DriverHeaven Reviews: Radeon X800 XT + Radeon X800 Pro/Geforce 6800U

***Veridian3*** · May 4, 2004, 02:56 PM

HI all,

We’ve just posted out latest articles. The first takes a detailed look at ATI’s latest top of the range card – the Radeon X800 XT.

“The RADEON™ X800 series of Visual Processing Units are the most advanced graphics processors ever created. Comprised of 160 million transistors, they built upon the highly acclaimed RADEON 9800 architecture and extend it by providing major increases in bandwidth, parallelism, efficiency, image quality, and programmability. The result is a series of products that defines a new era of High Definition graphics. The performance of the new architecture is staggering, doubling anything on the market today.”

The second article looks at the Radeon X800 Pro as well as the Geforce 6800 Ultra and puts them head to head in a selection of tests to see which card is faster…the results may surprise you…

“Since the release of the Radeon 9700Pro ATI have had a firm grip on the 3d graphics market in terms of top performance. Admittedly the Geforce FX made up a great deal of ground between its initial release and current times however Nvidia has never comprehensively beat ATI’s top card during the Direct X 9 era. The graphics market is as fast moving as any other PC technology area and we’ve now had the chance to get a detailed look at Nvidia and ATI’s upcoming cards, the ATI Radeon X800 Pro and the Nvidia Geforce 6800 Ultra.”

You can view the articles by clicking the links below and discuss them by clicking the comments link above.

X800 XT

X800 Pro and 6800 Ultra

germanjulian · May 4, 2004, 03:00 PM

YEAH FINALLY!!!!!!!!!

Asmoday · May 4, 2004, 03:11 PM

germanjulian · May 4, 2004, 03:28 PM

man how about a review with a normal system... like 512MB memory and a barton processor...

lol
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjEx just wont open... site is getting hammered

Zardon · May 4, 2004, 03:33 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by germanjulian
man how about a review with a normal system... like 512MB memory and a barton processor...

lol
http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjEx just wont open... site is getting hammered

a P4 is a normal processor, and if you dont use a decent processor you are going to be more cpu limited.

~~HawK~~ · May 4, 2004, 03:36 PM

...........

What a Vid.Card!!! what a features!! Amazing!!
Seem to lack words for this, or maybe: who'd buy a 6800?
if you still have all your marbles you should know better now

oh yeah, great reviews Guy's

Chaos · May 4, 2004, 03:40 PM

well all the hype is now actual facts

I hope this is just a sign of things to come. While both cards offer great IQ it's ATI or nothing for me baby

No_Style · May 4, 2004, 03:40 PM

That overclocking utility you speak of looks like radclk based on screenshots

Just read the HardOCP review and our 3 reviews. X800 PRO is going to replace my 9500 PRO.

Zardon · May 4, 2004, 03:41 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by No_Style
That overclocking utility you speak of looks like radclk based on screenshots

its not, it came from ATI.

germanjulian · May 4, 2004, 03:49 PM

ahhhh I check like 4 sites conclusions and everyone agrees its the best card ever. and the pro version is still amaziing. And regarding a normal processor... well I think a normal processors does not cost in excess of $250. cause thats just crazy. if you have the moeny to spend $700 or so one one processor be my guest. I know that 90% of gamers do not have the money to buy that kind of chip

***Veridian3*** · May 4, 2004, 03:53 PM

If we benched these on AXP 2500+ or the like then all benches would score the same...because it would all be CPU limited. This way shows you the full potential of each card and allows you to make an informed purchase for the future. Your not always going to have a slow processor...

germanjulian · May 4, 2004, 04:03 PM

I see. Makes sense... soooo your calling my processor slow now are you

fast enough for farcry. still get 70FPS min 40FPS with medium and high settings and low aa and 4 AF.

