ATI Radeon X800 Pro and XT Platinum Edition: R420 Arrives
by Derek Wilson on May 4, 2004 10:28 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
NVIDIA's Last Minute Effort
On the verge of ATI's R420 GPU launch, NVIDIA brought out a new card called the GeForce 6850 Ultra. This new card is to be sold as an OEM overclocked part (ala the "Golden Sample" and other such beasts), and will be able to run at 450MHz+ core and 1.1GHz+ memory clock speeds. It is very clear to us getting this board out here right now was a bit of a rush for NVIDIA, and it would seem that they didn't expect to see the kind of performance ATI's X800 series can deliver. We were unable to get drivers installed and running on our 6850 Ultra card until about two hours ago, but we will be following this article up with an update to the data as soon as we are able to benchmark the card. The 6850 Ultra looks exactly the same as the 6800 Ultra (it really is the same card with an overclock), so we'll forego the pictures.
The other part NVIDIA is launching today is their $399 price point card, the GeForce 6800 GT. This card won't be shipping for a while (mid June), and NVIDIA cites the fact that they didn't want to announce the card too far ahead of availability as the reason for the timing of this announcement.
The 6800 GT is a 16x1 architecture card that runs at 350MHz core and 1GHz memory clocks. As we can see from the beautiful picture, NVIDIA is bringing out a single slot card with one molex power connector based on NV40. Even if its not the fastest thing we'll see today, it is still good news. We will definitely be trying our hand at a little overclocking in the future. Power requirements are much less than the 6800 Ultra part, with something like a 300W PSU being perfectly fine to run this card.
Along with this new card release, NVIDIA have pushed out new beta drivers (61.11), of which we are still evaluating the image quality. We haven't seen any filtering differences, but we currently exploring some shader based image quality tests.
The Test
The key factor in the ongoing battle is DirectX 9 performance. We will be taking the hardest look at games that exploit PS 2.0, but that's not all people play (and there aren't very many on the market yet), we have included some past favorites as well.
Our test system is:
FIC K8T800 Motherboard
AMD Athlon 64 3400+
1GB OCZ PC3400 RAM
Segate 120GB PATA HDD
510W PC Power & Cooling PSU
The drivers we used in testing are:
NVIDIA Beta ForceWare 60.72
NVIDIA Beta ForceWare 61.11
ATI CATALYST BETA (version unknown)
ATI CATALYST 4.4
We didn't observe any performance difference when moving to the Beta CATAYLST from 4.4 on 9800 XT, so we chose to forgo retesting everything on the new drivers. Also, the 61.11 driver does show a slight increase in performance on NVIDIA cards, so we retested previously benchmarked hardware with the 61.11 drivers. Old numbers will be left in the benchmarks for completeness sake.
As mentioned earlier, we will be updating our tests later today with number collected from the GeForce 6850 Ultra (and we'll throw in a few other surprises as well).
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
95 Comments
View All Comments
raks1024 - Monday, January 24, 2005 - link
free ati x800: http://www.pctech4free.com/default.aspx?ref=46670Ritalinkid - Monday, June 28, 2004 - link
After reading almost all of the video cards reviews posted on anandtech I start to get the feeling the anandtech has a grudge against nvidia. The reviews seem to put nvidia down no matter what area they excel in. With leading openGL support, ps3.0 support, and the 6850 shadowing the x800 in directX, its seems like nvidia should not be counted out as the "best card."I would love to see a review that tested all the features that both cards offered especially if showed the games that would benefit the most from each cards features (if they are available). Maybe then could I decide which is better, or which could benefit me more.
BlackShrike - Saturday, May 8, 2004 - link
Hey if anyone is gonna be buying one of these new cards, would anyone want to sell their 9700 pro or 9800 por/Xt for like 100-150 bucks? If you do contact me at POT989@hotmail.com. Thanks.DonB - Saturday, May 8, 2004 - link
No TV tuner on this card either? Will there be an "All-In-Wonder" version soon that will include it?xin - Friday, May 7, 2004 - link
(my bad, I didn't notice that I was on the first page of the posts, and replied to a message there heh)Well, since everyone else is throwing their preferences out there... I guess I will too. My last 3 cards have been ATI cards (9700Pro & 9500Pro, and an 8500 "Pro"), and I have not been let down. Right at this moment I lean towards the x800XT.
However, I am not concerned about power since I am running a TruePower550, and I will be interested in seeing what happens with all of this between now and the next 4-6 weeks when these cards actually come to market... and I will make my decision then on which card to buy.
xin - Friday, May 7, 2004 - link
Besides that, even if it were true (which it isn't), there is a world of difference between have *some* level of support, and requiring it. (*some* meaning the intial application of PS3.0 technology to games, that will likely be as sloppy as your first time in the back of a car with your first girlfriend).
Game makers will not require PS3.0 support for a long long long time... because it would alienate the vast majority of the people out there, or at least for the time being any person who doesn't have a NV40 card.
Some games may implement it and look slightly better, or even still look the same only run faster while looking the same.... but I would put money down that by the time PS3.0 usage in games comes anywhere close to mainstream, both mfg's will have their new, latest and greatest cards out, probably a 2 generations or more past these cards.
xin - Friday, May 7, 2004 - link
first of all... "alot of the upcoming topgames will support PS3.0!" ??? They will? Which ones exactly?
Z80 - Friday, May 7, 2004 - link
Good review. Pretty much tells me that I can select either Nvidia or ATI with confidence that I'm getting alot of "bang for my buck". However, my buck bang for video cards rarely exceeds $150 so I'm waiting for the new low to mid range cards before making a purchase.xin - Friday, May 7, 2004 - link
I love how a handful of stores out there feel the need to rip people off by charing $500+ for the x800PRO cards, since the XT isn't available yet.
Anyway, something interesting I noticed today:
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?p...
http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?p...
Notice the "expected ship date"... at least they have their pricing right.
a2y - Friday, May 7, 2004 - link
Trog, I Also agree, the thing is.. its true i do not have complete knowledge of deep details of video cards.. u see my current video card is now 1 year old (Geforce4 mx440) which is terrible for gaming (50fps and less) and some games actually do not support it (like deusEX 2). I wanted a card that would be future proof, every consumer would go thinking this way, I do not spend everything i earned, but to me and some others $400-$500 is O.K. If it means its going to last a bit longer.I especially worry about the technology used more than the other specs of the cards, more technologies mean future games are going to support it. I DO NOT know what i'v just said actually means, but I fealt it during the past few years and have been affected by it right now (like the deus ex 2 problem!) it just doesn't support it, and my card performs TERRIBLY in all games
now my system is relatively slow for hardcore gaming:
P4 2.4GHz - 512MB RDRAM PC800 - 533MHz FSB - 512KB L2 Cache - 128MB Geforce4 mx440 card.
I wanted a big jump in performance especially in gaming so thats why i wanted the best card currently available.