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)"

Video Arms Race

[networkBoy (774728)]

At what point is there simply too much noise Vs. signal about how good one card is VS. the other. If you're a fan of nVidia you're going to buy their card no mater what and likewise for ATI no? -nB

Re:Video Arms Race

[bri_n33 (665143)]

I'm not sure what to choose now!

Re:Video Arms Race

[NeoFunk (654048)]

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.

Re:Video Arms Race

[Short Circuit (52384)]

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.

Difference this time

[bonch (38532)]

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...

Re:Video Arms Race

[Viking Coder (102287)]

they're only good for games

Guess again. Medical [utah.edu] volume [siggraph.org] visualization. [computer.org]

Now, if you're point is that for MOST consumers, they're only good for games, you may have a point. But the other way to look at it is that, since consumers have demanded such amazing video technology, the price to deliver advanced medical visualizations to doctors has dropped dramatically.

What you used to need a $40,000 SGI O2 for, now you can do with a $1000 computer from Best Buy. That computer might actually save your life some day. Pretty amazing, if you think about it.

Case of Engineering for Two Different Ends

[nherc (530930)]

The NVIDIA Card was built as a PS 3.0 card, the ATI card is a purely PS 2.0 card. The difference is in the completely different way the Pixel Shaders work between version 2.0 and 3.0.

PS 3.0 offers 32 bit precision and an "unlimited pipeline", vertex textures, etc.,. Here's a good article on the differences [elitebastards.com].

Let's put it this way, ATI pretty much just doubled the vertex and pixel pipelines and did not change much architecture wise beyond it's last version of cards the R350. NVIDIA's new card is much more innovative actually, but it's questionable whether its timing is right with the current lack of PS 3.0 capable games. Also, a bad omen for NVIDIA is the fact that ATI's PS 3.0 R500 architecture is nearing completion and they have already shown their PS 3.0 cards, if you will.

It's also, unfortunate that these R420 ATI cards still beat the NVIDIA 6800's in a lot of the current benchmarks, despite their superior tech.

I'm sticking with my second hand R350 ATI 9800Pro that O/C's to 9800XT speed now, personally and I'll skip this iteration of cards. The 9800 will do PS 2.0 plenty quick (at a slightly lower res.) for the latest games including Far Cry and Doom3 and HL2 when they come out.

Looks like no more soft-mods

[AsTrONoT (711544)]

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.

Complete list of articles

[by Anonymous Coward]

A complete list of articles related to this can be found @ OverclockersClub.com [overclockersclub.com].

Half-life 2

[NeoFunk (654048)]

... but will it ship with a voucher for Half-life 2? "Now only 2 video card generations away! Buy now!"

Re:Half-life 2

[Tackhead (54550)]

> Yeah, and maybe the Ultra versions will come with a girlfriend included!

If I had one of those, I wouldn't have enough time to frag people in HL2. The bundling of a girlfriend is a downgrade, dude!

Damn...

[ajiva (156759)]

These new video cards have more memory than I have RAM! Geez...

Re:Damn...

[garcia (6573)]

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 :)

Re:Damn...

[vanza (125693)]

...with their own AC units :)

They've been there, they've done that. [tweakers.net] It was not terribly popular though. :-)

(Could the way 3dfx used several chips working in parallel be considered "video card RAID"?)

Too much hype over having the "best" card?

[Goronmon (652094)]

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...

Re:Too much hype over having the "best" card?

[NeoFunk (654048)]

It NEVER hurts to have the best performance.

Sure, both nvidia and ATI's latest cards will play all current games at great framerates, but once you start to pile on things like high resolution, anti-aliasing, antisotropic filtering... you need all the performance you can get. Even these newest cards probably won't be able to play FarCry perfectly at 1600x1200 16xAA 16xAF with full details...

More performance is never superfluous.

Re:Too much hype over having the "best" card?

[onion2k (203094)]

The performance might be similar at the top end, but there is a difference that could swing it in favour of ATI. Power consumption on the X800 cards is a lot lower than the nVidia alternative (its actually lower than ATI's own 9800 cards). Less power for the same performance means lower temperatures, and quieter slower fans..

Re:Too much hype over having the "best" card?

[HarvardAce (771954)]

To clarify on a few points of the parent:

The nVidia 6800 Ultra requires two dedicated molex power connectors, and it also requires a 480W power supply. More details. [anandtech.com] Now that's a lot of power.

Also, the cooling setup on the 6800 Ultra takes up a slot of its own, which means you lose a PCI port as well, although now that most of the features PCI had (such as sound and NICs) are integrated in the motherboards, it's not too big of a deal.

Lastly to note, nVidia is releasing a lower-powered 6800GT which is approximately equivalent to the X800 Pro card, and they just recently announced a 6850 Ultra which is basically an OEM-overclocked 6800 Ultra. That thing will probably take up 5 slots, have a built-in A/C unit, and have its own cold fusion reactor as well.

Re:Too much hype over having the "best" card?

