by Alexey Stepin
09/30/2005 | 12:05 PM
The GeForce 6600 GT model used to be the best graphics card in its class until quite recently. ATI Technologies didn’t offer solutions comparable to it in terms of performance and price. The RADEON X700 PRO with its large amount of graphics memory was slower than the NVIDIA card in nearly every test due to much lower operational frequencies.
It is then no wonder that graphics cards of the GeForce 6600 GT class, affordable and sufficiently fast in a majority of games, enjoyed highest popularity and demand. In a higher product category the RADEON X800 XL was a worthy competitor to the GeForce 6800 GT, but ATI needed a graphics processor and graphics card capable of at least doing no worse than the GeForce 6600 GT or better yet – outperforming it. The better product, RADEON X800, was announced back at the end of 2004, but it was not fortunate in the market due to a number of reasons. That’s why on August 11, the Canadian developer made another try.
The new product was named RADEON X800 GT as if to indicate that it is a direct market opponent to the GeForce 6600 GT. From the technological point of view, the RADEON X800 GT is based on an ordinary 0.13-micron R480 or R423 core with 8 active pixel pipelines and clocked at 475MHz. The amount of graphics memory, clocked at frequencies up to 490 (980) MHz, may vary from 128 to 512MB. The recommended price of the 128MB version is $139 while the 256MB version is priced at $199. The graphics processor communicates with the memory across a 256-bit bus (like in senior RADEON models) which is an advantage over the GeForce 6600 GT with its 128-bit memory interface. The developers at ATI decided to keep the number of vertex processors intact (there are 6 of them in the new RADEON). Combined with the high GPU clock rate, the RADEON X800 GT boasts a higher speed of processing geometrical information than NVIDIA’s solutions of the same class.
To all appearances the new graphics card from ATI has an excellent price/performance ratio, its only visible downside being the lack of support of some new technologies like Shader Model 3.0. This graphics card won’t live a long life on the market, though, since ATI is currently preparing the launch of its new series of GPUs. But the RADEON X800 GT will surely live its term well, strengthening further ATI’s position in the mass solutions sector and presenting an appealing alternative to the potential buyers.
This review is concerned with determining the performance level of the new product as compared with the GeForce 6600 GT, RADEON X700 PRO and the 12-pipelined GeForce 6800.
PowerColor used to ship all its products in similarly designed boxes, but this time the package of the PowerColor X800 GT is quite different from what we’ve got used to see:
The typical “carbon fiber” pattern can still be spotted in the top part of the exterior packaging, but the rest of the surface now displays a colorful picture (a winged female creature that may be classified as a cyber-angel or something) and a brief description of the product. The name of the device is given in a typeface that looks somewhat more in the current fashion than before, in our opinion. A cardboard box with a few compartments is to be found inside the exterior package. The graphics card in an antistatic bag lies in the central compartment. A ProPack packet with CDs is placed nearby. The side compartments contain cables and adapters. The package is the same size as before, so it fits easily into a medium-sized bag, presenting no transportation-related problems before the buyer. The graphics card comes with the following accessories:
This is actually a standard set of accessories for any graphics card from PowerColor, save for entry-level models that come with another game included. They might have included a second DVI-I → D-Sub adapter, though, since the card is equipped with two DVI connectors. Apart from this trifle we have no complaints about the accessories. You don’t get any special gifts with a PowerColor X800 GT (and you shouldn’t have expected them considering the moderate pricing of PowerColor’s products), but you do get everything necessary to use the card.
Like any other RADEON X800 GT with 256MB of memory, the PowerColor X800 GT resembles the RADEON X800 XL because it uses a similar PCB. There are some points of difference but they are insignificant. The only really noticeable discrepancy is that the capacitors and coils in the GPU power circuit at the top left corner of the PCB are placed in a different manner. Of course, there is no additional power circuit with all its elements and power connector – the chip with only 8 enabled pixel pipelines consumes relatively little power in comparison with a full-fledged RADEON X850 XT GPU and the graphics card is quite satisfied with those 75 watts it can receive through the first section of the PCI Express x16 slot.
PowerColor X800 GT (RADEON X800 GT) | RADEON X850 XT/Platinum Edition |
The reverse sides of the cards are also identical except that the PowerColor X800 GT lacks a few power elements in the GPU power circuit as well as a VIVO-supporting Rage Theater chip with its accompanying components. Since the card doesn’t support the video-in/out functionality, its PCB doesn’t have an additional 4-pin connector which is usually attached to a composite video output on the front panel of the system case.
