Radeon X800XL 512Mb Roundup
PowerColor RX800XL 512Mb
Package bundle:
- PowerColor RX800XL 512Mb video card;
- DVI/ D-Sub 15-pin adapter;
- VIVO splitters;
- Adapter for additional power supply;
- User's manual;
- Drivers and utilities CD;
- Game Hitman Contracts on 2 CDs.
It is nice to see there is not merely another replica of the reference cooling system on each of the boards in question but also the ideas and developments of each company. At that, we were pleased by PowerColor who fitted their own cooling system on the RX800XL 512Mb. A similar cooling system can be met on the earlier PowerColor RX700XT models. This concept is often used by Gigabyte as well (e.g., a version with a very similar cooling system which we reviewed in this material).
This board offers an even more interesting version of the cooling system. It uses two aluminum radiators interconnected with two heat pipes.
Among the interesting distinctive features is the fan installed at the radiator on the reverse side of the board. Future owners will also be pleased by the blue LED backlight. Since the fan should be positioned on the reverse of the board, the backlight will be distinctly seen if the card is fitted inside the housing in its normal way.
The manufacturer used the "jewel steel" for GPU as the thermal interface and thermal spacers for the video memory chips. There are also protective spacers on top of the radiators, which is used to prevent the board from damage upon contacting the radiator.
The card is equipped with 512 Mb of GDDR3 video memory with a 256-bit data transmission bus of the BGA form factor, in the form of 16 Samsung memory chips of 1.6 ns access time. This is equivalent to 625 MHz (1250 MHz DDR) of operating frequency. The effective memory frequency is 990MHz DDR. Assuming that this card uses memory faster than that on analogs, we can expect a good overclocking. We's verify during the tests whether that is true or not.
The memory chips are positioned in eight along each side of the PCB.
Let's look at the R430 graphic processor (here the chip is marked simply as X800PRO). The GPU operating frequency is 400 MHz as per the specifications. The chips uses 16 pixel pipelines, and 6 vertex units.
PowerColor RX800XL, like above reviewed boards supports VIVO features implemented on the ATI Rage Theater chip.
It is equipped with a connector for additional power supply,
and with two digital outputs.
Now on to the benchmarking.
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