PowerColor X800GT
Performance analysis and conclusions
At last, after a long period saddened by events not very successful for the Canadian company, there has happened what will turn the worshippers of ATI into delight because they have been looking forward to seeing successful solutions from their favorite company, which especially applies to CrossFire Edition video cards and the repeatedly delayed announcement of R520. Indeed, they have every reason to be pleased - the novelty fully justifies its purpose because at many tests X800GT 256Mb proves faster that GeForce 6600GT and even GeForce 6800LE which currently costs much higher. However, the advantage is not so great to talk about the total leadership in this sector. X800GT can be called a very successful competitive solution was is able to shatter the difficult to reach positions of GeForce 6600GT in this sector.
We could have safely ascertained an absolute leadership but only if we were able to unlock the pixel pipelines. Perhaps there will be found a way to do that, but for now we'll be heading for the current state of affairs.
If we distract from the worshippers and their joy and think soberly - the result was expectable enough already after the announcement of the official specifications.
It was clear that the 256-bit bus will let X800GT advantage in high resolutions and with the AA enabled, which is a traditional bottleneck in GeForce 6600GT.
From that viewpoint, it would be interesting to test the 128 Mb modification of X800GT as well in order to keep track of the effect of memory capacity on the final result and count the efficiency from buying this or that modification of the card as compared to GeForce 6800GT and 6800LE. Besides, do not forget that NVIDIA responded to the release of RX800GT with an official announcement of price reduction for GeForce 6800 - to $199. Proceeding from this fact, we can forecast further march of events. It is quite probable that the price for GeForce 6600GT will go down a bit further in view of the event.
MSRP for the 128Mb version is $139, therefore it will cost even cheaper than GeForce 6600GT whose current price is $150 onwards.
As regards the technological and functional traits, the plus of GeForce 6600GT is support for SM 3.0, HDR, and of course the NVIDIA SLI. As regards the projected support for ATI by X800GT, nothing is still certain.
Now we move on to the issue that is of concern to most users who have read this material. We are talking about the probability of releasing the AGP versions of X800GT. Presumably, such products will anyway appear, because it would be strange to ignore the so popular sector and give it in to the power of GeForce 6600GT AGP equipped with the HSI bridge. By the way, it is not mandatory at all that AGP cards will support AGP with the RIALTO bridge. According to some evidence, a release of cards on the base of chips offering native support for AGP is highly probable. Most likely, R481 chips will go into that, with half the pixel pipelines disabled. But for now, we can't assert this fact for sure.
As regards the PowerColor's batch-produced card reviewed today, the solution left only positive impressions. The cooling system stands out with a low enough noise level, and the package bundle for this mainstream card is worthy enough. The overclocking capability is worth of a special mention - we were able to overclock it from the standard 475/980MHz to 560/1120MHz!
The only thing which may sadden the idyll is the price. If it doesn't exceed the recommended, the solution is definitely in for success. If it is higher than $159 (and thus higher than GeForce 6600GT), the choice in such situation will be less evident. Of course, for the first time after announcement we can't do anything about the extra charge like about the release of more powerful (and expensive) modifications to the board, but the sooner the market gets saturate, the earlier the prices go down, which is to the better only.
As regards the comparison of X800GT and RX700 PRO (whose current price is "$150 onwards"), all is absolutely evident in here. The latter has only one option - to reduce the price and thus move to the cheaper sector. Otherwise, its purchase will not make any sense.
Summary
PowerColor X800GT is a very successful product that is on par with GeForce 6600GT and showed good overclocking capability. Unfortunately, we were unable to activate the pixel pipelines through the BIOS update, but id the price is not much higher than the recommended $160, then even without that the card will be a success in its sector. Therefore, we can recommend X800GT 256Mb, namely the PowerColor's board tested by us in this material, for purchase.
 |
Top Stories: |
 |
 |
|
MoBo:
| |
|
|
VGA Card:
|
|
|
|
CPU & Memory:
|
|