Taking a closer look at the graphics processor you can see that it is an ordinary R480 chip manufactured on 0.13-micron tech process with low-k dielectrics. The chip on our sample of the card was dated the 49-th week of the last year, i.e. the beginning of December.
RADEON X800 GT |
The R480 chip is losing its popularity, but it still makes sense to use this chip as well as the older R423 here because they are generally stable at frequencies about 475-500MHz while the 0.11-micron R430 is not (rare samples of that chip can work at least at 430MHz). The relatively high frequency ensures the RADEON X800 GT’s competitiveness against the GeForce 6600 GT and, perhaps, against the 12-pipelined GeForce 6600. By the way, the placement of the resistors on the die wafer is identical in both RADEONs. It means that the X800 GT had 8 of its pipelines disabled in the graphics card’s BIOS or in the chip registers.
It’s hard say anything new about the cooling system. PowerColor made use of an ordinary aluminum cooler with an axial fan which takes air from inside the system case and drives it through the ribbing section above the GPU die. This is enough to cool an R480 with only half the pipelines active and clocked at a reduced frequency. The blades of the fan are straight and narrow – not an ideal configuration as concerns noise (see the next section of the review). Dark-gray thermal paste, typical for ATI products, is employed as thermal interface between the graphics core and the cooler’s sole. Unfortunately, the memory chips on the face side of the PCB have no contact with the heat-spreader at all. The manufacturer must have decided to economize on elastic heat-conductive pads.
This device uses popular K4J55323QF-GC20 chips of GDDR3 memory from Samsung capable of working at 500 (1000) MHz frequency. The card clocks its memory at a lower frequency, 490 (980) MHz. The graphics processor works at 475MHz as we already mentioned above.
Like any other RADEON X850/X800 series graphics card, the PowerColor X800 GT can control the speed of its fan depending on the temperature of the GPU. But unlike the RADEON X850 XT Platinum Edition, the new card is not loud at the launch of the system – the fan works at a reduced speed right from the start. Its speed depends entirely on the GPU temperature afterwards. Our testbed was assembled in an open case, so we had no problems with its ventilation and the graphics card’s cooler never increased its speed during our tests. The noise from the fan remained in a comfortable range, but the card was not absolutely noiseless. In a badly ventilated closed system case the temperature of the graphics core may reach the limit at which the fan will start to speed up, producing more noise.
We succeeded in overclocking our sample of the PowerColor X800 GT to 560 MHz GPU and 570 (1140) MHz memory frequency. The graphics card was stable at these frequencies and passed all of our tests. This is not untypical for the R480 chip to overclock so well since this graphics processor is used in the RADEON X850 XT and XT Platinum Edition where it is clocked at 520-540MHz by default. We want to warn those users who will attempt to overclock their PowerColor X800 GT. The memory chips on the face side of the PCB do not touch the heat-spreader, so you should think putting thermal pads there or installing a fan to blow at the card from one side.
Nothing was wrong with the image quality the card provided in 2D applications. Like nearly all modern graphics cards, this one produced a sharp picture in all display modes, including 1800x1440@75Hz.
We performed our tests on a testbed configured like follows:
Sticking to our standard testing procedure, we set up the ATI and NVIDIA drivers in the following way:
ATI CATALYST 5.8:
NVIDIA ForceWare 78.01:
We use the games’ integrated benchmarks if possible. If the benchmark can produce the minimal fps rate besides the average one, we put it into the table of results, too. Games without built-in benchmarking tools are tested using the FRAPS utility and the minimal fps rates are also indicated in the diagrams.
We turn on full-screen antialiasing and anisotropic filtering from the game menu if possible. Otherwise we force the necessary mode from the driver. We do not edit the games’ configuration files. We select the highest graphics quality settings in each game, identical for graphics cards from ATI and NVIDIA, but choose the rendering mode depending on the graphics card’s capabilities, i.e. Shader Model 2.0 and 2.0b for graphics cards on ATI’s GPUs and Shader Model 3.0 for products on NVIDIA’s GPUs.
