Market for 512MB Graphics Cards

On May 4, 2005 ATI Technologies officially announced a new RADEON X800 XL graphics card model equipped with 512MB of GDDR3 memory. We managed to get hold of a sample of this card for a detailed testing session.

But let’s get to benchmark results later in this article and in the meanwhile we will try to answer a question that is very likely to be of interest to all of you: why RADEON X800 XL? Why did ATI double the amount of onboard graphics memory by this particular solution and not by the faster RADEON X850 XT/XT Platinum Edition? At first glance this seems to be a pretty strange decision to make: extra graphics memory will hardly ensure any significant performance improvement in contemporary games, while in the upcoming games the performance potential of RADEON X800 XL may turn out insufficient, so the extra graphics memory will not help.

The answer to this question is quite simple: the recommended price for the ATI RADEON X800 XL 512MB is $449 in the US and 449Euro+tax in Europe. You also probably remember that the regular RADEON X800 XL is selling for about $299. So, you can actually imagine how much a RADEON X850 XT/XT Platinum Edition with 512MB of memory could cost. By simply adding a few numbers we will get a sky-high sum of $549 + the price of additional 256MB of memory. In fact, the actual price of a solution like that could be even higher than that: RADEON X850 XT/XT Platinum Edition uses more expensive GDDR3 chips with 1.6ns access time, while RADEON X800 XL is equipped with wider spread microchips featuring 2.0ns access time.

So, ATI’s decision looks quite smart and justified from this point of view: it is much easier to find customers willing to buy a $450 card. By the way, NVIDIA sticks to a completely different strategy: they are going to supply the partners with a 512MB GeForce 6800 Ultra working at higher clock frequencies. It is still hard to say how much it is going to cost, but it will undoubtedly get over the $599 bar.

In fact, the potential customers are very excited about the 512MB graphics accelerator models and retail stores also express their vital interest in them already. We should keep in mind that there will always be a certain percentage of customers willing to buy “big numbers”, i.e. willing to get a graphics card with 512MB of onboard memory at any rate. So, it means the demand for solutions like that is there, and they will definitely find their niche.

Now let’s meet one of the cards like that: ATI RADEON X800 XL 512MB.