Zardon · May 4, 2004, 04:06 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by germanjulian
I know that 90% of gamers do not have the money to buy that kind of chip

A p4?? 90% of gamers who buy one of these cards have P4s overclocked to at least 3.2ghz with substantially higher FSBs than the test system in the review.

germanjulian · May 4, 2004, 04:11 PM

true but those are the rich gamers.....

not the student gamers like moi and my friends. we all have athlons. and if u read the steam surver from 6 month ago you would see the average processor speed is 2Ghz. of course anyone who buys an X800 card will have the moeny to have a highy overclockerd system or a very high end system... dam I wanna work full time.....

Zardon · May 4, 2004, 04:16 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by germanjulian
true but those are the rich gamers..... not the student gamers like moi and my friends. we all have athlons. and if u read the steam surver from 6 month ago you would see the average processor speed is 2Ghz. of course anyone who buys an X800 card will have the moeny to have a highy overclockerd system or a very high end system... dam I wanna work full time.....

I dont think you are quite getting a grasp of this concept.

student gamers on budgets dont spend $500 on a X800XT just as they dont spend vast amounts of money on a CPU, if we used a 2ghz processor to test a X800XT it would be a laughing stock of a review as it would be as stu said totally CPU bound.

The people who will buy a X800XT are enthusiasts or people who are going to be upgrading and will want to know how the card will perform on at least a 3 gig P4, after all a 2.4ghz P4 can be overclocked quite comfortably to 3ghz in most instances with massive increases in FSB to further boost performance. the test system is a stock P4 3.4ghz which will give a good indication of overall performance.

Lets move on from this point now please. anyone buying a XT or a PRO?

No_Style · May 4, 2004, 04:19 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by germanjulian
true but those are the rich gamers..... not the student gamers like moi and my friends. we all have athlons. and if u read the steam surver from 6 month ago you would see the average processor speed is 2Ghz. of course anyone who buys an X800 card will have the moeny to have a highy overclockerd system or a very high end system... dam I wanna work full time.....

Even the student gamer can afford the P4C 2.4 C..well 2.6C or 2.8C now. It's an additional $120 CAD~ That's not a lot, considering they can overclock it without the need for a new cooler, plus the HT. It's no longer as expensive to buy an Intel rig compared to an AMD rig and get it smoking with performance @ 3.2 GHz and above.

f you just want a rig for pure gaming without Overclocking at cheap price.. a Barton 2500+ rig would be the way to go. As soon as you add overclocking into the mix, it's a wiser choice in my opinion to go Intel. You get more out of it for your dollar.

jonis · May 4, 2004, 04:36 PM

is it just me, or is that ruby movie sample messed up from about 60% and up?

BiGBrOwNPimpsta · May 4, 2004, 04:49 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Zardon
I dont think you are quite getting a grasp of this concept.

student gamers on budgets dont spend $500 on a X800XT just as they dont spend vast amounts of money on a CPU, if we used a 2ghz processor to test a X800XT it would be a laughing stock of a review as it would be as stu said totally CPU bound.

The people who will buy a X800XT are enthusiasts or people who are going to be upgrading and will want to know how the card will perform on at least a 3 gig P4, after all a 2.4ghz P4 can be overclocked quite comfortably to 3ghz in most instances with massive increases in FSB to further boost performance. the test system is a stock P4 3.4ghz which will give a good indication of overall performance.]

exactly zardon, but there are student gamers like I that have spent quite a lot on their cards, I spent 500 on my R9700 Pro. But people should wait a few more months for some budget cards from ATI and nVidia.

Quote:

Originally posted by Zardon
A p4?? 90% of gamers who buy one of these cards have P4s overclocked to at least 3.2ghz with substantially higher FSBs than the test system in the review.

and when I was reading that, my 2.66 P4 went dead for no reason lol. that was freaky. I enabled PAT thats it.

hohum · May 4, 2004, 05:37 PM

Hehe, come back home and find those articles up

Great stuff, some exciting times ahead. Can I ask though, that there might be a chance shadermark ran into problems on the 6800 due to the drivers? Is that possible? Just seems somewhat odd to me. And that snow bug was pretty funny

Chaos · May 4, 2004, 05:46 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jonis
is it just me, or is that ruby movie sample messed up from about 60% and up?

