ABIT RX600XT-PCIE
Findings on the system
In the testing practice, there are two absolutely different concepts - "engineering sample" and "end product". In the former case, these are hardware singletons assembled in a semi-handicraft manner in subordinate production facilities at company labs. If they happen to appear on our test facilities, the purpose is the only one - to make oneself aware of the consumer properties of future products. Their task is to start and work a bit :-). Requirements to the end products manufactured in batches and for which the consumer is to pay quite an amount are different.
While assembling the fist test facilities on the LGA platform, you can't help thinking that you deal with a big "engineering sample" whose only purpose is at least to start up. Only after two weeks of successful practice in re-installing processors, memory kits from various manufacturers, video cards etc.. you arrive at the understanding that you have a complete and well-polished solution. What is most strange is that a system using no WHQL driver didn't hang up at lest once and behaved always correctly.
All the implemented novelties allow to regard the i915P/i925X platform as a most serious change of the PC since the times of the first Pentium processors. But - has it all added much to the performance? On the primitive level - yes, it has, and more likely due to the use of the RAID technology which improved the "system response" to a serious extent. But it will take a while when we feel the role of the PCI-Express bus with the doubled bandwidth (up to 4 GB/s) to the full. Its purpose, like the task of many introduced technologies is to solve the system bottlenecks.
Findings on the ABIT RX600XT-PCIE Video Card
Our tests of the first mid-end PCI-E video cards brought the first surprise - ABIT RX600XT (235$) on the average offers greater or equal performance as compared to GeForce PCX5900 (255$). This is confirmed by the posted price for these products (see pricewatch.com).
Here is the amended table:
| PCI-Express x16 Roadmap `2004 |
|
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| Hi-End |
GeForce 6 Series |
Radeon X800XT/Pro |
| Hi-Middle |
GeForce PCX5900 |
Radeon X600XT |
| Middle |
GeForce PCX5750 |
Radeon X600Pro |
| Low-End |
GeForce PCX5300 |
Radeon X300SE |
Of the PCI-E video cards which are already available on sales, of most interest is the "GeForce PCX5900 versus Radeon X600XT" rivalry, because no Hi-End cards with the PCI-E bus will be available on sales until September. Having decided to assemble a computer on a new platform, you would have to choose just between the two. ABIT RX600XT to date is the fastest of all available PCI-E video cards.
In our next test session, we'll compare the canonical GeForce PCX5750 and Radeon X600Pro, and reveal "the best of the best" among the participants in the Ultra/GT/NonUltra group and the XP/Pro group. The low-end is unlikely to be of interest to anyone, at least at the first stage of launching the i915P/i925X - these are quite strange and cheap cards for system of $1500 price range.
Read more on this topic:
 Intel Pentium4 LGA775 Processors
Abit AA8 : i925X Alderwood
Asus P5AD2 Premium : i925X Alderwood
Gigabyte 8GPNXP-Duo : i915P Grantsdale
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