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Previewing ATi's Radeon X800 XT & X800 Pro
Giant_Panda writes "A few short weeks ago, it looked like NVIDIA was back on track as they were
able to overtake ATi and reclaim the 3D performance crown with their GeForce 6800
Ultra. Now, it seems like ATi has fired back with a killer card of their own.
HotHardware just posted a preview of the new
12-Pipe ATi Radeon X800 Pro ($399) and 16-pipe ATi Radeon
X800 XT ($499). The X800 XT seems to be faster then even the new GeForce 6800 Ultra
Extreme cards that were rumored to exist on a few sites this past weekend
and the X800 Pro is a great performer as well. (Other sites have just
posted previews:
TechReport,
Hexus, Lost Circuits)"
Seems like they're cutting the traces on the extra pipes when creating the 12-pipe Pro version. Not that soft-mods were universally successful anyway.
A complete list of articles related to this can be found @ OverclockersClub.com.
... but will it ship with a voucher for Half-life 2? "Now only 2 video card generations away! Buy now!"
At the levels of performance that you are talking about with the ATI and NVidia cards, there really isn't a large difference between a few frames here and there. I mean, most of the time, the declared "winner" only bests the other card on a majority of the test, not all of them
Just pick whicher brand you like better and you'll feel better off letting go of that $500...
I'm going to wait for the 'NVidia 7000 Ultra Extreme Pro Super Plus - Special Limited Edition'. Then I'll be so very l33t.
Jason.
Here's another two other reviews, one at AnandTech and another at TomsHardware
Is there any point in getting one of these cards for any reason other than playing the latest games?
Buying a card just because you "prefer" that particular brand is stupid. There's nothing wrong with brand loyalty, but true enthusiasts will always go with the best product.
I was an Nvidia "fanboy" for quite a while, until their cards started to suck. My latest video card purchase was a Radeon 9800 pro, and I couldn't be happier.
what i'd really like to know is if these new cards will outperform my geforce 2mx in wordperfect scrolling.
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
Someone please divide price by benchmark and plot this in a graph please!
Maybe I'll do it if no one else can be bothered.
A blog I run for the wealth
They have a faster CPU and a bigger fan than both of my computers together!
:)
Soon we will move to external video card RAIDs with their own AC units
I think a real big advantage for ATI is the fact that their card doesn't take up two slots, require a monstrosity of a heat sink and fan, and recommend/require a 450W power supply like the '6800 does. Even if the new ATI card wasn't as fast as the 6800, I wouldn't consider buying a video card like that. And I've always considered myself a fan of Nvidia cards (I used to hate the "ATI OS" that ATI's old drivers used to install -- it was very invasive). ATI has produced a very competitive card performance-wise, while keeping the same form factor and with a reasonable (relatively speaking) level of power consumption and heat dissipation.
"No one likes working in a hamster wheel, and your shop smells of cedar shavings from here." - TaleSpinner
I know that ATI has their little RPMs going, but the reason I have switched to using nVidia is because of the crap that went on with ATI and lack of Linux support. And now, they finaly released some drivers, but no support for older cards, and no way to actually install it properly on a Debian system.
nVidia at least allows for distribution of their drivers
This is the only reason why I switched to nVidia. I don't see how anyone using Linux can support the bad support for Linux from ATI (as compared to nVidia, of course).
As to the card itself, well, I think nVidia and ATI was always close enough :) Sometimes competition works, and ATI & nVidia are prime examples of that.
PS. Please, don't troll me about the free drivers. I want/need real drivers, and not some partial implementation.
What, exactly, would be the purpose of running this card on a *nix box? To play cutting edge games like America's Army and Quake 3?
I don't mean to troll, but every time there's a post about some new bleeding edge video card, there's always someone getting modded up to +5, insightful for saying he'd buy it if it weren't due to lack of driver support, and I'm left wondering what the hell for?
Could the drivers be better? Oh yes. Are they up to nvidia's standard? No. But they ARE listening, and since the last update you can play winex games with hardware acceleration, so there's no problem there...
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
As much as I want to like this card, I fear that they've taken a wrong turn on the path they plan to persue.
As a 3D developer, one of the most exciting things that has come about recently is Shader Model 3.0. It allows you to get greater effects with less operations using some new developments. However, it requires a 32 bit precision. Read more about it here.
ATI has chosen to continue with it's 24-bit precision architecture. While fine for most applications, some of the exciting new developments require this newer spec technology. I'm sure that it will be interoperable, but all that speed may end up being wasted while computing certain operations.
I'm left wondering why I would buy a brand spankin' new card video card when it doesn't support the newest APIs all that well. Oh well, I guess I get to stick with nVidia...
Dragging people kicking and screaming into reality since 1996.
I plumped for an NVidia card for my new machine, but did consider the ATI ones. In the end I went for NVidia because the drivers seemed better supported. My question is, did I miss anyone? Are there any other cards that can run modern(ish) 3D games under Linux?
Anyhow, the original poster is wrong and therefore this discussion is irrelevant.
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
They've been there, they've done that. It was not terribly popular though. :-)
(Could the way 3dfx used several chips working in parallel be considered "video card RAID"?)
Marcelo Vanzin
I'd love to see some program that does "reverse VRAM reclaiming" so those of us who don't need 128mb of video RAM power can get some of that ram back for compiling or something.
Okay... that WAS geeky.
Um, Quake 3 and America's Army? Yes, I can play those under Linux. Also, we have such titles as Savage and UT2004, recent games avaliable for Linux, and the upcoming Doom III. The MOST graphics intensive games seem to come out for Linux as well.
