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ATI Radeon X850 XT PE 256MB PCI-Express
The Card
ATI has remained very consistent with their product packaging. The box for the X850 XT PE very similar to that of the X800 XT we reviewed at the end of last year. Once again you can see a red and black theme with a silver Minotaur wielding his mighty axe. I don't personally have any problems with the strange looking beasts ATI portrays on the front of their packages, but Brian always likes to mention that Ruby would look better on the front of the box. After all, she does have some pretty curvy! polygons. In the box you will find the X850 XT PE, User's Manual, Setup CD, Composite and S-video cables, HDTV out cable, two DVI to VGA adapters, and a power cable connector.    The first thing you're likely to notice when you look at the X850 XT PE is the huge cooler. Your eyes aren't playing tricks on you; it really does have a two-slot cooler. Opinions vary when it comes to the topic of single vs. dual slot coolers on video cards, but I do find it interesting that ATI took this route after the bashing NVIDIA has received in the past. Let's take a closer look. At first glance it seemed as though the massive fan would suck fresh air from outside the case, blow it through the heatsink and disrupt airflow in the case. However, upon closer examination, I found that the fan actually sucks air in from the front edge of the card across the heatsink and exhausts the warm air out the second slot. Of course, I wasn't satisfied with just looking at the cooler, I had to take it off and dismantle it. It initially looked as though the copper heatsink was affixed to the aluminum block (which wouldn't make much sense), but in fact the aluminum block has a hole in it to allow the copper heatsink to make direct contact with the GPU. While I don't love the idea of sacrificing an extra slot for the card's cooler, the fact of the matter is I wouldn't use that slot anyway. I really like that ATI was able to put some more thought into a dual-slot cooling solution. And did I mention that the fan isn't as loud as it looks? I can't even hear it above the rest of my system. Of course, I don't exactly have a case full of Zalman cooling products, with a stock HSF on my Athlon 64 3500+ and the four stock 80mm fans in the WaveMaster running at full speed, but I'm still surprised that the big red fan doesn't sound like a leaf blower.          There is no comparison between the 6800 Ultra's massive heatsink and blower fan and the X850 XT PE's cooler which utilizes a copper heatsink, duct and blower fan in an efficient manner. The 6800 Ultra will tend to create a pocket of warm air underneath the card whereas the X850 XT PE will use your system's natural airflow to its advantage.   The GDDR3 found on the card is generally cool-running memory, and as such ATI hasn't really done much to cool it. The block extends over the memory on the front and a heatspreader covers the memory on the back, but it almost seems like it's doing more to beef up the card's looks than to do any actual cooling.  On the front edge of the card you will notice three connections. The black 6-pin connector is the auxiliary power connector, which you will need the included adapter for unless you have a more recent power supply such as Antec's NeoPower. Next to the power connector is a yellow four-pin connector. This is a composite video-in connection for some systems in Europe that have VIVO integrated into the front panel of the case. This connector is not used in North America, so you won't have to worry about it. There is also a white 4-pin connector behind the auxiliary power connection. From what I have gathered, this is another auxiliary power connector, although I have never seen this connection before the X8xx cards came out.   The ATI Radeon X850 XT PE has a core clock speed of 540MHz and 256MB of GDDR3 clocked at 590MHz (1.18GHz DDR). The RAM chips are labeled as Samsung K4J55323QF-GC16. These chips are rated at 2 nanoseconds and have a theoretical maximum speed of 600MHz (1.2GHz DDR). Unfortunately I wasn't able to get a picture of the memory on this card, as I could barely make out what it said by viewing it at off-angles. These memory chips are a bit faster than the GC20 chips found on all of the X800s we've reviewed so far that had a maximum theoretical speed of 500MHz (1GHz DDR). As usual on high-end cards, I don't expect that I'll be able to overclock the X850 XT PE much since it's already pretty close to the max theoretical speeds.   The outputs on this X850 XT PE are dual DVI and VIVO, but most of the other X850 XT PEs I have seen don't actually have dual DVI. You'll need to pay special attention when you purchase this card to the features list if you want to make sure you get dual DVI.       Technology-wise, ATI left Shader Model 3.0 out of this generation of cards. This is nothing new to those of you who have been following the latest in graphics technology and we can't really expect them to start now (maybe in their next generation of cards).
Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: The Card Page 3: Test Setup Page 4: Benchmarks: Half-Life 2 Page 5: Benchmarks: Doom 3 Page 6: Benchmarks: The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay Page 7: Benchmarks: Need for Speed Underground 2 Page 8: Benchmarks: Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory Page 9: Overclocking & Conclusion 
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Add Comment
3 User Comments 1 - Posted by
PennyManDeux
on May 25, 2005 - 12:32 pm Awesome card. Can't wait to see what the next gen brings though. Of course I won't buy either until I have some more cash but you know... though can’t help but look at the benchies and dream of what might have been...
2 - Posted by
Kurtis
on May 25, 2005 - 12:38 pm it's a great card, but the price is just too steep for me to recommend it, especially when the next generation is right around the corner. i actually put the X800 XL 512MB back in my system for the better HL2 performance. I admit it, I'm a CS: Source junkie... /scratches lips 3 - Posted by
Guest
on June 16, 2005 - 11:40 pm Good Article, I am purchasing a new Dell computer and have used this article to help me make desicions. I appreciate the forecasting and am willing to hold on to my cash for the next gen cards out in the next 4 -6 months.
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