Retail X700 Pro Roundup

by Derek Wilson on December 13, 2004 12:05 AM EST

ABIT

Of the four Radeon X700 Pro cards that we tested, the ABIT card was the only 128MB part that we saw. This gives it a slight price advantage, but it also falls behind a bit in stock performance because of it.

On the up side, this part was the only one to include a heatsink that covered the RAM as well as the core. Other solutions had ramsinks, but since the cooling hardware on the ABIT card has a shroud that directs air across the RAM and GPU, there should be better cooling across the entire range of things that heat up.



The core on this card didn't overclock as well as the other X700 parts. Since there isn't any difference in which cores go on 128MB and 256MB parts, this is either luck of the draw or cooling issue. Because ATI's non-XT lines don't have built-in temperature sensors, we were unable to determine which of these is the culprit here.



X700 Pro vs. 6600 GT HIS
Comments Locked

22 Comments

View All Comments

  • cosmotic - Monday, December 13, 2004 - link

    Your text ad thing turns "Unreal Tournoment" into a link thats the same color as the table header background so it looks like "2004 Performance". Why do some Anand articles use pretty graphs and some use these relitively harder to read tables?
  • MAValpha - Monday, December 13, 2004 - link

    I dunno. I have one of these cards (Retail Built-By-ATI 256MB Radeon X700 Pro), and I didn't even try to push it too far. I set it up to run at XT speeds, and it does it with no problems. Performance at these settings isn't anything to sneeze at either, since it more or less matches my 6800 vanilla (within 5%, off the top of my head). Remember that preliminary benchmarks position the 6800 vanilla almost on par with the 6600GT, also.
    Granted, the two PCs are different, but they are both fairly close to top-of-the-line. One is a Prescott-775 running at 3.8 on i915P, the other is an AXP running 2.4 on NF2 Ultra. While they are understandably different processors, games turn in comparable framerates on both. Everything else is the same in both rigs, right down to the RAM and hard drives.
  • nserra - Monday, December 13, 2004 - link

    "For those out there who are die-hard ATI fans and absolutely need to have an X700 Pro solution, we can recommend that you simply head out and find the cheapest X700 Pro available."

    I do a better one, buy the basic X700, only 25Mhz lower clock and 150Mhz memory, and over clock it. And save 50$.

    One thing must be pointed out, if X700 Pro is worst over 6600GT, "regular" X700 is better over "regular" 6600.

    #9 My point answer your question or doubt?
  • ChineseDemocracyGNR - Monday, December 13, 2004 - link

    What I'd like to see is the $149 non-PRO non-XT X700, which is also non-existant.
  • skunkbuster - Monday, December 13, 2004 - link

    can anyone tell me why ati's open GL drivers continue to suck? when are they ever going to catch up to nvidia in this regard?
  • stelleg151 - Monday, December 13, 2004 - link

    I assume that the ATI cards should be considered identical to the Powercolor cards because of same look?
  • bloc - Monday, December 13, 2004 - link

    Bang for the buck especially in the mid range.

    If ati priced the x700 accordingly and had some cards to sell, I'd consider it. Cripes I'm waiting for the 9800 pro to come down to $150 US to the 6600 GT's $200. I'd then go for the 9800 pro.
  • overclockingoodness - Monday, December 13, 2004 - link

    All I have to say is that NVIDIA's 6600 solutions are to get for mid-range setups.
  • DerekWilson - Monday, December 13, 2004 - link

    The icon should be fixed -- I'm not sure what happened there :-)
  • slurmsmackenzie - Monday, December 13, 2004 - link

    did anyone else stop reading after the head to head with the 6600GT?.... i just assumed everything else was just superfluous details.

Log in

Don't have an account? Sign up now