Besides the PowerColor X800 GT, we tested the following graphics cards:
The following games and benchmarks were used in this test session:
First Person 3D Shooters:
Third Person 3D Shooters:
Simulators:
Strategies:
Semi-Synthetic Benchmarks:
Synthetic Benchmarks:
The PowerColor X800 GT proves its worth in the first of our tests, outperforming not only the GeForce 6600 GT but also the GeForce 6800. The 12-pipelined GeForce 6800 could only win the highest resolution here. And the new graphics card from PowerColor looks even more appealing when we enable full-screen antialiasing and anisotropic filtering. Its high-frequency memory and efficient memory controller help the PowerColor card leave its competitors behind, so it is second only to the RADEON X800 XL, a higher-class card from the same series. Overclocking adds 10-12% to the performance of the new RADEON.
The Chronicles of Riddick can use some special features of the GeForce 6/7 architectures, particularly their fast processing of shadows, so the PowerColor X800 GT is only ahead of the RADEON X700 PRO, even at the overclocked frequencies. In the “eye candy” mode the overclocked PowerColor rivals the GeForce 6600 GT, but this is the only thing it can do in this test. This game is one of those cases when a more advanced GPU architecture is preferable to high clock rates and a wide memory bus. And there’ll be more such games in the future.
Doom III favors NVIDIA’s solutions, too, because it is an OpenGL application and also because of the specifics of the game engine. The PowerColor X800 GT can only be compared with the GeForce 6600 GT at the overclocked frequencies and in the “eye candy” mode. In all other cases the PowerColor is the second slowest card, after the RADEON X700 PRO.
The same it true for the d3dm4 map: the PowerColor X800 GT takes the last but one place at its default frequencies and approaches the level of the GeForce 6600 GT at the overclocked frequencies in the “eye candy” mode. Note that the game is only playable in 1024x768 on these cards if you enable full-screen antialiasing and anisotropic filtering.
The PowerColor X800 GT boasts a high pixel shader performance and leaves the RADEON X700 PRO quite far behind in resolutions above 1024x768. The PowerColor is in between the GeForce 6600 GT and GeForce 6800 there. It looks even better in the “eye candy” mode, outperforming the GeForce 6800 in high resolutions and being perfectly unrivalled at the overclocked frequencies.
The conditions of the Research scene are less favourable for the PowerColor X800 GT than those of the Pier map: it is about 13-15% behind the GeForce 6600 GT in the “pure speed” mode. When overclocked, it makes a step up to the level of the GeForce 6800, but not higher. Our turning on full-screen antialiasing allows the PowerColor X800 GT to flaunt its wide, 256-bit memory bus and to beat the GeForce 6800 in 1600x1200 even at the default frequencies.
The PowerColor X800 GT and the GeForce 6800 produce similar frame rates here. The former profits by the high frequencies of its GPU and memory whereas the latter has 12 pixel pipelines and a more advanced architecture. On the other hand, both graphics cards yield barely playable 36-37fps with slumps down to 9-10fps. Well, this game is a real trial even for much more advanced devices. Owners of mainstream graphics cards will probably have to play F.E.A.R. at a reduced level of detail.
The RADEON X800 GT is just a tiny step behind the GeForce 6600 GT in Pariah . The difference is no more than 2-3%. When overclocked, the X800 GT takes the lead again.
The PowerColor X800 GT overtakes the GeForce 6800 in 1280x1024 in the “pure speed” mode and even leaves it behind at the “eye candy” settings. Half-Life 2 being not a very voracious application, the RADEON X800 GT makes 1600x1200 resolution with enabled 4x FSAA playable with comfort.
The PowerColor X800 GT is always faster than the GeForce 6800 in the d3_c17_02 scene and increases the gap in the “eye candy” mode. This must be due to the difference in the number of vertex processors which are under a big load in this test: the PowerColor X800 GT’s six vertex processors clocked at a high frequency ensure an advantage over the GeForce 6800 and the GeForce 6600 GT with their 5 and 3 vertex processors, respectively. Overclocking gives a 10-12% speed bonus to the PowerColor, yet it still cannot reach the level of the RADEON X800 XL.
This shooter values GPU frequency above the rest of a graphics card’s parameters, so the PowerColor X800 GT is roughly as fast as the GeForce 6600 GT up to 1600x1200 resolution of the “eye candy” mode. The memory frequency and the width of the memory bus begin to play a performance-determining role in 1600x1200 with enabled FSAA and aniso-filtering. The PowerColor X800 GT is unrivalled in these two parameters, enjoying a 20% advantage over the GeForce 6800.
The PowerColor X800 GT performs brilliantly in Project: Snowblind , too. It is faster than the GeForce 6800 in the “pure speed” mode and equal to it in the “eye candy” mode. Moreover, the overclocked PowerColor is very close to the 16-pipelined RADEON X800 XL in speed.
