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ATi Radeon X1K Graphics Launched, Benchmarked
MojoDog writes "ATi has officially launched
their all new Radeon X1000 family of 3D Graphics cards this morning and
a full showcase with benchmarks of the entire line-up can be found at
HotHardware. What may or may not be surprising to you, is the fact
that the new high-end flagship X1800 is still a 16 pixel pipe GPU but now
running at a blistering 625MHz.
Is it fast enough to catch NVIDIA's 24 pipe GeForce 7800 GTX?"
I thought ATI was going to seize the advantage from Nvidia with these cards but from what the article is telling me it appears to be a GF5900-style bust. I was thinking the X1600 would've been exactly what I needed but I may just get the 6800GT instead. Oh well.
I will worry more about the drivers, especially for linux. Also ATI had some problems with supply of the chips in the last few quarters.
... I'm not that impressed. Technically the product looks to be superior but performance wise it's not doing well... it seems more like a "dud" generation like the early fx series leafbl... graphics cards nvidia put out. I think the next generation of nvidia and ati cards are going to be much more interesting than the present generation. Have to wait and see though.
Shadus
My 2 cents: there are two key aspects: 1) Price; 2) Availability. 1 - If the price's too high, it would be very difficult to convince people to buy a high-end card with almost the same performance that a $100-less card (7800GTX). 2 - Remember that the X1800XT will be available only middle-November, which gives nVidia a lot of time to think how to counter-attack with something like a 7800Ultra.
...who incidentally isn't producing AGP versions of their cards either. The way it stands, ATI has the fastest (and highest number of) AGP cards to offer.
If you're like most people and running a single 1280 by 1024 monitor resolution tops, the best thing about these cards is they make the top end of the previous generation cheaper. I can only see one of these cards (nvidia or ati) being a must buy if you are running 1600 by 1200 or multiple monitors. Especially as many games are frame locked at certain rates. My 9800XT still plays any game I throw at it just fine regardless of what the hardware sites say. Between the two manufacturers, it's a matter of preference regarding the image quality. Me, I think ati is a little sharper, but that is subjective.