[falcon5768 (629591)]

better yet lets take it one step further, at what point is driver support not factored into it... see Both me (a mac guy) and two PC guys where talking before we left work and we where saying how no matter how good ATI supposedly is, we would rather wait for NVIDIA's cards to come out because the drivers are more polished and unlike ATI's tech support, NVIDIA's doesnt suck and try to blame your computer as the problem but actually looks to see if it is indeed the computer or the card.

Honestly I thought it was just the mac side cause tech support for most companies loath us mac guys because they refuse to have one mac tech on call. But hearing it from two PC guys who homebuild their systems I felt a little better.

Not good enough...

[gUmbi (95629)]

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.

Other reviews

[RonnyJ (651856)]

Here's another two other reviews, one at AnandTech [anandtech.com] and another at TomsHardware [tomshardware.com]

Question

[pubjames (468013)]

Is there any point in getting one of these cards for any reason other than playing the latest games?

Re:Question

[fitten (521191)]

Is there any point in getting one of these cards for any reason other than playing the latest games?

nVidia cards tend to have good OpenGL support and OpenGL is used by a number of "high end" CAD and rendering packages. These cards will work well for folks who don't want to spend the $1500 for the high end CAD cards which are almost the same thing (there are some differences but these will do well on a smaller budget, though $500 for a card is pretty pricey to me :)

ATI just has 2.0 versions of shaders

[Thagg (9904)]

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.

At my company, we had considered using hardware for the final rendering on some of the shots in our current visual effect movie, but the 2.0 shaders just didn't have the capability -- they really are suited only for games (not too surprising, that's where 99% of the market is.) The lack of fully-functional floating point buffers, the limitation on the size of the shader programs, the lack of texture mapping in the vertex shaders -- these are all devastating to the notion of doing high-quality hardware rendering.

All of these limitations, and more, were addressed in the new 3.0 shaders.

I am sure that ATi will support these features eventually, as games come to require them -- but right now you are really comparing apples and Porsches when you compare ATi's and Nvidia's latest offerings.

Thad Beier

Re:ATI just has 2.0 versions of shaders

[by Anonymous Coward]

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 [tomshardware.com] 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?

Wordperfect scrolling test?

[mattkime (8466)]

what i'd really like to know is if these new cards will outperform my geforce 2mx in wordperfect scrolling.

Cost-performance ratio

[jago25_98 (566531)]

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.

Re:Cost-performance ratio

[Geek_3.3 (768699)]

These new cards are gonna be LOOOOOOOW on the performance/price ratio, relatively speaking. That is why I usually don't like those types of graphs--they kind of give you a firm grasp of the obvious, that expensive cards have a crappy performance/price ratio compared to a more reasonable (i.e. Radeon 9600XT GeForce 5700). Not to spoil anything, but as history dictates, I would imagine that the new offerings from ATI/nVidia will be in a dead heat for last place on this particular ratio.

That, it it would seem that each card has their respective wins in different disciplines anyways... Radeon = better in newer games (Farcry, etc) and situations where you have a lot of options on, while nVidia tends to be better in older games, but not a slouch in any particular discipline either, so it would be harder to find out what index you would want to use for this particular graph.

Re:Cost-performance ratio

[Loualbano2 (98133)]

Here is a chart that shows what you are looking for. It doesn't cover cards made after December 2003, but it is still useful.

http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20031229/vga-c harts-16.html [tomshardware.com]

ft

Silly question

[AndroidCat (229562)]

I realize that this question makes no sense to the people who have to be so-leading-edge-it-hurts, but are there any applications around that will really push a graphics card that much and require one of these?

Make no mistake, I'll eventually buy one like these .. after it's well down the price curve, bugs fixed, drivers updated, in a couple years.

Big advantage for ATI

[phasm42 (588479)]

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.

Proper Linux drivers?

[gnuman99 (746007)]

Are we going to have proper set of Linux drivers? Correct implementation of OpenGL?

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 [debian.org]

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.

Hmm...

[Burgundy Advocate (313960)]

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 [microsoft.com].

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...

Are Nvidia and ATI the only choice for Linux?

[Psiren (6145)]

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?

L33t nuu Video cardz...

[Punk Walrus (582794)]

Honestly, how much video power do you need? I still use an NVidia 16mb card on most of my games. I only got a new FX5200 for my newest computer because it was the "most bang for under $80" that I saw. 128mb! Far out! But UT2K4 is running fine on my 64mb NVidia GForce4, which I see I can now get for about $39 [pricewatch.com]. Do I need to run it at 1600 x 1200? No. 1024 x 768 is fine. How finely graned do I need to see the wall, anyway? I just need to see my attackers! I don't stand around and watch the face of my assailant and marvel at the rendering detail of the nose and mustache, because if I'm that close, I think I'm already pwn3d! No no, I am a class A cowards, and I prefer to shoot at them far away, thank you, and as long as I can see them well enought to aim and fire with decent accuracy, I don't care if it's an attacker with the pixelation of a 1970s Bally Midway style Space Invader.

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.

Not worth the upgrade

[SilentChris (452960)]

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.