Having a slow start in Unreal Tournament 2004 , the PowerColor X800 GT then overtakes the GeForce 6800 in 1600x1200 at the “eye candy” settings. When overclocked, it is not much slower than the RADEON X800 XL, excepting the hardest modes.
Having 6 vertex processors and rather high operational frequencies, the PowerColor X800 GT is somehow slower than the GeForce 6800 on the Metallurgy map, even in the “eye candy” mode. The new RADEON is, however, strong enough to compete with the GeForce 6600 GT in this test.
An abundance of pixel shaders leads to Price of Persia: Warrior Within running faster on graphics cards with many pixel pipelines, preferably working at a high frequency. The PowerColor X800 GT isn’t particularly spectacular here, yet it beats the GeForce 6600 GT across all resolutions. At the overclocked frequencies it is also not much slower than the RADEON X800 XL which clocks its GPU at 400MHz.
The PowerColor X800 GT is roughly equal to the GeForce 6600 GT in the “pure speed” and to the GeForce 6800 in the “eye candy” mode. This time the competitors were under similar conditions since the recent patch (which upgrades the game to version 1.04) brought in Shader Model 2.0 support. It means that all special effects, including HDR, can now be performed not only on GeForce 6/7, but also on RADEON X7/X8 cards.
This rally simulator asks the graphics card for high pixel shader performance and the PowerColor X800 GT has got an answer – in all the modes and resolutions it is second only to the RADEON X800 XL! Comfortable speeds are possible even in 1280x1024 with enabled FSAA and in 1600x1200 at the overclocked frequencies.
The performance of the PowerColor X800 GT is lower than that of the GeForce 6 cards in the “pure speed” mode. With enabled FSAA, however, the PowerColor is gaining on them, overtaking the GeForce 6800 and leaving it behind in the higher resolutions – the fast GDDR3 memory accessed across a 256-bit bus says the final word in this test.
NVIDIA’s graphics cards have no competitors in this test thanks to their better support of the OpenGL API which is used by default in all games from that developer. The PowerColor X800 GT is downright slower than the GeForce 6600 GT here.
Being quite fast up to 1280x1024 resolution in the “pure speed” mode, the PowerColor X800 GT then falls behind the GeForce 6600 GT suddenly, despite its more powerful graphics memory subsystem. This situation aggravates in the “eye candy” mode where the memory load is supposed to be the biggest. The explanation of these results probably lies in some special features of the game engine we know nothing of.
There’s no difference between the PowerColor X800 GT and the RADEON X800 XL at first, but then the latter still comes out on top, having more pixel pipelines. The gap between these two solutions amounts to 20% in 1600x1200 resolution. Well, the PowerColor still remains the fastest in its class until we turn on full-screen antialiasing. In the “eye candy” mode the 16-pipelined RADEON X800 XL and the 12-pipelined GeForce 6800 break away from the other cards. The 8-pipelined RADEON X800 GT makes short work of the GeForce 6600 GT – the gap is as big as 30% in 1600x1200 resolution!
Aquamark3 puts a big load on the graphics memory subsystem, but the GPU frequency and the number of pixel pipelines are still more important in the “pure speed” mode. This time the PowerColor X800 GT is somewhat slower than both GeForces at the default frequencies and equals them in the overclocked mode. After we increase the graphics memory load more by turning on full-screen antialiasing and anisotropic filtering, the PowerColor X800 GT shows its best and outperforms the GeForce 6800 in high resolutions due to its high memory frequency.
The six vertex processors and the high clock rates of the PowerColor X800 GT give this card the second place in this test, after the RADEON X800 XL.
The overall 3DMark03 scores seem correct at first sight: the performance of the PowerColor X800 GT roughly equals that of the GeForce 6600 GT. This is a good result considering that three out of four 3DMark03 tests work better on NVIDIA’s GeForce FX, GeForce 6 and GeForce 7 architectures.
If full-screen antialiasing isn’t used, the PowerColor is slower than the GeForce 6600 GT in the first test. The X800 GT feels better with FSAA enabled – it even outperforms the GeForce 6800 in 1600x1200 then! Overclocking gives a nice speed boost to the new RADEON, too.
The second test is rich in stencil shadows, so NVIDIA’s solutions do generally better here. The PowerColor X800 GT is noticeably slower than the GeForce 6600 GT in both modes at the default frequencies.
