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With only Nvidia and ATI making high-end consumer graphics cards, both companies are desperate to hold the 'world's fastest card' trophy. Last month saw Nvidia release its Geforce 6800 Ultra card, which was double the speed of anything we'd seen. This month it's ATI's turn to fight back with its Radeon X800.
We were lucky enough to get our hands on the X800 XT and take an exclusive look at the X800 Pro. Specification-wise, they're impressive bits of kit. First, they're exactly the same size as the Radeon 9800 XT (single slot) and you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference.
This is good news as the card doesn't require any more power than the previous generation. The combination of size and power is even better news for owners of small form factor (SFF) systems, as the X800 will easily make one of these its home. It's an area Nvidia has effectively given up on with the large, power-hungry 6800 Ultra.
Underneath the supermodel-thin exterior of the X800 is a powerful core. The XT runs at 520MHz with 256MB of Ram running at 560MHz. As it is GDDR3, this gives an effective 1.12GHz memory data rate.
The Pro runs the core at 475MHz and its 256MB of memory at 450MHz (900MHz). It's worth drawing attention to the GDDR3 memory. This is the next evolution of GDDR; it is faster and, surprisingly, has a lower power requirement.
The X800 XT uses 16 pixel pipes, while the Pro has 12. With six vertex shaders on both, ATI is claiming greater than 750 million vertices per second.
Perhaps the most interesting addition to the card is the 3Dc compression technology. This is proprietary technology that needs applications specifically written for it, but it's still good to see.
The technology is used to compress normal maps to make more efficient use of memory. Normal maps are special textures composed of light vectors rather than colours. When used on a 3D model it gives more realistic lighting and makes lower polygon models appear to have more detail. The problem with normal maps is that they can take up a huge amount of memory, hence the new compression technique. You'll have to wait for games such as Half Life 2, Doom 3 and Serious Sam 2 before you can see the results in action, however. The anti-aliasing engine has also had an upgrade and uses what ATI calls temporal anti-aliasing. Effectively, it gives double precision (2x becomes 4x, etc) with no extra overhead.
Of course, specifications are one thing, but it is real performance that counts.
Both cards are designed to run at high resolutions with lots of detail, so we tested at 1,600 x 1,200.
The XT romped in with a 3Dmark03 score of 12,197, which is faster than Nvidia's 6800 Ultra.
Perhaps more impressive is the 9,820 scored by the Pro. Considering that the card will be on sale for around $400 (approx £228), this is lightning fast. Turning on 4x full scene anti-aliasing (FSAA) did little to slow the cards down. The XT gave us a score of 4,274 and the Pro 3,265 Ñ both in the realms of playability.
To see how the cards perform in a real game we tested Far Cry, which is graphically demanding, at 1,600 x 1,200 with 4x FSAA. The XT managed a stunning 40.08 frames per second (fps), which is silky smooth. The Pro didn't let the side down and scored 28.05fps, which is still smooth enough for most gamers. It look as though ATI has rained on Nvidia's parade. The Radeon 800 XT is the fastest card we've ever seen and, at $499 (approx £285), cheaper than the 6800 Ultra.
However, it's the 800 Pro that has really impressed us. It looks set to be cheaper than the current generation of cards and a lightning-fast performer. For those who want the best price/performance this is going to be the card to buy. We'll review the retail products soon.
Contact: ATI
www.ati.com
Price details:
RRP XT around $499 (£285)
Pro around $399 (£228)
See also:
This sapphire is similar in looks to its predecessors but this latest version has some added features. 25 Jun 2004
Looking for a top of the range graphics card? Then this could be the one for you. 28 Apr 2004
Nvidia takes gaming to a new level with its most powerful card yet. 16 Apr 2004All Graphics Cards
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