ATI Radeon X800 Pro 256 MB

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Brian Kristensen
Kurtis
ATI
Sep. 8, 2004

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Introduction

Since the release of the Radeon 9x00 cards, ATI has had a very nice spot at the top of the graphics chain. From the 9600 Pro to the 9800 XT, NVIDIA couldn't seem to overcome the performance of ATI's lineup. Both companies added small upgrades and performance tweaks to their cards, hoping to take the edge away from the other. In the end, ATI was still on top.

A new generation of graphics cards has hit the market, once again pushing the limits in speed and power. NVIDIA was the first to market their latest cards, the GeForce 6800, 6800 GT and 6800 Ultra. Soon after, ATI released their new high-end cards, the Radeon X800 Pro and X800 XT Platinum Edition. After ATI's awesome performance with the last generation of cards, consumers could only dream about what was to come. On the other side of the table, NVIDIA was planning a major come-back, hoping to regain their place at the top.

Today we will be taking a look at the Radeon X800 Pro from ATI. The only differences between the X800 Pro and the X800 XT are the clock speeds and pipelines. The X800 Pro has 12 pixel pipelines and operates at 475 MHz core and 450 MHz (900 MHz DDR) memory speeds while the X800 XT has 16 pixel pipelines and operates at 520 MHz core and 560 MHz (1120 GHz DDR) memory speeds. While the 12 pipelines and lower clock speeds may place it second to the X800 XT Platinum Edition, there is still plenty in the way of power and price that proves this is no main-stream card.

This time around, NVIDIA looks to be providing some tough competition. We will be comparing the X800 Pro to NVIDIA's GeForce 6800 GT. The cards will be competing head-on through several graphically intensive games such as Doom 3, Far Cry and even the Half-Life 2 Source engine benchmark. How will the X800 Pro perform when placed side by side with the 6800 GT? Has ATI managed to stay the performance king, or will they have to bow down to NVIDIA this time around? There are a couple ways of finding out, but since you're already here, why not read on?

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: The Card
Page 3: The Card (cont.) / The Bundle
Page 4: Test Setup
Page 5: Benchmarks: Doom 3
Page 6: Benchmarks: Half-Life 2
Page 7: Benchmarks: Far Cry
Page 8: Benchmarks: Need for Speed Underground
Page 9: Benchmarks: Splinter Cell
Page 10: Benchmarks: Call of Duty
Page 11: Image Quality
Page 12: Overclocking
Page 13: Conclusion

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4 User Comments

1 - Posted by Rich on September 9, 2004 - 8:45 am

I am curious why you chose not to install SP2 for the testing. Any idea if there is a performance difference between SP1a and SP2 for XP?

2 - Posted by Brian on September 9, 2004 - 11:16 am

Testing of the cards began prior to the release of SP2. After the upcoming review of the XFX 6800 GT, the test system will have SP2 installed.

3 - Posted by Rich on September 10, 2004 - 8:42 am

Makes sense, I would be a bit interested to find out if there are any performance differences between SP1a and SP2.

4 - Posted by Brian on September 10, 2004 - 8:49 am

http://www.hardcoreware.net/reviews/review-237-1.h...

SP1 and SP2 seem to constantly switch places in different performance tests. Overall SP2 is slightly faster but definitely not noticeable unless you are comparing bench #s.

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