fortunately, the X800 XL’s clocks aren’t locked (as ATI did on the 9500 PRO), so you can use third-party utilities such as ATI Tool, PowerStrip, or Rage3D Tweak to overclock the board.
Software and accessories
As usual, ATI foregoes a traditional software bundle with their X800 XL card, opting instead to promote DOOM 3, Half-Life 2, and Matrix Online on the card’s packaging. Hardware accessories included in the box are composite and S-Video cables, a component video cable (intended for use with an HDTV), DVI adapter, the driver CD and accompanying manuals.
| ASUS Extreme AX800XL/2DTV | Page:: ( 3 / 19 ) |
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For instance, their first high-end ATI offering, the RADEON 9800 XT-based A9800 XT/TVD was the first non-ALL-IN-WONDER ATI-based card to provide VIVO (video-in/video-out) functionality. Today it’s unheard of for a high-end ATI card to ship without VIVO! In addition, ASUS’ Smart Doctor software offered overclocking capabilities that completely outclassed ATI’s own OVERDRIVE utility, including dynamic and manual clock speed adjustment, and tons of hardware monitoring options.
ATI just recently included many of these same features in their OVERDRIVE 3 release (12+ months after ASUS), which was included with CATALYST 4.12 at the end of last year for X850 XT/X850 XT PE users.
In our X800 XT roundup, ASUS took home the crown with their EAX800XT/2DT/256, earning our Editor’s Choice Award in the process. In a swarm of what were essentially identical ATI X800 XT reference designs, the EAX800XT/2DT/256 stood out, providing dual DVI, Smart Doctor, and a unique heat pipe-based copper cooler. ASUS then rounded the package out with a webcam and a copy of Deus Ex: Invisible War.
With this in mind, we had high hopes for the Extreme AX800XL/2DTV (EAX800XL/2DTV). Fortunately, ASUS didn’t disappoint.
For starters, ASUS ships the board with dual DVI capability. With two DVI connections, the ASUS board can be connected to two LCD flat panel displays, or with the included DVI adapters, two VGA monitors (or a mixed combination of the two). With the traditional DVI/VGA combination most cards ship with, you’re always going to be limited to one DVI-powered display maximum, so if you have two high-end flat panels, one of them would have to rely on the VGA connection, resulting in inferior picture quality.
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The Extreme AX800XL/2DTV also supports video input. ATI’s Rage Theater chip provides VIVO (video-in/video-out) functionality.
The EAX800XL/2DTVs most striking aspect is arguably ASUS’ unique cooling solution. Rather than rely on ATI’s reference cooler, ASUS has integrated their own custom cooler on all of their X800 cards.
ASUS starts with a large copper plate, which is responsible for cooling the graphics core and its memory. Grafted on top of the plate is a copper heatpipe, which is flanked by copper heatsink fins. Like the other manufacturers, ASUS encloses the heatsink/fan unit inside a duct, channeling air across the R430 VPU and its memory, before the air exits out the side of the enclosure. A large, low-RPM fan is responsible for feeding the enclosed space with cool air. The fan and heatsink are both outfitted with multiple blue LEDs for added flair.
Smart Doctor
Besides these hardware additions, the EAX800XL/2DTV also supports ASUS’ Smart Doctor software. Thanks to Smart Doctor, the EAX800XL/2DTV is the only card in this roundup that ships with hardware monitoring support. Temperatures and voltages of the graphics core and memory can be monitored at all times. If the board begins to overheat (or the fan fails), Smart Doctor can alert the end user. Smart Doctor can also be used to overclock the graphics card. Sliders are provided for adjusting the card’s core clock frequency and memory speed.
Another feature found within the Smart Doctor suite is Smart Cooling. With this feature, the card’s fan will vary its RPMs based on preset temperature boundaries or temperatures you’ve specified (up to five temperature boundaries can be manually set). Or if you’d like to run your card’s fan at full speed (or the lowest setting) 100% of the time, you can do this too, as ASUS provides a slider for the fan’s RPMs. It’s also important to note that the ASUS EAX800XL/2DTV card’s fan won’t run at lower RPMs until Smart Doctor is running.