Same thing happened here

patje · May 4, 2004, 05:46 PM

Stu, Z,

amazing reviews, a technical masterwork (i sometimes wondered if you guys understood what you were writing

) You guys realy outdone yourselves this time.

all i can say after the review is, I GOTTA GET ME ONE OF THESE!!!! truly amazing cards.

thanks a lot for the review!

Danhill · May 4, 2004, 06:00 PM

Very nice & proffesional review guys. I liked it alot.
But I'am a little concerend that ATI doesn't have support for PS 3.0 & VS 3.0

Bart1987 · May 4, 2004, 06:00 PM

Great review!

I really want one of those

To bad I'll have to upgrade my whole pc just to get the max out of it

Judas · May 4, 2004, 06:06 PM

i wanna see the results though *cries*.... they won't load.....

zerodamage · May 4, 2004, 06:12 PM

ATI has some features supported that are PS 3.0.

hohum · May 4, 2004, 06:14 PM

Quote:

But I'am a little concerend that ATI doesn't have support for PS 3.0 & VS 3.0

Personally I can't see that standard becoming mainstream soon. It's a similar story with budget video cards with 256mb ram - by the time games start making use of the extra ram, the video card will be too slow anyway. Similar situation with the 6800 series and PS3.0/VS3.0 in my opinion.

Besides... if the ATI cards are gonna be the speed kings again (which appears to be the case), game developers aren't gonna go out of their way to use PS3.0/VS3.0 when everyone is purchasing an 'inferior' card instead.

But that's just my thoughts.

Danhill · May 4, 2004, 06:22 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by zerodamage
ATI has some features supported that are PS 3.0.

Didn't know that.

jonis · May 4, 2004, 06:30 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Chaos
Same thing happened here

Yeah, I've checked the file on three different boxes now. Must be that the file is messed up.

Check this out tho: http://www.ati.com/products/radeonx8...ite/index.html

Click on Demos & Downloads and you'll find the same movie in three different formats.

There's also another demo movie there! "Subsurface scattering"

Looks neat

germanjulian · May 4, 2004, 06:31 PM

I think that compression technology is far more important then PS3.

Danhill · May 4, 2004, 06:38 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by germanjulian
I think that compression technology is far more important then PS3.

Speaking for me, I rather have a card that is future proof, Nvdia seem to have the support for PS & VS 3.0 but not the power to really compete with ATI, so as for me I think I'am going to wait a while and see what the future might hold. My 9800 pro still runs like a dream for most of the time with most eye candy on.

May 4, 2004, 02:56 PM	#1
*Veridian3* Administrator Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Cloaked Posts: 4,837 Rep Power: 174	DriverHeaven Reviews: Radeon X800 XT + Radeon X800 Pro/Geforce 6800U HI all, We’ve just posted out latest articles. The first takes a detailed look at ATI’s latest top of the range card – the Radeon X800 XT. “The RADEON™ X800 series of Visual Processing Units are the most advanced graphics processors ever created. Comprised of 160 million transistors, they built upon the highly acclaimed RADEON 9800 architecture and extend it by providing major increases in bandwidth, parallelism, efficiency, image quality, and programmability. The result is a series of products that defines a new era of High Definition graphics. The performance of the new architecture is staggering, doubling anything on the market today.” The second article looks at the Radeon X800 Pro as well as the Geforce 6800 Ultra and puts them head to head in a selection of tests to see which card is faster…the results may surprise you… “Since the release of the Radeon 9700Pro ATI have had a firm grip on the 3d graphics market in terms of top performance. Admittedly the Geforce FX made up a great deal of ground between its initial release and current times however Nvidia has never comprehensively beat ATI’s top card during the Direct X 9 era. The graphics market is as fast moving as any other PC technology area and we’ve now had the chance to get a detailed look at Nvidia and ATI’s upcoming cards, the ATI Radeon X800 Pro and the Nvidia Geforce 6800 Ultra.” You can view the articles by clicking the links below and discuss them by clicking the comments link above. X800 XT X800 Pro and 6800 Ultra

