Performance:
XL > Pro

Price:
Pro > XL

Makes sense, right?




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X850 Pro will probably have more value to the enthusiast crowd as I presume it might have some form of overdrive and will scale better in terms of overclocking.

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Die Size:
Pro > XL

Now it does.

It will be interesting to see nVidia's response.

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indeed, we can but hope for £300 GT's to show up.

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Anand, thanks for the great review.... Do you have any knowledge or hints as to when the pci-e 6800gts are going to start showing up in more volume?

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"If you are looking for an AGP card, your only option at this price point is really the 6800GT. There are cheaper alternatives, but not better performing AGP alternatives at $400 or less."

Umm.. how about the 6800NU? I've seen some sold at 200 dollars. Throw on a arctic cooling heatsing for 25-30 bucks, unlock those pipelines - and you've got yourself a 6800GT, minus the extra memory bandwidth and 128 MB of ram. For 200 to 250 dollars less than the GT, I think that is the AGP deal here. At least until ATI comes out with an AGP version of the X800 XL.

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Quote:

>Despite all of the issues with availability, about >a week ago, ATI fired us off an email saying that >we should expect a Radeon X800 XL at our doorsteps.

Perhaps you should have sent a note back saying "You should expect a review right around the time this card is available to the public."

Problem with paper launches is, they still get press. Hardware sites still publish reviews of hardware not available to the public because they're afraid someone else will scoop them on it, which perpetuates more paper launches. I'd love to see an alliance of the major hardware sites on the net join together and send a note to ATI and nVidia stating that "If you cannot make a product available in reasonable quantity to consumers, we will not review it".

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P.S. To #6, I agree that the 6800NU is the price point ATI is truly competeing against, and it costs less than $299 easily, so ATI should think hard on their pricing scheme. Though I've seen perhaps a 50-50 success rate on unlocking them so far, so I wouldn't tout that as a feature. Mine didn't unlock, but I'm okay with that.

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Some minor corrections...

Page 1, Table: Add the X800 XT to the list, please.

Page 1, Table: Change price of the X800 XL to $299.

Page 1, Table: Change the "memc" for the X800 to 0.700 (instead of 700).

Page 1, last paragraph: Change the "$50" to "$100" to reflect the change in price of the card.

I think all other references to price in the article are correct. I only noticed the two spots on the front page which referred to the original $349 price.

Much obliged. Thanks for the review. Good read.

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For gods sake stop reviewing (graphics) hardware that is not available like THG does.

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