Geometry-processing speed is needed in the third test, so the default-clocked PowerColor X800 GT keeps abreast of the GeForce 6600 GT, at least in resolutions above 1024x768.
The new RADEON strikes back in the fourth test in which high geometry-processing speed and fast execution of version 2.0 pixel shaders are both most important. The PowerColor X800 GT enjoys a 10% advantage in both test modes.
3DMark05 has it in a different way, putting the PowerColor X800 GT right after the RADEON X800 XL. Why? This benchmark just uses complex pixel shaders and supports both Shader Model 3.0 and Shader Model 2.0b.
The PowerColor X800 GT outperforms both mainstream-class solutions from NVIDIA in low resolutions. In higher resolutions, however, the three cards have identical speeds. As for the “eye candy” mode, the PowerColor card behaves rather strangely. Instead of showing the advantages of its fast memory subsystem, it falls behind the GeForce 6600 GT! The gap of 3fps seems small, but it amounts to about 20% when the absolute frame rates are about 10-15fps. Unfortunately, we couldn’t continue this comparison since the GeForce 6800 and the GeForce 6600 GT have only 128MB of graphics memory onboard and thus do not support this test in resolutions above 1024x768 with enabled FSAA.
The second test fully employs the graphics cards’ geometry-processing capabilities, and the PowerColor X800 GT rises to the occasion by leaving the GeForce 6800 and the GeForce 6600 GT behind in the “pure speed” mode and doing no worse than them in the “eye candy” mode.
The PowerColor card looks well in the third test, too. It is no slower than the GeForce 6800 in the “pure speed” mode – the high GPU frequency makes up for the availability of only 8 pixel pipelines. At the “eye candy” settings the PowerColor is less active, yet it keeps on the same level with the GeForce 6600 GT.
ATI’s new product, represented by the PowerColor X800 GT graphics card in this review, came up to our expectations. The GeForce 6600 GT has really got a worthy opponent. As you have seen in this review, the RADEON X800 GT can even challenge the GeForce 6800 which has more pixel pipelines, in some cases! As we had anticipated, the new mainstream graphics card shows its best in high resolutions and/or with enabled full-screen antialiasing. It works somewhat worse in OpenGL applications and in games which use GeForce 6/7-oriented special effects like stencil shadows.
As a side effect, the RADEON X700 PRO is fully discredited since the new RADEON surpasses it in every test. The ill-fated X700 PRO will soon probably get finally and completely forgotten. Maybe the RADEON X800 GT will have a short lifecycle, too, but it will be successfully opposing the NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT until ATI’s new-generation mainstream solutions come to the shops. The RADEON X800 GT doesn’t support Shader Model 3.0, but this functional limitation is not a serious drawback since there are few games available (two games, to be precise) that use this rendering mode as yet.
As for the particular version of this graphics card, the PowerColor X800 GT model left us pleased with its quiet operation and excellent overclockability. You can’t find anything exceptional in this product, though. It is in fact a RADEON X850 XT with half the pipelines disabled, working at reduced frequencies and equipped with a simplified cooling system. The accessories aren’t as gorgeous as some other companies, like ASUS and MSI, usually offer. A sturdy mainstream product, the PowerColor X800 GT may become an excellent choice for users who want to have some gaming performance, but do not play such resource-consuming games as Doom 3, The Chronicles of Riddick or Pacific Fighters. Owners of two monitors with DVI interfaces should also appreciate the card’s having two DVI outputs. The card will give an ideal-quality image to both your panels.
The PowerColor X800 GT may also be considered as an overclocking opportunity. We think most samples of this card will reach as high as 500-550MHz GPU and 550 (1100) MHz memory frequencies or even higher. You won’t even have to use any extreme measures like water cooling to reach the mentioned memory clock rate. It is unlikely that the eight disabled pipelines can be turned on again by reflashing the graphics card’s BIOS – they seem to be disabled in the chip’s registers. The PowerColor X800 GT would make a real gift for any overclocker otherwise, yet anyway overclockers can achieve almost the same performance as the 16-pipelined RADEON X800 XL offers by experimenting with this card.
The most conspicuous flaw of the PowerColor X800 GT is the lack of thermal interface between the memory chips on the face side of the PCB and the heat-spreader. Hopefully, the manufacturer will soon correct this single but annoying defect which may lead to overheat if your system case is ventilated poorly.
Highs:
Lows:
