Rage3D Radeon X1800XT Technology Preview

Kombatant · Oct 15, 2005, 09:38 AM

Rage3D have aired their X1800XT Technology preview - it's a very detailed article, with lots of information about ATI's newest top-of-the-line card, with several benchmarks thrown in for a good measure. Here's a small part:

Quote:

The R520 was ready to be introduced back in May but ATI was experiencing an unexplainable failure in a tiny percentage of test cards. Cards would run fine in all situations but suddenly fail. Also there wasn’t one specific situation where it would fail; it would just fail at different points in time. ATI spent months analyzing the core with their best engineers, and after countless tests narrowed it down to one set of circuits. They found a pass gate that didn’t belong. This allowed voltage to pass through it and return a signal of 1, when that particular circuit should have always returned a 0. All it took to correct the problem was the rearranging of a few gates and the core was perfect and ready to be mass produced.

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Read More / Source: Rage3D

Zardon · Oct 15, 2005, 10:29 AM

Shame the review menu code isnt fixed for opera yet.

Kombatant · Oct 15, 2005, 10:56 AM

Opera? Who uses that?

SFOSOK · Oct 15, 2005, 11:51 AM

Firefox we go!

Edit: Hmm, that strange, wonder why they are using one of the lowest factory clocked 7800GTX's

They also happened not to comment for each individual game bench and at the end added that they should have thrown out the benches without AA and that the x1800XT outperforms the 7800 GTX on all directX games (which is not true). Gotta love at the end wheh they say it depends on if you play direct X games or open GL games... considering that most games use Direct X

. Dunno bout you guys but it sounds like advertising to me.

I'm done bickering for Nvidia though, I believe I made a valid case along with anyone else who has defended Nvidia from the relentless attack of ATI-fanboys

. Truthfully I hope ATI has some type of driver optimization to make it greatly better than the 7800GTX and worth the extra money. Though I think the ATI community has been disappointed one too many times this year and it will be interesting to see if this card turns out as good as most want it to be.

Kombatant · Oct 15, 2005, 12:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SFOSOK

Firefox we go!

Edit: Hmm, that strange, wonder why they are using one of the lowest clocked 7800GTX's

I believe Ratchet has a reference 7800GTX from nV, and thus, he's using proper (according to nV, anyway) clocks for the board, and not some factory overclocked card. If he included o/c'ed results, he'd have to o/c the X1800XT as well imo, that would be much more fair.

SFOSOK · Oct 15, 2005, 12:30 PM

Did he list if it was 2d or 3d performance for Overclocking?

VaporWear · Oct 15, 2005, 02:57 PM

Good review. What I most like about the X1800XT is the high resolution performance, especially as I'm presently looking at the stunning 2405FP from Dell. Unless Nvidia come out with something competitive in the next 4 weeks or so (unlikely) then I can see exactly what my new machine will have inside it driving the rendering.

Shike · Oct 15, 2005, 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VaporWear

Good review. What I most like about the X1800XT is the high resolution performance, especially as I'm presently looking at the stunning 2405FP from Dell. Unless Nvidia come out with something competitive in the next 4 weeks or so (unlikely) then I can see exactly what my new machine will have inside it driving the rendering.

nVidia truly doesn't have to become "competitive" yet. It's their 3rd party manufacturers that do, and in that case check out XFX's highest offering: 590/1300 for $505 last time I checked, and that's a bang for the buck a lot of people can't resist. Not to mention I've seen everyones benchmarks across the board when comparing to another source, it just isn't a fair game anymore. I think we'll see a lot of picking sides just based on who you trust more than anything else...

Zardon · Oct 15, 2005, 04:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kombatant

Opera? Who uses that?

Just those of us who want the fastest, most secure and most standards compliant windows experience possible. the rest of you .... well .......

Its only a few little code alterations to get it working in opera anyway

pr0digal jenius · Oct 15, 2005, 05:46 PM

Why are they testing the 512MB x1800XT against a 256MB standard clocked 7800GTX?

If yer gunna blow the extra $50-75 for the 512MB version, your ATLEAST gunna buy the XFX 7800GTX OC, right?

VaporWear · Oct 15, 2005, 06:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shike

nVidia truly doesn't have to become "competitive" yet. It's their 3rd party manufacturers that do, and in that case check out XFX's highest offering: 590/1300 for $505 last time I checked, and that's a bang for the buck a lot of people can't resist. Not to mention I've seen everyones benchmarks across the board when comparing to another source, it just isn't a fair game anymore. I think we'll see a lot of picking sides just based on who you trust more than anything else...

My personal situation is that I'm going to be building soon, but soon is middle-end of November. If the X1800XT is actually released by then and the actual retail price isn't as outrageously over the top as the last couple of top of the line releases have been (mainly due to piss-poor availability) then it does look like a very tempting solution.

Of course, I will also look at the competition at the same time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pr0digal jenius

Why are they testing the 512MB x1800XT against a 256MB standard clocked 7800GTX?

If yer gunna blow the extra $50-75 for the 512MB version, your ATLEAST gunna buy the XFX 7800GTX OC, right?

