Review of The X850 XT PE

[Colin.B]

EDIT:It should say Preview/Review in the title, sorry for misleading you all...

I just stumbled across these guys, so I'm not entirely sure how good their reviews are or how reputable they are.

Anyways, I came across this review and I don't know how to feel in regards to it. I think I was among one of those few expecting to see a huge jump in performance between the X850 and a 6800 Ultra or an X800 XT PE. I was somewhat wrong.

In some of the tests you'll clearly see ATi hand nVidia their hearts on a plate, such as the Tomb Raider test.

In others, the 6800 Ultra outperforms ATi's latest home run hitter.

For the price it will most likely cost, I really don't think I will switch from a BFG 6800 GT to an X850 XT PE afterall. It'll take more than one review to make up my mind however.

Either way, it looks like a solid card nonetheless and whichever card you currently have (from the next gen pile) is worth keeping. But if this is the time you upgrade your graphics card, I'd say it's looking to be the right choice.

Link:

http://firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_radeon_x850_xt_prev/

[jerry]

Conclusion from that preview:

Like RADEON 9800 XT last year, ATI?s RADEON X850 XT Platinum Edition is merely a refresh product don?t expect this card to deliver double the performance of today?s RADEON X800 XT AGP and X800 XT Platinum Edition cards. ds. Instead, with its 20MHz core frequency increase and 30MHz bump in memory speed, the X850 XT PE delivers between 5-10% more performance than its predecesThe main highlight of this card won?t be its performance, but hopefully for ATI, its availability.ity. ATI feels that the optimizations they?ve made to the R480 graphics core will allow them to produce plenty of X850 cards, and we?re not just talking X850 PRO?s either. In fact, the first boards ATI plans to ship will be the X850 Platinum Edition cards, which should begin hitting shelves next week priced at $550. The X850 XT and X850 PRO will follow shortly thereafter priced at $500 and $400 respectively. Then, in the late December/early January timeframe the first RADEON X800 and RADEON X800 XL cards should hit retail.

Keep in mind that these are ATI?s plans for PCI Express only. AGP cards won?t follow until Q1 of next year, with the vanilla X800s likely being released first and the high-end cards shWe?re particularly excited about the potential for the X800 XL and X800. With their 256-bit memory interface, and 16 pipeline architecture in the case of the X800 XL, they have everything it takes to grab the mainstream market by storm.market by storm. ATI will also be dropping prices on X800 PRO, as it assumes its position between the X800 and X800 XL in ATI?s 2005 lineup (the X800 XT and X800 XT PE will slowly fade away).

Basically it says what every other review says; nothing exciting about the X850 XT PE but X800X:whistle: promising. :whistle:

In others, the 6800 Ultra outperforms ATi's latest home run hitter.

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where ?

http://firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_radeon_x850_xt_prev/images/c1600.gi:rolleyes: />

:rolleyes:

[Colin.B]

Those are just a few instances that I was referring too.

And I wasn't saying it was a bad card by any means. And I'm sorry that other reviews may have been posted. I haven't been to neowin in awhile, this past week or so has been my first time back regularily.

Anyways, last thing I want is people thinking I'm trashing ATi and sayiing they suck or saying nVidia sucks. That totally isn't the case. I'm saying the difference between the cards looks miniscule to me right now except in certain tests, which I had pointed out.

[enigma-penguin Veteran]

This is not what you guys want to do to this thread, quit with the nv v ati thing hey...

Im rather looking forward to seeing what people can do with the XL cards, But im hoping they are more available than the present line up of ati cards. :/

[Colin.B]

This is not what you guys want to do to this thread, quit with the nv v ati thing hey...

Im rather looking forward to seeing what people can do with the XL cards, But im hoping they are more available than the present line up of ati cards. :/

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Yeah, I really didn't want to get into that. I just wanted to point out the parts where nVidia did score higher so I didn't look like I was talking out of my ass lol!

I hope availability is better for these cards as well. I probably would have purchased an X800 XT PE had there been some in stock, but finding one of those is like finding a nonviriginal resurrected Mother Theresea...

[DigitalN.]

really though, you wont notice ANYTHING higher than 60FPS, because that is pretty much perfect.