Finally, with HyperDrive, the EAX800XL/2DTV can dynamically adjust its clock speed for overclocking whenever you boot up a game, board temperature, or CPU usage.
Software and accessories
ASUS rounds the package out with copies of Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising, ASUS DVD XP, PowerDirector 3, Media Show, and a free hard plastic CD case, for storing your DVDs/CDs. Hardware accessories bundled include two DVI adapters, and a VIVO adapter box. Unlike the other manufacturers, ASUS doesn’t include a component video cable for outputting to an HDTV.
| GV-RX80L256V SilentPipe | Page:: ( 4 / 19 ) |
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Gigabyte was the first of Taiwan’s five largest motherboard manufacturers to make the switch from NVIDIA to ATI, making the move in late June of 2001. Of course, a few years later at Computex 2003, Gigabyte was responsible for another first, as they were the first board partner to provide both ATI and NVIDIA graphics products. Back in those days ATI and NVIDIA’s board partners were locked in exclusive agreements that prevented them from providing cards based on graphics chips from both companies. Within a handful of months of Gigabyte’s dual graphics provider announcement, both ASUS and MSI employed similar strategies for their own graphics lines.
Gigabyte’s engineering team is now hard at work coming up with innovative graphics card designs. Earlier this year we saw the first fruits of this effort, as Gigabyte shocked the world with their 3D1 GeForce 6600 GT card. The 3D1 combined two GeForce 6600 GT GPUs and their accompanying memory on one board for single-card SLI. Now Leadtek has announced a similar card, the WinFast Duo PX6600 GT Extreme, and ASUS is rumored to be working on something comparable.
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The GV-RX80L256V SilentPipe is another example of Gigabyte’s inventive spirit. Rather than rely on a traditional heatsink/fan cooling design as everyone else is doing with their standard RADEON X800 XL card, Gigabyte has their sights set on the silent crowd with their GV-RX80L256V SilentPipe. As graphics cards have grown more powerful over time, some have complained that they’ve also began to emit too much noise, particularly after NVIDIA’s GeForce FX 5800 Ultra fiasco. A growing number of enthusiasts want cutting-edge performance without excessive noise levels. As a result, silent, or near silent PCs have been all the rage, particularly for use in home theater PCs. This is where the GV-RX80L256V SilentPipe steps in.
Gigabyte uses their own custom heat pipe to keep the X800 XLs R430 graphics core cool. The tubes of the heat pipe are composed of aluminum, with a copper base resting above the R430 chip. The heat pipe is filled with liquid. As the R430 VPU heats up, the liquid in the heat pipe begins to boil, forcing hot vapor through the tubes to the other end of the heat pipe where it is cooled. From there the vapor condenses back to the liquid phase and returns to the other end of the heat pipe. This cycle is continually in motion, working to keep the graphics core cool. Gigabyte also uses a gold-plated aluminum heatsink for additional cooling on both sides of the card, including the board’s memory modules.
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This cooling system works so well Gigabyte doesn’t need a dedicated fan to keep the board’s temperature cool. If you recall Sapphire’s “ULTIMATE” line of RADEON 9800 and 9700 cards, which used heat pipe technology from Zalman for silent operation, the heat emitted was our #1 concern with the technology – you could literally burn yourself on these cards if you weren’t careful! Eventually Sapphire had to incorporate Zalman’s 80mm ZM-OP1 fan in the 9800 XT ULTIMATE to keep board temperatures down.
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Other than the unique cooling solution, the rest of the GV-RX80L256V SilentPipe’s board design is pretty standard, right down to placement of the board’s components. Gigabyte also utilizes the same DVI/VGA combination as ATI does with their board, although you do get the addition of VIVO (video-in/video-out) support.
V-TUNER 2
For overclocking the GV-RX80L256V SilentPipe, Gigabyte includes their V-Tuner 2 software utility. V-Tuner 2 provides manual clock speed adjustment of the graphics core and memory (although increments of 1MHz for the core or memory currently aren’t provided).
VIVO/Accessories/bundle
VIVO capabilities are provided by ATI’s RAGE THEATER chip, which is a popular VIVO solution among ATI’s board partners. Included inside the board’s packaging is a custom designed VIVO module with S-Video and component video outputs on one side (for hooking the card up to an HDTV) while composite and S-Video inputs rest on the other side of the VIVO module. Gigabyte includes a small switch that’s used for switching from the component video out to S-Video.
Also included in the card’s packaging is a DVI adapter, driver CD, manual, and copies of CyberLink PowerDirector 3, Thief: Deadly Shadows (on DVD-ROM), and Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising.
| MSI RX800XL-VT2D256E | Page:: ( 5 / 19 ) |
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In order to produce a near silent graphics card, MSI selects better-than-reference cooling components. For instance, MSI uses copper-based heatsinks on many of their cards rather than the aluminum heatsink that the reference design calls for. Going from aluminum to copper costs a little more for MSI, but thanks to copper’s superior thermal conductivity characteristics, a slower, quieter fan can be used to keep the graphics core cool.
This philosophy isn’t unique to MSI’s pricier high-end cards either. A quick glance at MSI’s website reveals X300 and X300 SE that also feature copper cooling.
In addition to better cooling, another aspect MSI has traditionally gone the extra mile in is the card’s software bundle of games and accessories. Whereas graphics cards used to ship with games that were over two years old, MSI constantly refreshes their game bundle lineup. MSI’s NBOX significantly upped the ante in the software bundle department, since then more card manufacturers have followed MSI’s lead, refreshing their software bundle with newer, better, games.
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With their RX800XL-VT2D256E, MSI continues this tradition, and builds on it by providing more hardware accessories than the ATI reference board.
Cooling aficionados will be glad to see that MSI uses a copper cooler on their RX800XL-VT2D256E card. The inspiration of the RX800XL’s cooler looks to be NVIDIA’s GeForce 6600 GT (with the obvious addition of copper), as the same semi-oval shape is used. A copper plate sits directly above the R430 VPU, while a small group of copper fins sits over the right half of the VPU. In comparison to some of the other X800 XL manufacturers in this roundup, only the Sapphire card’s heatsink has a smaller surface area. It’s also important to note that the entire apparatus just misses cooling the board’s memory modules.
The card’s fan is located slightly offset of the graphics core for improved efficiency; a duct is used to channel air just like the other manufacturers. MSI finishes the RX800XL’s cooler off by including a blue LED in the center of the card’s fan.
As the “VT2D” designation implies, MSI’s RX800XL-VT2D256E is equipped with dual DVI and video input support. These additions should make the board more appealing to video enthusiasts as well as those of you with two high-end LCD monitors. If these two features in particular interest you, be sure to remain on the lookout for the “VT2D” designation, as MSI sometimes releases multiple card SKUs based on the same graphics chip. MSI produced multiple SKUs for the RADEON X600 and X800 PRO AGP (MSI’s GeForce4 Ti4200 line alone had over six SKUs in its lifetime!), and we already know a follow-up version of the RX800XL-VT2D256E will be released next month, so MSI will be producing at least two SKUs for the X800 XL.
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Hardware accessories bundled with the card include a unique VIVO adapter, which includes VIVO and component/S-Video outputs all in the same chassis (pictured above), a second S-Video cable, and two DVI adapters.
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On the software side, MSI continues to deliver. Games included with the RX800XL-VT2D256E card are copies of Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, XIII, and Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow. Software applications bundled are PowerCinema, Power2Go, Virtual Drive 7, and Restore It 3 Professional Version.
| PowerColor X800 XL | Page:: ( 6 / 19 ) |
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While PowerColor used to play it pretty conservatively with their board designs, sticking closely to ATI’s reference specifications, more recently they’ve taken steps to appeal to enthusiasts. For instance, their Bravo Edition RADEON 9600 XT card shipped with faster memory modules and was overclocked from the factory.