More Reviews

[Rufus211 (221883)]

stolen from Anandtech [anandtech.com]

HardOCP [hardocp.com]
Ascully [ascully.com]
DriverHeaven [driverheaven.net]
TrustedReviews [trustedreviews.com]
K-Hardware [k-hardware.de]
Hardware Analysis [hardwareanalysis.com]
Hexus [hexus.net]
The Tech Report [techreport.com]
Beyond3D [beyond3d.com]
Neoseeker [neoseeker.com]
ExtremeTech [extremetech.com]
Gamers Depot [gamers-depot.com]
Lost Circuits [lostcircuits.com]
Firing Squad [firingsquad.com]
Tom's Hardware [tomshardware.com]
Bjorn3D [bjorn3d.com]
Hot Hardware [hothardware.com]

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"XT" as the new "top-of-the-line" standard?

[watanuki (771056)]

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...

Cost per Frame comparison, Geforce & Radeon

[aardwolf204 (630780)]

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.

Re:I really want to buy this card....

[starz (473169)]

Don't count on it working well in the next kernel release, as nvidia's current kernel drivers are incompatible.

Re:I really want to buy this card....

[Dragoon412 (648209)]

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?

Re:I really want to buy this card....

[Dot.Com.CEO (624226)]

This is a valid question, to which there is a valid answer. There are a lot of people out there (myself included) who use Linux as their main desktop, only booting to Windows to play the occasional game. Now, if I can play a game in Linux (native like UT2004 or under winex) I do, and when I do, I want to have comparable features to Windows. So, whereas I did not buy my 9800 Pro so that KDE refreshes windows faster, the fact that I could use it to play the couple of games that exist in Linux is a bonus.

Anyhow, the original poster is wrong and therefore this discussion is irrelevant.

Re:I really want to buy this card....

[Slack3r78 (596506)]

The original poster is technically wrong, but as far as I'm concerned, in spirit they're about right. Comparing the ATI and nVidia Linux drivers is an absolute joke. With nVidia, you download a simple shell script, it checks for a precompiled module for your kernel, and if it doesn't find one, it builds one for you and installs it. After that, you chance *one* line in your XFree86 config file and you're done.

ATI, on the other hand, was a complete nightmare the last time I installed their drivers on a Linux box for someone. I'm fairly proficient in Linux, and he was running Slackware which is the distro I run myself day in and out. It still took us a couple of hours of playing around to get the drivers working properly due to a combination of quirky behavior and EXTREMELY poor documentation. I wouldn't mind doing it all manually, as long as the documentation is clear and concise and helps you get things done in a reasonable amount of time.

Personally, I do keep a Windows box around for gaming, but the parts from this get hand-me-downed to the Linux machines as I upgrade. For that reason, Linux drivers are important to me, and I'll be buying nVidia next time I upgrade. I can deal with spending 5 minutes on a shell script and a reboot to upgrade my video card - I can't handle 2 hours to do the same thing with an ATI card.

Re:I really want to buy this card....

[Dot.Com.CEO (624226)]

I STRONGLY suggest you read around about the problems people are having with Nvidia's 64 bit drivers before investing your money. True, ATI have NO 64 bit drivers but perhaps that should tell you that perhaps it is too early for you to get a 64-bit system. They are unstable and run at half the speed. Now, if that is "good enough" for you, fair enough, but I'd much rather wait for a couple to six months so that things settle down on the 64 bit arena.

Re:I really want to buy this card....

[adamjaskie (310474)]

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.

Re:I really want to buy this card....

[Glock27 (446276)]

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?

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 [garagegames.com]. 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?)

Re:I really want to buy this card....

[Dot.Com.CEO (624226)]

ATI have had 3d drivers for some time now. They work fine with me (ATI 9800 Pro), although you will need to patch the drivers if you want to run Suse 9.1. Also, the fact that nvidia provide 64 bit Linux drivers does not automatically mean they are any good. And just so you don't have any doubt: they are not. So, yes, you are wrong, and whoever modded you up to +5 Insightful, does not really follow ATI Linux.

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...

Re:I really want to buy this card....

[ImpTech (549794)]

Contrary to the parent, the ATI Linux drivers only work 'fine' for very liberal definitions of the word. They are slow. They are buggy. They do not support Xinerama. They do not support FSAA in any usable way. Hell, they don't support 16-bit video modes. ATI may be 'listening', but that doesn't necessarily get drivers written. I, and many others, are still stuck using ATI drivers released mid last year because all their subsequent releases have been worthless.

I bought a 9600 Pro thinking that whatever drivers ATI had would be 'good enough'. Well, they aren't. Not by a long shot. If I weren't so fundamentally opposed to separate power connectors for video cards, I might've traded it in for a nvidia months ago. Those drivers are the sole cause of instability in my system. If you're buying a card for Linux, buy Nvidia. Case closed.

Re:it burrnsss us

[telstar (236404)]

"yup and in 2 years when someone actually releases a game that uses all that horsepower it'll be awesome."

• You're waiting for a daikatana sequel too?"

Re:Wow ultra uber speed

[cK-Gunslinger (443452)]

The fanboy following video cards is endlessly annoying. .. Followed by endless rants about how ATi sucks and nVidia rocks and will "slowly strangle the competition."

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.