ATI's New Radeon X850 and X800 Lines: A Smorgasbord of GPUs
by Anand Lal Shimpi & Derek Wilson on December 1, 2004 9:41 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Final Words
To sum up what we've seen today, ATI is announcing 5 new products, 4 of which are currently viable (the X850 Pro given its current clock speeds/price point just doesn't make sense). There are some very intriguing offers on the table among what's left:
- Radeon X850 XT and X850 XT PE are the extreme gamers cards. They lead in performance and if there's no budget, put this up there with the 6800 Ultra. Of course, ATI says we'll be able to find these on shelves in time to put them in gift boxes for the holiday season, which would tip the scales in ATI's favor, especially if 6800 Ultra cards are still going for extremely high prices and the new X850 XT and XT PE debut at MSRP.
- Radeon X800 XL is an interesting price point. It hits a spot between the current X800 Pro and the 6800 GT. ATI really needs a $400 price point offering, but dropping something between 300 and 400 may help out consumers who don't have the budget for anything more.
- Radeon X800 will take the place of the X700 XT and really negates the need for anything else at a $250 price point. This is a good answer to NVIDIA's 6800 non-ultra product, if they ever make it into the same platform space.
Ideally, we would have liked to see ATI stick with a single slot cooling solution, but if ramping clock speed is important then that's what's got to be done. It is a shame to see ATI lose the single slot advantage they held over NVIDIA, but now both companies are on an equal playing field in that arena.
Of course, as ATI moves to the cooler 110nm solution, they will be able to pull away from the hefty cooling solution. Unfortunately, they're still attracted to the low-k dielectric option TSMC offers on its 130nm process. ATI has seen good success in ramping clock speeds using the 130nm low-k process and they don't want to give that up until they're sure they can surpass that.
In the end we felt that ATI has improved their lineup somewhat, but they have quite possibly done much more to confuse the end user than they did to improve their gaming performance. Looking at the high end X series lineup after today we have the following: X800SE, X800, X800 Pro, X800 XL, X800 XT, X800 XT PE, X850 Pro, X850 XT and X850 XT PE, regardless of how you cut it, that's one confusing lineup. Hopefully we will see most of those cards phased out in the coming weeks/months, but right now we can understand if you're a bit overwhelmed by this seemingly simple launch.
Availability is what will truly determine the success of this product launch - the past year has seen entirely too many attractive GPUs on paper and far too few on store shelves. ATI is claiming that will change here and now and NVIDIA did the same with their 6600GT AGP launch, only time will tell from this point on.
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Araemo - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link
While I'm an ATI fan, I'll fully admit that this refresh was disappointing, unlike the poster above who is 'so tired' of people complaining about the X800 being old technology..I seem to recall that being the same complaint leveled against the Geforce3 series back around the same time the (New) 8500 series came out?
And the Geforce 4 MX..
that is still essentially a Geforce 2?
This is what these companies do. This time around, nVidia wins. Next round... who knows?
segagenesis - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link
I remember when a good SVGA card would have cost $500 or more... prices are all relative. But yeah, it is disappointing that say 2 years ago $400 would have bought you the highest of the highest end and now you would have to spend $500+ to achieve that. Bleech! And why are these companies competing with themselves? (6600GT vs. 6800?)ruxandy - Friday, October 23, 2020 - link
Hehehe... You should see card prices in 2020 :-)))Momental - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link
#50 I can understand what #47 was saying about being "brainwashed". It wasn't too long ago when $350 really woulda gotten you the SuperDuper Ultra MackDog 730Xi 120G viddy card. It's like the price of gas: I can remember when I thought $1.83 per gallon was highway robbery and now, when I see $2.09, I practically run over joggers as I cross the sidewalk to be next in line at the pump. Knowhuddamean? ;)We're all so used to thinking that $350 is a "great" price whereas 3 years ago, we woulda been hard-pressed to spend that much. But, who am I kiddin'? I'd gladly fork over #349.95 plus shipping for a card that allowed me to fly with my hair on fire down some zombie-infested corridor with hellspawns in tow if I knew it'd get me an excellent frame rate! :D
xsilver - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link
also forgot to add -- I just think that its ATI giving more info on their processess while nvidia just say its a kickass card and keep the manufactuiring secrets to themselvesxsilver - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link
I would like to ask why ATI has all this hoopla about using TMSC "low k" process or some other crap -- doesn't Nvidia also use TMSC -- therefore they would both have the same processes availble to them? or is TMSC favouring ATI? If I was nvidia and that was the case -- id be pissed and take my buisness elsewhereAtaStrumf - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link
The whole point of today's launch is the X800 XL. It's a good enough competitor to 6800 GT and that I think is what ATi needed the most. Let's just hope the price is really $350 or less and that we can acctually buy these things soon.And AGP in NOT DEAD! WTF are you talking about man?!? At present ALL AMD market is still 100% pure AGP and not too many people will be switching over to nForce 4 anytime soon, because without SLI there is little point and with SLI it's just too prohibitive due to price (for now) and PSU requirements (forever). 5 molexs just too run a card that's at lest worth running in SLI - not the 6600GT? Mind you I have a VERY good PSU and I don't have 5 spare molexs. Do you?
PCIe won't take off until untill we get a good reason. They wanted to force us by only offering new cards as PCIe, but nVidia screwed them with the bridge chip (6600 GT AGP - ATi only has an old R9800Pro to compete with here) so now they're playing catch up. Looks like they still have some way to go -- january 05. And then before availability picks up, .... man we're looking at spring 05 before ATI gets at lest close to nVidia and then we get R520 with SLI, and a new nVidia lineup ... blah too much of everything. Let's just wait and see. I'm preety happy right now (NF3 250GB,A643200@3400+(220FSB)/R9800Pro), I can wait.
KoolMonkey - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link
ATI it seems wants to bury AGP but will be forced to release new cards in the spec as the market is still hugley AGP at present and won't change in drastic numbers for quite awhile. I have an ATI X800XT PE AGP card and would have liked to have seen Anandtech include this in their comparisons. Why didn't you include ATI's best AGP card vs ATI's best PCI-E card?Avalon - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link
Also, forgot to note the X850XL is a PCI-e only part, so that will also be a determining factor in which card you'll buy. Regardless, if it can overclock like I have a good feeling it can, it will be arguably the best bang for the buck card in ATI's arsenal.Avalon - Thursday, December 2, 2004 - link
Brainwashed? What are you talking about? You just admitted the card was the best price/performance ratio of all the current ATI cards, and then go on to say it's not a great card? I guess that means the 6800GT is not a great card either. I'm tired of people complaining about the ATI cards being "old tech". It's a video card. It performs. What else do you want? It's not a great card because it doesn't support SM3.0? Give me a break. A lot of people could care less about that feature. It's certainly not widespread enough for the average gamer to care. If you want SM3.0, get an Nvidia card. Otherwise, the X800XL is very close to the 6800GT in most benchmarks, and is $50 less, PLUS it's a 110nm chip. Slap a good HSF on the thing and you should have some GREAT headroom, assuming the 110nm process isn't a disaster for ATI, which I doubt it'd be, since they've toyed with it before.