Following in the 9600 XT Bravo’s footsteps is PowerColor’s RADEON X800 Bravo Edition. This X800 board ships with 1.6ns GDDR3 memory modules from Samsung, good for speeds up to 600MHz, and are the same modules used on last year’s high-end, but elusive X800 XT Platinum Edition. (In comparison, none of the X800 XL boards we’re evaluating today ship with 1.6ns modules, opting instead for slower 2.0ns memory, including PowerColor’s own RADEON X800 XL card.) PowerColor also outfitted their X800 Bravo board with dual DVI connections, a component video cable, and VIVO. Even now, over two months later, never before have so many features been integrated onto an X800 card.
Released shortly before the X800 Bravo, PowerColor’s X800 XL card also drew our attention earlier this year, earning a 91% score and our Bull’s Eye Award in our review back in January. In hindsight, we probably should have waited for today’s roundup before handing out awards, but at the time the only other X800 XL boards on the market were merely reference designs.
Since the review was posted, PowerColor’s card has basically remained unchanged (with the exception of one minor detail which we’ll discuss shortly), although we’ll go over the card’s highlights in case you missed our original review.
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PowerColor relies on the same revised cooler ATI uses for their X800 XL card. This larger cooler does a good job of keeping the graphics core and its memory cool, and is composed of aluminum. In our original review of the PowerColor X800 XL, the card’s fan ran at the same (high) speed at all times. Normally the fan is supposed to run dynamically, with the RPMs varying based on temperature. In operation with the ATI reference card we’ve found that the fan never hit the high RPM setting, running at the moderate setting even when the board is overclocked, therefore the PowerColor card generated considerably more noise than the reference ATI RADEON X800 XL card.
Fortunately, PowerColor was able to fix this problem with a BIOS update. All Powercolor X800 XL boards ship with this revised BIOS.
The rest of the board’s hardware is definitely non-reference. First, PowerColor includes Silicon Image’s Sil 1162 DVI transmitter for powering the board’s second DVI output. This is the same transmitter used by ASUS and MSI on their X800 XL boards. The second addition is ATI’s RAGE THEATER chip, which is located on the bottom of the board, providing VIVO capability.
One trait that separates the PowerColor X800 XL from the others is its external power connector. It’s the only X800 XL card we’ve seen to ship with this and it’s required for operation.
Software bundled with the PowerColor RADEON X800 XL includes a copy of Hitman: Contracts, PowerDVD 5.0, PowerProducer 2.0 Gold DVD, PowerDirector 3.0 SE, Power2Go 3.0, and Media Show 2.0 SE. Hardware accessories provided include two DVI adapters, component and composite video cables, a power cable, S-Video cable, and finally, a VIVO cable.
| Sapphire X800 XL | Page:: ( 7 / 19 ) |
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Technically, these boards were produced by Sapphire’s parent company, PC Partner, but these are the same manufacturing lines and employees Sapphire’s boards come from, Sapphire is merely the retail front for PC Partner (PowerColor and TUL share a similar relationship). Besides availability, another major selling point for Sapphire cards is price: Sapphire’s cards are often priced below other manufacturers at retail.
In order to appeal to a wide range of end users, Sapphire offers multiple lines to consumers. For instance, for the X700 PRO, Sapphire offers two SKUs, the “Hybrid” line and the “TOXIC” line. The TOXIC X700 PRO board is designed to appeal to enthusiasts and ships with ATI’s now defunct X700 XT graphics core rather than X700 PRO for better overclocking potential. Meanwhile, for added cooling, the board sports Arctic Cooling’s VGA Silencer cooling unit. Sapphire then finishes the package off with their automated performance enhancement utility, providing factory-approved overclocking of the graphics core and memory. On the lower end of the spectrum is the Hybrid X700 PRO. Available in configurations of 128MB or 256MB of memory, the Hybrid X700 PRO board is meant for gamers looking for a solid value.
It’s this type of consumer Sapphire is appealing to with their X800 XL card. You’ve got ATI’s proven RADEON X800 XL graphics core, equipped with 256MB of 2.0ns GDDR3 memory from Samsung. If you checked out the ATI X800 XL page earlier, you’ll see that Sapphire borrowed the fundamental design of ATI’s reference cooler, only they elected to use a copper heatsink rather than the aluminum heatsink the original ATI reference design depicted for better cooling.