Well, that's probably because there isn't a 512mb version of the 7800 yet. And they are comparing a standard-clocked ATI product against a standard clocked 7800GTX, nothing more. The argument that there are higher clocked cards out there doesn't really wash because they are actually comparing the top of the range ATI reference specs against the top of the range Nvidia reference specs.

To include an overclocked card would be unfair because to date we don't know what other IHV's will release their X1800 cards at. But you can be sure that more than one will overclock it as standard.

Then, once the X1800XT is actually available to buy, all those sites like DH and Rage can do new reviews with retail cards.

Kombatant · Oct 15, 2005, 06:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pr0digal jenius

Why are they testing the 512MB x1800XT against a 256MB standard clocked 7800GTX?

If yer gunna blow the extra $50-75 for the 512MB version, your ATLEAST gunna buy the XFX 7800GTX OC, right?

Umm, because both are working at their factory defaults?

After all, having more memory has nothing to do with overclocking your card as far as performance is concerned - if that were the case, people wouldn't criticise the X800XL-512MB as "a useless card because the extra 512MB are not useful in today's games"

The_Neon_Cowboy · Oct 15, 2005, 06:22 PM

Nice I read it earlier...

it says the X1300s are supposed to out now too?
but only the X1800XL's can be found. I someone knows
a place selling them let me know, pricewatch, froogle etc
comes up with nothing.

Shike · Oct 16, 2005, 06:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VaperWear

And they are comparing a standard-clocked ATI product against a standard clocked 7800GTX, nothing more. The argument that there are higher clocked cards out there doesn't really wash because they are actually comparing the top of the range ATI reference specs against the top of the range Nvidia reference specs.

However, doesn't nVidia seem to acknowledge and almost incourage their 3rd parties to be a bit adventures where possible? The prime reason for the lower clocks was to increase the yeild, so whatever isn't OC condition usually gets dropped in the standard piles, etc. This doesn't mean nVidia doesn't acknowledge that their product can do it, it just means they are trying to max out the profit. A stock OC card is technically "stock" for that paticular model, and therefore a base of judgement if your going to compare the "cream of the crop" of both companies. As for seeing OC ATI cards from 3rd parties, any paticular companies that have done it recently?

This is all my opinion though, so feel free to interpret it at face value.

Oct 15, 2005, 10:56 AM	Thread Starter #3
Kombatant DriverHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Athens, Hellas Posts: 644 Rep Power: 62	Opera? Who uses that? __________________ There is no spoon... Kombatant's Lair

Oct 15, 2005, 11:51 AM	#4
SFOSOK 939 Goin Strong Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Ontario Posts: 7,033 Rep Power: 90 System Specs	Firefox we go! Edit: Hmm, that strange, wonder why they are using one of the lowest factory clocked 7800GTX's They also happened not to comment for each individual game bench and at the end added that they should have thrown out the benches without AA and that the x1800XT outperforms the 7800 GTX on all directX games (which is not true). Gotta love at the end wheh they say it depends on if you play direct X games or open GL games... considering that most games use Direct X. Dunno bout you guys but it sounds like advertising to me. I'm done bickering for Nvidia though, I believe I made a valid case along with anyone else who has defended Nvidia from the relentless attack of ATI-fanboys . Truthfully I hope ATI has some type of driver optimization to make it greatly better than the 7800GTX and worth the extra money. Though I think the ATI community has been disappointed one too many times this year and it will be interesting to see if this card turns out as good as most want it to be. __________________ Warning - Explicit Content Preceeding METAL!! Last edited by SFOSOK; Oct 15, 2005 at 12:29 PM.

Oct 15, 2005, 12:30 PM	#6
SFOSOK 939 Goin Strong Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Ontario Posts: 7,033 Rep Power: 90 System Specs	Did he list if it was 2d or 3d performance for Overclocking? __________________ Warning - Explicit Content Preceeding METAL!!

Oct 15, 2005, 06:22 PM	#13
The_Neon_Cowboy HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: U.S.A. Posts: 16,009 Rep Power: 92 System Specs	Nice I read it earlier... it says the X1300s are supposed to out now too? but only the X1800XL's can be found. I someone knows a place selling them let me know, pricewatch, froogle etc comes up with nothing. __________________

Oct 15, 2005, 10:29 AM	#2
Zardon DriverHeaven Founder Join Date: May 2002 Posts: 32,480 Rep Power: 179	Shame the review menu code isnt fixed for opera yet.

Oct 15, 2005, 02:57 PM	#7
VaporWear DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Mar 2005 Posts: 25 Rep Power: 0	Good review. What I most like about the X1800XT is the high resolution performance, especially as I'm presently looking at the stunning 2405FP from Dell. Unless Nvidia come out with something competitive in the next 4 weeks or so (unlikely) then I can see exactly what my new machine will have inside it driving the rendering.

Oct 15, 2005, 05:46 PM	#10
pr0digal jenius Delete Me Join Date: Mar 2004 Posts: 14,648 Rep Power: 0	Why are they testing the 512MB x1800XT against a 256MB standard clocked 7800GTX? If yer gunna blow the extra $50-75 for the 512MB version, your ATLEAST gunna buy the XFX 7800GTX OC, right?