Conclusion

Conclusion
ATI once again managed to strike back very sufficiently towards NVIDIA's Series 6 of GPU. Both cards have their advantages and disadvantages. Shader Model 2 is slightly faster on the x800 series, not in extreme amounts though. When we look at overall performance the GeForce 6800 was a tad faster here and there but really... so marginal. ATI definitely still has an advantage performance wise when it has enabled AA and AF. Then we have the Shader support issue. ATI opted not to go for Shader model 3 where NVIDIA did. ATI can shout all it wants that model 3 is not important but their next generation card will have Shader model 3, period. I like to see their point of view when that happens. Opinions can change so quickly in this industry. You are as good as your latest high-end product.

As stated in the review already, there will be an update with full trilinear results later, I simply ran out of time. I need to look at a registry hack and if that actually is a valid mode to test. ATI does not offer true trilinear filtering as NVIDIA does in their drivers. All cards thus 6800/x800 pro/x800 xt in the review have their optimized trilinear codepath enabled (default settings). Very comparable as both companies pretty much optimize the same thing, yet with a different approach.

Temporal AA, a really great feature yet it has a few disadvantages that make me believe we will not notice/see that technology in the future in a significant proportion. 3Dc, sounds fantastic though. Any new integrated technology I always highly support. We are in the innovation game, always follow that trend !

What did worry me is the high temperature both the Pro and XT have. I placed a sensor at the backside of the card and in high load I noticed 69 Degrees C, there have been reports of people seeing 80 Degrees C,  when I put my finger on the back of the GPU I almost burned it.

Radeon x800 Pro thermal probing.

That temperature was measured on the outside of the GPU, meaning that core is really hot. The PC case was open btw. If you get an x800 with reference cooling then you better be sure that your PC is cooled sufficiently as all that heat will warm up the ambient temperature of your PC's inside and cascade the effect by warming up other components. ATI claims that the temperature is not an issue for the GPU. It worries me though.

ATI's engineer Eric Demers, recently commented on this issue:

"At over 100C or so at the die temperature, thermal issues and possibilities of permanent damage start being important (I would strive to keep it below 100C). Certainly by 125C, permanent damage will occur. Below, that, life expectancy is shortened with higher temperature, but you should be fine for a few years.

We test our boards up to 55C ambient temperature, and at that temperature, all of them work fine. Most computers have much lower ambient temperature, and the associated die temperature should be fine, except if there is a fan failure."

Trust me, it might not be a problem for the graphics cards but if my ambient temperature rises extremely due to a graphics' card then I'd be worried alright. Perhaps ATI needs to start thinking about a cooling design that vents heat outside the PC. The company HiS is daring enough and already changing it's cooling with their IceQ II technology (review here), it'll vent heat outside the PC.

Right shat being said I must state that I'm really impressed with what ATI managed to produce here, very impressive performance and outstanding image quality are keywords here, yet again still based on 2 year old technology. Nothing much has changed besides performance and additionally temporal AA and 3Dc. I somehow have the feeling that ATI has not yet released what it needs to release, and that's something under codename R480 or r5xx.

So performance wise ... wow... really impressive series. The performance bump that we see in this new generation has to be one of the most spectacular that we've seen in a long time. Even the x800 Pro manages to flat out beat the Radeon 9800 XT with a pricetag that is interesting for everybody. The XT on the other hand might be a bit to expensive just like the 6800 Ultra. Right now I've seen prices at 499 USD. Hopefully that price will come down quickly.

When to buy these products? So you bought a Radeon 9800 Pro or XT ? Don't upgrade just yet. They honestly are fantastic cards that will have more then enough horsepower to last another year at the least. When you are planning an upgrade from the mid-end segment let's say Radeon 9600 Pro/XT and you have some money to spare, by all means run to the shop as the difference in performance will be very noticeable. Please do bare in mind that you need a rather powerful rig to get the most out of these cards, especially the x800 XT. In our case with a Pentium 4 2.8 GHz -1 GB Memory the Radeon x800 Pro was performing optimally and the XT was actually CPU limited in quite a few games. This week AMD is supplying us with an Athlon 64 3800+ and we'll run additional tests with the x800 XT to see how much difference there actually is.

One more thing the x800 XT we tested was labeled 'Platinum Edition' at this point in time it is not quite certain that a 'normal' XT version will become available or if the final product in retail will differ from the PE samples the press received. Keep an eye on clock and memory speeds.

Last line and then I'll honestly shut up, both cards are simply downright fantastic to play today's games with. Yet to get the best bang out of your bucks I recommend the x800 Pro over the x800 XT, however match the right card towards your system as the XT might be overkill.

To be continued ...

The cheapest on-line price for the x800 Pro 
The cheapest on-line price for the x800 XT Platinum Edition 

Update - We posted additional benchmarks on done on an Athlon 64 3800+ system with the Radeon x800 Pro, XT, GeForce GT and Ultra. http://www.guru3d.com/article/article/136/