The cooler works by drawing in cool air from within your PC’s case. This air collects directly above the R430 VPU, before being pushed out the top and the right side of the cooler. A copper base plate sits directly above R430, drawing heat off the chip. Rolled copper fins sit atop the copper plate, providing greater surface area and thus increasing its effectiveness.
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Also sitting underneath the Sapphire cooler are the board’s memory modules. While the modules sit very close to the card’s cooler, they don’t come into direct contact with the copper plate, so they aren’t cooled. Sapphire does use aluminum RAMsinks on the memory modules on the underside of the card however.
Bundled with Sapphire’s RADEON X800 XL is a DVI adapter, S-Video and composite video cables, a component video cable for outputting to an HDTV, and Redline, Sapphire’s utility for overclocking the graphics card. Redline is based on Rage3D Tweak, with sliders for adjusting the graphics core and memory. Other software programs included with the card are PowerDVD 5 (2-channel edition), Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow (DVD-ROM), and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.
In the future, Sapphire will begin to transition over to their Sapphire Select program. With Sapphire Select, you can choose your own software bundle! Included with Sapphire Select cards will be a DVD containing a range of applications and games. The end user will then choose which titles he wants and will be given the activation codes for the titles selected. Additional access codes for the other titles will also be provided at discounted prices.
Sapphire has also announced a second X800 XL SKU, the Sapphire RADEON X800 XL ULTIMATE. The ULTIMATE card swaps out the copper cooler used on the X800 XL card we’re evaluating today, for a Zalman VF700 heatsink/fan unit. According to Zalman’s website, the VF700 “Does not generate noise or vibration in Silent Mode” so this could potentially be a very interesting card for HTPC or SFF applications. (However, based on board shots, it appears the ULTIMATE’s cooler is 100% aluminum-based.)
| Test systems | Page:: ( 8 / 19 ) |
System Setup
AMD Athlon 64 3800+
ECS KN1 Extreme
1GB OCZ EL DDR400 Platinum Edition Rev 2
ATI RADEON X800 XL
ASUS Extreme AX800 XL
Gigabyte GV-RX80L256V SilentPipe
MSI RX800XL
PowerColor X800 XL
Sapphire X800 XL
Driver version CAT 5.3
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT reference card PCI-E
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 reference card PCI-E
Driver version 71.84 final
250GB Maxtor Hard Drive Maxline III SATA Hard Drive w/16MB Cache
Windows XP Professional SP1
DirectX 9.0c
Benchmarks
Lock On: Modern Air Combat (Mig-29 custom demo)
IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles (The Black Death track)
Pacific Fighters (kamikaze demo)
Far Cry 1.3
DOOM 3 (gameplay custom demo)
Chronicles of Riddick
Notes
Since all of the RADEON X800 XL cards tested here run at the same clock speeds, we’ve decided to do something a little bit different and instead highlight the performance of the RADEON X800 XL in comparison to a few competing PCI-E cards from NVIDIA, namely the GeForce 6800 and 6800 GT. At the end you’ll then see overclocked performance numbers from the six X800 XL cards we’ve evaluated.
| Lock On: Modern Air Combat | Page:: ( 9 / 19 ) |
Lock On: Modern Air Combat – Direct3D
| IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles | Page:: ( 10 / 19 ) |
IL-2 Sturmovik: FB - OpenGL
| Pacific Fighters | Page:: ( 11 / 19 ) |
Pacific Fighters - OpenGL
| Far Cry Volcano | Page:: ( 12 / 19 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Far Cry Training | Page:: ( 13 / 19 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| DOOM 3 High Quality | Page:: ( 14 / 19 ) |
DOOM 3 – OpenGL
| Half-Life 2 | Page:: ( 15 / 19 ) |
Half-Life 2 – Direct3D
| Riddick | Page:: ( 16 / 19 ) |
Chronicles of Riddick
| Overclocking-Shooters | Page:: ( 17 / 19 ) |
| Overclocking-Flight sims | Page:: ( 18 / 19 ) |
| Final thoughts | Page:: ( 19 / 19 ) |
With that being said, picking a “winner” out of this batch of RADEON X800 XL cards is difficult, simply because each card is designed to appeal to different segments.