May 4, 2004, 03:00 PM	#2
germanjulian Back in London Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: London Posts: 1,797 Rep Power: 0	YEAH FINALLY!!!!!!!!! __________________ /\|\ Asus P5W DH Deluxe, Intel C2D E6600, 2GB Corsair XMS2-6400C4 DDR2, E-VGA GeForce 7800 GT, Creative X-Fi Extreme Music, 500GB Seagate 7200.10 SATA, Lian Li PC-V1100 Aluminum Case Black, etc. http://germanjulian.com /\|\

May 4, 2004, 03:11 PM	#3
Asmoday Demonic Join Date: May 2002 Location: In the cold, dark north... Posts: 5,198 Rep Power: 90 System Specs	__________________ How You can help Hardwareheaven by using Digg

May 4, 2004, 03:28 PM	#4
germanjulian Back in London Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: London Posts: 1,797 Rep Power: 0	man how about a review with a normal system... like 512MB memory and a barton processor... lol http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjEx just wont open... site is getting hammered __________________ /\|\ Asus P5W DH Deluxe, Intel C2D E6600, 2GB Corsair XMS2-6400C4 DDR2, E-VGA GeForce 7800 GT, Creative X-Fi Extreme Music, 500GB Seagate 7200.10 SATA, Lian Li PC-V1100 Aluminum Case Black, etc. http://germanjulian.com /\|\

May 4, 2004, 03:40 PM	#7
Chaos Number Nine Join Date: May 2002 Location: Nova Scotia Posts: 5,269 Rep Power: 165 System Specs	well all the hype is now actual facts I hope this is just a sign of things to come. While both cards offer great IQ it's ATI or nothing for me baby __________________

May 4, 2004, 03:36 PM	#6
~~HawK~~ Banned Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 2,092 Rep Power: 0	........... What a Vid.Card!!! what a features!! Amazing!! Seem to lack words for this, or maybe: who'd buy a 6800? if you still have all your marbles you should know better now oh yeah, great reviews Guy's

May 4, 2004, 03:40 PM	#8
No_Style Styleless Wonder Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Ottawa, Ontario Posts: 6,034 Rep Power: 0	radclk? That overclocking utility you speak of looks like radclk based on screenshots Just read the HardOCP review and our 3 reviews. X800 PRO is going to replace my 9500 PRO. __________________ "The Best Style Is No Style" Specifications Here Last edited by No_Style; May 4, 2004 at 03:54 PM.

May 4, 2004, 03:49 PM	#10
germanjulian Back in London Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: London Posts: 1,797 Rep Power: 0	ahhhh I check like 4 sites conclusions and everyone agrees its the best card ever. and the pro version is still amaziing. And regarding a normal processor... well I think a normal processors does not cost in excess of $250. cause thats just crazy. if you have the moeny to spend $700 or so one one processor be my guest. I know that 90% of gamers do not have the money to buy that kind of chip __________________ /\|\ Asus P5W DH Deluxe, Intel C2D E6600, 2GB Corsair XMS2-6400C4 DDR2, E-VGA GeForce 7800 GT, Creative X-Fi Extreme Music, 500GB Seagate 7200.10 SATA, Lian Li PC-V1100 Aluminum Case Black, etc. http://germanjulian.com /\|\

May 4, 2004, 03:53 PM	Thread Starter #11
*Veridian3* Administrator Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Cloaked Posts: 4,837 Rep Power: 174	If we benched these on AXP 2500+ or the like then all benches would score the same...because it would all be CPU limited. This way shows you the full potential of each card and allows you to make an informed purchase for the future. Your not always going to have a slow processor...