I hope to pick up an X800XL if its AGP! :whistle:

[Colin.B]

What exactly is this XL people are speaking of? (Yes, I am far too lazy to Google it right now and am heading to bed anyways.)

[enigma-penguin Veteran]

The X800 XL features a 16-pixel pipeline architecture running at 400MHz with 256MB of memory operating at 500MHz (1.0GHz effective).

Its in the article ;), it should have a 256 bit memory bus too

[Colin.B]

Its in the article ;), it should have a 256 bit memory bus too

585050202[/snapback]

F##K I must be tired if I completely msised that.

I need to re-read that stuff lol.

Thanks m8.

Now I'm going to bed...after proving my own stupidity and blindness lol.

[ANova]

Those are just a few instances that I was referring too.

And I wasn't saying it was a bad card by any means. And I'm sorry that other reviews may have been posted. I haven't been to neowin in awhile, this past week or so has been my first time back regularily.

Anyways, last thing I want is people thinking I'm trashing ATi and sayiing they suck or saying nVidia sucks. That totally isn't the case. I'm saying the difference between the cards looks miniscule to me right now except in certain tests, which I had pointed out.

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If you look at benchmarks around the net you'll find nvidia always beats ATI in Halo and Doom 3. The reason for this is not as simple as "well nvidia's card is faster." Doom 3 was developed on nvidia hardware and uses OGL as it's shader rendering API; ATI has pretty poor OGL drivers in comparison to nvidia's.

Halo was a horrible port with shotty code, of which it's shaders were also written by nvidia. As a comparison, I get between 40-80 fps in HL2 on max settings running under 10x7 on my 9500 Pro; in Halo I get around 10-40 fps on medium-high settings running under 10x7. It should be quite obvious that a problem exists there.

As for the X850, it's improvement comes not from speed as it only has a mere 20 MHz increase on it's core and a 30 MHz increase on it's ram, rather it has additional improvements such as dual DVI, a better hsf and further power optimizations. It's only a refresh of the R420, like the 9800 XT was to the 9800 Pro.

[islanq]

Jesus I'm sick of these video card benchmark threads (no offense to the creator) it's just that every time there is one there is a flame war. Everyone already knows that the X800XT and 6800 Ultra are neck and neck. Don't need to re-enforce this in our brains, we get it...

[Ajapi]

Anandtech has a review of this as well. As they said, the X800XL looks very promising. If they had released it it in the first place, 6800GTs might not be as popular as they are. I mean, $50 less and just as good in most cases? Nvidia can't beat that. ATi's real problem right now is the availability (or lack thereof) of their high end video cards. Finding an X800XT PE is damn near impossible. Lets just hope these cards are easier to find. An AGP X800XL would boost ATI's sales a lot, really. They need it to stop the 6800GTs spread. Some OpenGL driver optimizations wouldn't hurt either.

[Colin.B]

Jesus I'm sick of these video card benchmark threads (no offense to the creator) it's just that every time there is one there is a flame war. Everyone already knows that the X800XT and 6800 Ultra are neck and neck. Don't need to re-enforce this in our brains, we get it...

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I agree Islanq and I was not by any means trying to turn this into a falmefest. I was simply saying in my post both were great cards and the x850 xt pe didn't perform like I thought it would. I'm not saying one company is bad and the other isn't. Like I pointed out in my original post, both cards did very well in different areas. I could never understand fanboy behaviour and flaming. I mean, if someone spends the cash on either company, they will have a good purchase. I only pointed out the nvidia scores because someone asked where nvidia performed well, obviously not having looked very close at the article, and made it sound like I was talking **** when I said nvidia faired well in parts.

I think both companies are great. I want both to suceed very much. My main point with this topic was just to say I didn't expect this from the x850, I had expected a whole new card with blazing fast results and instead it was only a miniscule difference. Im not disappointed by any means in teh card though. Of course it means I can save selling my current card for this one which is nice to know lol.

Long live both ATi and nVidia. I'm also pretty certain i will never make a video card topic again as someone will come in here and deter it from it's original path.

[Ajapi]

Remember video cards don't usually improve in such great amounts as was seen from 9800XT---->X800XT, or 5950Ultra----->6800Ultra. Usually its more like from the Geforce3 to the Geforce4. Nothing too drastic, just enough to make a difference. This X850 reminds me of the 5950. Just a minor change geared towards those who need the absolute best.