If you’re planning on building a silent, or near-silent PC, Gigabyte’s GV-RX80L256V SilentPipe is clearly the best RADEON X800 XL card on the market for you. Thanks to Gigabyte’s unique heat pipe cooling, they’re the only manufacturer that can boast 100% silent operation. If you plan on overclocking, you might want to place an additional case fan near the card to ensure longevity, but for regular use board temperatures remained in check. Gigabyte’s engineering team has certainly been on a roll lately, delivering cards to the market that are certainly innovative, the GV-RX80L256V SilentPipe is another fine example of this. Kudos to them.
But, if you want a card with dual DVI and VIVO, as well as dedicated hardware monitoring/overclocking, the ASUS Extreme AX800XT/2DT/256 is the card of choice.
ASUS didn’t miss anything with this card, the Extreme AX800XL/2DTV is clearly the most feature-packed RADEON X800 XL card on the market right now. Not only do you get the great hardware (dual DVI, VIVO, copper cooling), you also get ASUS’ Smart Doctor software. Smart Doctor isn’t just a simple overclocking utility either, once Smart Doctor is installed you can tweak and monitor the operation of your Extreme AX800XL/2DTV to your heart’s content. Since ATI doesn’t extend OVERDRIVE support to the X800 XL, the ASUS EAX800XL/2DTV is currently the only X800 XL card on the market that provides hardware monitoring functionality (voltages, temperatures, fan speed, etc). Sure, the addition of dual DVI and VIVO is nice, but as any ASUS card owner will tell you, it’s Smart Doctor that sets ASUS apart from other card manufacturers.
MSI’s RX800XL-VT2D256E attempts to merge the audible benefits of the Gigabyte GV-RX80L256V with the hardware advantages found on the ASUS EAX800XL/2DTV. You’ve got a card that ships with a very quiet cooler, so quiet that you probably won’t hear it over the roar of your case fan(s) and CPU fan, with hardware capabilities that are only matched by the ASUS card, namely dual DVI, VIVO, and copper cooling with LEDs.
The real advantage that MSI’s RX800XL-VT2D256E enjoys over the ASUS EAX800XL/2DTV however is price. Right now MSI’s X800 XL card is priced over $100 cheaper than the ASUS card. Obviously some of this price difference can be equated to dealer markup, but ASUS does traditionally price their boards anywhere from $20-$50 more than their competitors. Therefore, MSI’s RX800XL-VT2D256E would be the perfect solution for gamers that want a feature-filled, near-silent X800 XL card.
PowerColor’s X800 XL card is also feature-packed. You’ve got dual DVI and VIVO, just like the ASUS and MSI cards. PowerColor relies on the reference ATI cooling solution, but obviously as we saw in our overclocking results, this didn’t prevent the card from reaching high clock speeds. In addition, PowerColor traditionally prices their boards very aggressively. This card would be an excellent choice for the enthusiast who wants a little bit more than what ATI provides with their RADEON X800 XL card.
Finally, we have the Sapphire X800 XL and ATI X800 XL cards. Both of these boards will no doubt be popular sellers due to their low price and widespread availability. They both rely on the more traditional DVI/VGA display combination, and neither provides VIVO support, but most users with CRTs don’t necessarily use any more than this anyway. A gamer with one of these cards will be well served for years to come.
So there you have it, our take on some of the hottest RADEON X800 XL cards on the market right now. Hopefully this article has helped you find the X800 XL card that best suits your particular needs, as each one of these cards has their own particular traits that will appeal to certain segments within the X800 XL market. We already know that Sapphire and MSI are hard at work on follow-up products to the cards we’ve evaluated today, and we’ll no doubt take a look at those cards as soon as we get our hands on them!