May 4, 2004, 04:03 PM	#12
germanjulian Back in London Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: London Posts: 1,797 Rep Power: 0	I see. Makes sense... soooo your calling my processor slow now are you fast enough for farcry. still get 70FPS min 40FPS with medium and high settings and low aa and 4 AF. __________________ /\|\ Asus P5W DH Deluxe, Intel C2D E6600, 2GB Corsair XMS2-6400C4 DDR2, E-VGA GeForce 7800 GT, Creative X-Fi Extreme Music, 500GB Seagate 7200.10 SATA, Lian Li PC-V1100 Aluminum Case Black, etc. http://germanjulian.com /\|\

May 4, 2004, 04:11 PM	#14
germanjulian Back in London Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: London Posts: 1,797 Rep Power: 0	true but those are the rich gamers..... not the student gamers like moi and my friends. we all have athlons. and if u read the steam surver from 6 month ago you would see the average processor speed is 2Ghz. of course anyone who buys an X800 card will have the moeny to have a highy overclockerd system or a very high end system... dam I wanna work full time..... __________________ /\|\ Asus P5W DH Deluxe, Intel C2D E6600, 2GB Corsair XMS2-6400C4 DDR2, E-VGA GeForce 7800 GT, Creative X-Fi Extreme Music, 500GB Seagate 7200.10 SATA, Lian Li PC-V1100 Aluminum Case Black, etc. http://germanjulian.com /\|\

May 4, 2004, 04:36 PM	#17
jonis Alien mindbender Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Valhalla Posts: 539 Rep Power: 0	is it just me, or is that ruby movie sample messed up from about 60% and up? __________________ [color=yellow]P4 2.533GHz 533MHz \| 2 x Samsung 512MB PC2700 (1GB) \| Hercules 3D Prophet 9700 Pro \| ASUS P4S8X (fw v1.005) \| SB Audigy Platinum WDC 120GB SE (8MB buffer) x 2 \| M$ intellimouse Explorer 3.0 \| WinXP SP-1 \| DX 9.0c & CATs 5.10 \| Viewsonic VP191b (19" TFT)[/color]

May 4, 2004, 05:37 PM	#19
hohum HardwareHeaven Addict Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: UK Posts: 298 Rep Power: 54	Hehe, come back home and find those articles up Great stuff, some exciting times ahead. Can I ask though, that there might be a chance shadermark ran into problems on the 6800 due to the drivers? Is that possible? Just seems somewhat odd to me. And that snow bug was pretty funny

May 4, 2004, 05:46 PM	#21
patje Former Mobility Modman Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Belgium / Antwerp Posts: 1,475 Rep Power: 64	Stu, Z, amazing reviews, a technical masterwork (i sometimes wondered if you guys understood what you were writing ) You guys realy outdone yourselves this time. all i can say after the review is, I GOTTA GET ME ONE OF THESE!!!! truly amazing cards. thanks a lot for the review! __________________

May 4, 2004, 06:00 PM	#22
Danhill DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2003 Location: Sweden Posts: 4,112 Rep Power: 0	Very nice & proffesional review guys. I liked it alot. But I'am a little concerend that ATI doesn't have support for PS 3.0 & VS 3.0 __________________ MOBO: [color=white]ASUS A8N-SLI Premium[/color] CPU: AMD 64 3200+ (Venice) @ 2,50 Ghz MEM: 2 x 512 DDR 466, VGA: 2 x 6600 GT in SLI, HDD1: WD Raptor HDD2: Maxtor Diamond Plus 9, Case: Antec Plus View 1080, PSU: ThermalTake PurePower 500W, MX 1000, Dell 2001 FP, Aud. 2 SZ

May 4, 2004, 06:00 PM	#23
Bart1987 DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 634 Rep Power: 0	Great review! I really want one of those To bad I'll have to upgrade my whole pc just to get the max out of it

May 4, 2004, 06:12 PM	#25
zerodamage HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: May 2003 Location: Virginia, USA Posts: 3,478 Rep Power: 0 System Specs	ATI has some features supported that are PS 3.0.

May 4, 2004, 06:31 PM	#29
germanjulian Back in London Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: London Posts: 1,797 Rep Power: 0	I think that compression technology is far more important then PS3. __________________ /\|\ Asus P5W DH Deluxe, Intel C2D E6600, 2GB Corsair XMS2-6400C4 DDR2, E-VGA GeForce 7800 GT, Creative X-Fi Extreme Music, 500GB Seagate 7200.10 SATA, Lian Li PC-V1100 Aluminum Case Black, etc. http://germanjulian.com /\|\