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Sapphire's New Generation: Sapphire Hybrid RX800XL /RX800, Sapphire Toxic RX700PRO/RX800PRO AGPAuthor: Anna TimofeevaDate: 17/02/2007
Introduction
On 1 December 2004, an official announcement of some new ATI's products based on R480 and R430 chips aimed at the PCI-E market was held. These solutions are meant to expand the PCI-E sector, thus not only are a competitive alternative to the ever competitor from California but according to ATI even to be a real "killer" for NVIDIA cards of the same price sector of PCI-E solutions. Today, we'll finally face it and find out of ATI succeeded in that "massive assault". For that, we'll be using video cards by Sapphire, a known company, one of ATI's partners, a very popular brand on the Russian market.
ATI X850XT, a top-end flagship model was already covered in detail in ATI Radeon X850XT Platinum Edition, and today we are in for cards more attractive to the user, built on the base of Õ800XL and Õ800 chips, whose prices are not so biting are which promise a really outstanding performance for the money. So, what do these solutions look like? To start with, both are made on the 0.11 mk process technology, offer 256 MB video memory with a 256-bit data transmission bus onboard.  
X800XL uses nominal frequencies 400/1000MHz DDR, 16 pixel pipelines, and 6 vertex units. Quite good specifications for a ">300$" video card. Õ800XL is positioned versus GeForce 6800GT (which in fact is easy to overclock to frequencies offered by the Ultra version), so we'll be also doing their benchmarking. As regards Õ800, the frequencies announced for it are 400/700 MHz DDR, and the number of pixel pipelines/vertex units is 12/6, respectively. On the New Year eve, ATI offered a gift through pushing down the recommended prices for these solutions substantially (250$ for Õ800XL, and 200$ (!) for Õ800), but we are realists and know it very well that the final retail price will strongly differ from the above attractive figures, especially for the first time when there is a sheer shortage for such cards in the retail. As a contender to the card in question, we'll be using the already known PX6800 on the base of NV41 covered in the previous material, whose price is very close to that for Õ800 - near 300$. The driver versions - latest ATI's WHQL Catalyst 5.1 and the latest NVIDIA's 71.50 - hasn't changed since the previous material, so the results produced early this week have been brought over to this review and complemented with data on benchmarking at a number of other applications, as well as X800 overclocking test results.
Devoting this material to cards of Sapphire;s product like, we can't help passing by the Toxic product series whose distinctive feature is the cooling system made by Arctic Cooling and made in an unusual colorful design, ever quiet and efficient. Of the Toxic series, we'll be reviewing cards on the base of ATI RX700 PRO and RX800 PRO with the AGP interface. As a contender to the former, of course the GeForce 6600GT will be used, and on the AGP front Sapphire's solution will be opposed by GeForce 6800GT (AGP).
Sapphire Hybrid Radeon X800XL and Õ800 Video CardsLet's first look at the package bundle which is absolutely the same in both cards:
Like all Sapphire's solutions released lately, these cards are made on blue textolyte. The PCB design is different from that in video cards on the base of R423 in that it lacks a connector for additional power supply. As you see, both solutions use the same PCB - only the different stickers on the cooler and reverse side of the board let one tell these cards apart. What also catches the eye is the quite scanty cooling system. It is made at good enough quality - the copper foot and the heat-spreading radiator fins on the GPU plus neat aluminum radiators on top of memory chips on the reverse side of the board. Note that no radiators to cool the memory chips are not provided on X800. To prevent the fine components on the board from damage, there are three foam-rubber "spacers" on the GPU radiator. The cooling systems are fastened on two spring-loaded screws passing through the board. 
 
The cards offer 256 Mb of GDDR-3 memory with a 256-bit data transmission bus, assembled from eight Samsung BGA chips (marked K4J55323QF-GC20) of 2 ns access time, which is equivalent to 500 MHz (1000 MHz DDR) operating frequency. As we have already mentioned, the nominal memory operating frequency is 492MHz (984MHz DDR), which is fully equivalent to the access time of the installed memory, whereas on Õ800 it is reduced and amounts to 700MHz DDR, which in theory promises good overclocking margin.