/usr/games/fortune
I was talking with people on another board (hardware mavens), and for most of us with a late model card from last generation (Radeon 9800, any of the competing nVidia cards), the X800 really isn't worth it.
A good denominator is fpspb (frames per second per buck, a made up value from Tom's Hardware. For the cash, you can squeeze a lot more out of a $200 Radeon Pro 9800 (especially with overclocking) than you can with anything else right now. You're only talking a marginal difference of fps between this generation and last at high (1600x1200) resolutions, and an almost non-existant difference at "normal" resolutions. The $200-300 extra price premium isn't worth those extra frames.
While it's true that both ATi's and Nvidia's new cards scream, it has to be noted that ATi decided not to compete with Nvidia on quality. The new 3.0 versions of the Vertex and Fragment shaders, as implemented in the NV40, are a stunning advance over the 2.0 shaders in the newest ATi cards.
That means that ATI has decided not to compete with NVidia on compatibility. On shader quality, the screen shots at Toms Hardware suggest that it is NVidia that has chosen not to compete. Why would you care about a 3.0 shader language from a card that still doesn't give you correct output of 2.0 shaders?
Seeing as how none of the other replies mentioned it, one reason is to do cutting-edge OpenGL development under Linux. There is significant interest in doing Linux game development using cross-platform toolkits of various types. One example is Garage Game's Torque engine. Write to that, and get Windows, Mac and Linux support with very little (if any) tweaking. IMO, Linux is the best and most cost-effective platform for game development.
This is why, once again, my next video card purchase will most likely be from NVIDIA. I'll get ATI if I manage a G5... ;-) (I wonder how soon the G5s will get these cards?)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait
stolen from Anandtech
HardOCP
Ascully
DriverHeaven
TrustedReviews
K-Hardware
Hardware Analysis
Hexus
The Tech Report
Beyond3D
Neoseeker
ExtremeTech
Gamers Depot
Lost Circuits
Firing Squad
Tom's Hardware
Bjorn3D
Hot Hardware
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The fanboy following video cards is endlessly annoying.
Please. There are NO differences between the companies as far as "caring about gamers" is concerned. Both exist to make a profit. Period. Several people I know are big independent ATI developers. ATI provides them with code samples, driver updates, etc.. gratis. Anything you say that generalizes one or the other of the companies makes you a "fanboy." Its no different than Ford vs Chevy. Each has some advantages and some disadvantages. And the both have some rabid fan-base that will make it thier sole priority to bash the other. *yawn*
Also, I don't get the whole "hooray for leapfrogging nVidia in phony-baloney do-nothing benchmarks" when every single review I read included all the current DX9 games with commentary on stability and visual quality, as well as performance. I don't even think Anandtech showd a 3DMark03 score. If so, I didn't pay attention to it. I agree, games are all that matter. Fortunately, that's what was tested.
For some of us Linux users, there's a second consideration: How difficult will it be to set up?
Once I learned how to set up my Riva TNT2 with the NVidia drivers, I didn't have much of a problem doing it again whenever I upgraded my kernel.
However, that didn't prepare me for the obstacles involved in setting up my recently-bought ATI Radeon 9000. I'm not saying it was harder, just different.
I would have preferred to upgrade to a new NVidia card, but I didn't want to go back to a 2.4 kernel. (At the time, you needed to apply a third-party patch to the driver glue to get it to work with the 2.5/2.6.opre* kernels.)
Now, I'm happy to say that my Radeon works fine, and I don't need to reinstall a driver every time I upgrade my kernel.
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I don't know about you, but "XT" doesn't sound all that "high tech" to me.
Maybe ATi will come out with these cards next.
Radeon X800 AT
Radeon X800 386
Radeon X800 486
And then they'll run into trademark problems with a certain other semiconductor manufacturer...
The difference I see this time (and which I wrote about in a related post here) is that the new nVidia card is a power hog and requires you to buy a new power supply if you don't meet the requirements for its two-slot design. The X800 takes up just one slot while generally matching the quality.
I guess I just see that two-slot, power-sucking design as a huge hassle. I can't imagine how noisy it must be, though I haven't heard it really mentioned in review. But I think the non-fanboys will take a look at the two cards, see that one takes up one and the other takes up two, and go with the one...
Radeon VS. GeForce, Cost per Frame
*CPF = Cost per Frame
**Per Aquamark 3: 1024, P4 3.2, 1024MB CAS2, i875P
Radeon X800 XT
Cost: $499 (MSRP)
FPS: 57.96
CPF: $8.60
Radeon X800 Pro
Cost: $399 (MSRP)
FPS: 54.89
CPF: $7.26
Radeon 9800 XT
Cost: $396 (Pricewatch.com)
FPS: 47.9
CPF: $8.26
GeForce 6800 Ultra
Cost: $499 (MSRP)
FPS: 62.65
CPF: $7.96
GeForce 6800 GT
Cost: $399 (MSRP)
FPS: 61.3
CPF: $6.50
GeForce FX 5950 Ultra
Cost: $365 (Pricewatch.com)
FPS: 50.93
CPF: $7.16
Winner: GeForce 6800 GT
NOTE:
This is ignoring other factors that go into TCO such as power consumption (the Radeons use far less power and may not require a power supply upgrade)
This is based on the Aquamark 3 benchmarks at 1024x768 only. If you wish to gather the mean of the other benchmarks in the linked review to figure a more percise CPF please reply.
Intended to make you think about what your getting when you pay the extra $100 for the top of the line card.
If you were wondering, I'm an ATI fanboy and would personally buy the Radeon X800 Pro if I had $400 to blow.
Im dreaming ofa big bndwdth, That can resist the