Let's look at R430 graphic processors. According to the announced specifications, they are to operate at 400MHz (in our case, 392 MHz in Õ800, 400 MHz in Õ800XL). The chips are equipped with a protective frame and were made on the 51st and 40th weeks of year 2004. Let's look at the marking of the chips - they are both marked like Õ800 PRO (!).  
Sapphire Radeon X700 PRO ToxicThe card comes bundled with the following:
The first what you see is the cooling system made by Arctic Cooling. The advantages of such a cooling system has already been valued by HIS (IceQ). Galaxy, and Sapphire in its turn has complemented this cooling system known for its low noise level during operation, with bright colorful design typical of products of the Toxic series.  
The card offers 128 Mb of GDDR3 memory, with a 128-bit data transmission bus. Integrated circuits by Samsung are made in the BGA form factor offer 2 ns access time. As we have already said, this is equivalent to 500 MHz (1000 MHz DDR) of operating frequency. Memory on this card originally operates at 860MHz DDR. All the four video memory chips are located on the boards's front side. The graphic processor Radeon X700(RV410) runs at the standard 425MHz frequency. 
Note that some other manufacturing companies offer X700 PRO of 128Mb onboard memory marked as Õ700 (LE) whose nominal operating speeds are a bit pushed down relative to Õ700 PRO (soon, we'll tell you about one of such products). But 256Mb solutions are already marked as Õ700 PRO. Of special mention is the possibility of monitoring the fan's rotational speed using Riva Tuner utility. 
Sapphire Radeon X800 PRO Toxic Video CardThe package bundle is quite rich:
The cooling system is of the same design which we saw on the above reviewed X700 PRO Toxic. A turbine-type fan, a plastic housing, a copper plate with heat-spreading fins on the GPU. On the bottom part of the radiator, there is an external radiator. The cooling system takes up two PCI slots and covers the whole front side of the board, on the reverse side there is an aluminum fastening plate which cools four video memory chips at the same time. This plate is also a load-bearing element that prevents the board from bending considering the substantial mass of the cooling system. 
The card is equipped with 256 MB of GDDR3 memory, a 256-bit data transmission bus, eight Samsung memory circuits made in the BGA form factor, of 1.6 ns access time. This is equivalent to 625 MHz (1250 MHz DDR) of operating frequency. Originally, the memory runs at 450 MHz (900 MHz DDR) operating frequency. 
Note that on the Toxic version there is memory which is faster than that normally installed on these cards, which is another proof that the card can be easily turned into a X800XT. But first let's look at the GPU of 475 MHz, 12 pixel pipelines and 6 vertex units. As you see, the path between the contacts which normally happens to be broken on X800 PRO in our case is absolutely intact. Remember that to do a hardware remake of Õ800 PRO into Õ800ÕÒ this path is short-circuited with conductive lacquer. With Õ800 PRO Toxic, such operation is not needed - it suffices to reflash with the BIOS from Õ800ÕÒ.
That the card is in fact a X800XT can be established by the presence of VIVO implemented on the ATI Rage Theater chip. The board is also equipped with a connector for additional power supply.
Final WordsFirst, note the superb design of Sapphire products reviewed today. All the solutions are made at very high quality, and boards of the Toxic series are also equipped with a very efficient and quiet cooling system.
The rich packaged bundle also proved to be a nice bonus, and the boxes themselves are bright, colorful and attractive to look, worth the products. But boxes are not yet all, and even their numbers don't matter, so let's move on to the most essential part - the performance totals. Sapphire Hybrid RX800XL 
Despite some loss at DOOM3, the card on the whole performed quite well - both in Half-Life2 and Far Cry. We are not dwelling at the synthetics, just brought in the results for information only. As to the price, the recommended figure for this board is about 370$. Of course, novelties are still in acute shortage in the retail, and at first the price may (and will) be overstated. But remember that the competitive solution - PCI-E GeForce 6800GT announced much earlier is unfortunately too difficult to make available The recommended price for 6800GT is also around 450-500$, so the difference is one of the main trumps of Õ800XL. Also, Õ800XL unlike GeForce 6800GT does not require plugging in additional power, so it is possible to indirectly compare the difference in heat emission (Õ800XL is made on the 0.11 mk process technology, offers reduced heat emission, unlike 6800GT). At the overclocking capabilities, our card specimen easily overclocked to 450/1140 MHz, which is quite a good result. What is left for now is to saturate the market, so we again hope there won't be problems at that. For now, we reward the Sapphire RX800 XL with our "Editor's choice" medal.
 Sapphire Hybrid RX800
 Since the recommended price for this product is about 300$, its comparison with GeForce 6600GT makes absolutely no sense - indeed, a 6600GT can be bought anywhere at around $200. So the major comparison we'll be doing is one versus the solution based on NV41 - GeForce 6800 of the PCI-E interface, because both these products offer very close recommended price. The situation with availability of both solutions on sale is absolutely similar to that described above - we only have to wait and hope that the prices won't be too overstated. As regards the performance, Õ800 shows absolutely comfortable FPS in most applications tested up to 1600õ1200 inclusive (and up to 1280õ1024 in the demanding quality modes). The exception is DOOM3 where 4õÀÀ/8õAF gives decent FPS only at 1024õ768, and at that GeForce 6800 is a better performer. The issue of most interest now is the possibility of turning X800 into X800XL, for example through reflashing the BIOS. In fact, the PCB, the chip are the same, with the only difference is that one offers 16 pixel pipelines, the other - 12 (provided that both offer 256 MB). Unfortunately, we were unable to experiment with both these boards, but we'll certainly verify the assumption in practice soon. The board also showed good overclocking capability of the graphic processor - 490MHz, but we must admit we expected much more than the attained 820MHz DDR from the memory (for its 2 ns access time). Now on to "toxic" boards. Sapphire Radeon X700 PRO Toxic  This solution is most interesting for its cooling system, because the aspects of performance for cards on the base of the RX700 (PRO) and comparison versus GeForce 6600GT have been explored well enough. Apart form the above bonuses of the package bundle and design, the board made us happy with its complete lack of noise during operation. The recommended price for this product is about 250$, which is similar to many solutions on the base of GeForce 6600GT chip. As is evident from the benchmarking results, the latter appears to be a more attractive buy even despite the smaller number of vertex units (six in X700 PRO, and merely three in 6600GT). On the other hand, 6600GT offers an advantage for frequencies - 500/1000 versus 425/860. But that is only if Õ700 PRO runs at its default frequencies. With ÀÐÅ which allows setting 475/1000 MHz (Sapphire announces these frequencies as default for Toxic X700 PRO) the difference at operating frequencies (as compared to 6600GT) appears far not so significant.
In 6600GT, the bottleneck is the modes with the ÀÀ enabled - at that Õ700 PRO takes a sure lead, which is especially seen after increasing the used resolution, e.g. in Far Cry. By the way, note the absolutely unexpected FPS jump in Õ700 PRO at HL2 under 1024õ768 in the mode of raw performance. That is not a bug - we ran the demo several times, and the picture did not change. Sapphire Radeon X800 PRO Toxic  The latter board by Sapphire appears to be of higher demand to date(!) than other above solutions, because the percentage of owners of AGP systems is currently much higher than that for PCI-E systems. Along with the cooling system, the board proved outstanding with its overclocking capabilities and the possibility of remaking into Õ800ÕÒ at a much higher probability than most solutions based on Õ800 PRO by other manufacturers. Coming back to the overclocking, we say that the card was running at 540(!) MHz of the core speed, which is even higher a result than the standard GPU speed in Õ800ÕÒ ÐÅ! Also, note that like with Toxic X700 PRO this card offers the "official overclocking" available through the ÀÐÅ utility which allows raising the video memory frequency automatically to 1040MHz DDR. Sapphire guarantees a trouble-free operation of the card at this frequency.
All this allows rewarding Sapphire Radeon X800 PRO Toxic with the "Overclocker's choice" prize
 Currently, the card is available in the retail at 470$ and higher. The advantage of the competitor solution - GeForce 6800GT AGP - is the originally operative 16 pixel pipelines and 6 vertex units, as well as the possibility to overclock to the speeds of GeForce 6800Ultra. The price for both cards is currently about the same. In the upshot:Sapphire again has proved the high quality of its produce in the sector of graphic accelerators. We are looking forward to seeing solutions on the base of Õ800XL and Õ800, as well as Õ700 PRO Toxic in our retail shops. We assume the emergence of such powerful products will provoke some rise of popularity for PCI-E solutions among the consumers.
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