X1800 XT looks like a beast

[GT98]

I have to agree that ATI has been royally shooting themselfs in the foot since the launch of the X800XT. I'm not in the market for a new video card anytime soon, unless I win the lottery or get a much better paying job

[schmosef]

It seems that lately, ATI has been taking a page from the Matrox playbook in terms of announcing products that are months or even years away from actually being available.

I have suppliers that are still waiting for their first shipments of ATI X800 kit.

Given their terrible support for the MAXX dual graphics tech, I'd be really sceptical about buying their Crossfire stuff.

That said, I'm glad that there seems to be continued healthy competition in the graphics industry. Prices will go down and features will go up. I have a 9800 AGP card that suits me just fine right now but I know that I'll be able to upgrade to something better for not too much money in next year or two.

[Admiral]

There were rummors about the intel 955 supporting crossfire, what happened there ?
From what I would say the problem with crossfire, beside having the video cards on the market, is also having the motherboard chipsets supporting them. While nVidia has a large market share on the AMD side and ATI chipsets are not so popular, the breakthrough could come with Intel. Intel chipsets supporting crossfire (i955), or crossfire and SLI both (i975 ?).

[GT98]

There were rummors about the intel 955 supporting crossfire, what happened there ?
From what I would say the problem with crossfire, beside having the video cards on the market, is also having the motherboard chipsets supporting them. While nVidia has a large market share on the AMD side and ATI chipsets are not so popular, the breakthrough could come with Intel. Intel chipsets supporting crossfire (i955), or crossfire and SLI both (i975 ?).

From what I've read the ATI chipset for Crossfire is pretty nice.

The one big complant about Crossfire tech is that is locked at 60hz at 16x12, which really isnt an issue with LCD displays

[GT98]

Wow checking out the the reviews of the X1000 family and can you say underwelming?

[Helevitia]

I'd have to agree with you GT. I'll stick with my X800 XT PE for another year.

Also, Anand is saying the Nvidia's de-interlacing is far superior than ATI's.

[DGhost]

from what I can tell, the largest improvements in performance come from the increase in memory bandwidth available to it. some of HardOCP's Doom3 numbers reflect that pretty well.

another point - did you notice the power consumption figures that TechReport mentioned? holy crap.

[Marshmallowman]

Looing at the review on anandtech makes me glad I just bought a 7800gt .
Up to 6 months ago I was buying/recomending only ATI cards...things have changed

7800gt and Day of Defeat:Source looks DAMN fine for an ATI game on NV hardware

[SitFlyer]

Has anybody seen ATI's new current warranty period. Any cards purchased after AUGUST 31, 2005.

ATI warrants to the original purchaser of the hardware product, that the product is free from defects in materials or workmanship under normal use and service for a period of one (1) year from the date of purchase at retail. If this product is a Workstation product such as ATI’s FireGL™ or FireMV™ family of products, ATI warrants to the original purchaser of the hardware product, that the Workstation product is free from defects in materials or workmanship under normal use and service for a period of three (3) years from the date of purchase at retail. All cables and accessories provided with an ATI product are warranted to be free from defects in materials or workmanship under normal use and service for a period of for (90) ninety days from date of purchase at retail

Link

[DGhost]

I don't have time to read the reviews yet, but judging from the benchmarks reviewers posted, looks like ATI made a truly wrothy continuation of the Radeon 9700. The R400 series should have been what the GeForce 6 has accomplished.

According to nvnews...

- Radeon X1800 XT vs. TBA (see note below)
- Radeon X1800 XL vs. GeForce 7800 GTX
- Radeon X1800 Pro vs. GeForce 7800 GTX
- Radeon X1800 LE vs. GeForce 7800 GT

Its pretty obvious that nv has something up their sleeves. But As of now, the XT >> GTX hands down in terms of raw performance. Its also interesting to note that they are all 16 pipes parts,while the GTX is 24 pipes. Looks like the clockspeed did paid off. But again. Power consumption. Now crossfire them. (especially idle!)

The more interesting product, imo, is the x1600xt. Its FAAASST. Clocked high though. After looking at Tech Report's graphs, I am a bit concerned about the noise level. If they can improve on that, then the x1600 would be perfect!

I'm not too sure how you get the XT being faster than the GTX in terms of raw performance. every benchmark I have seen only shows it taking a small lead when you are running at high resolutions with antialiasing enabled. which is also a situation where they are naturally inclined to win just because of the fact that they have a theoretical 10GB/sec more memory bandwidth. in fact, most benchmarks that have AA disabled show the GTX beating the XT pretty soundly.

as far as the X1600XT... the comparable NV part (the 6800) pretty much spanks it while producing less heat and noise.

personally it looks like they are having problems with the 90nm parts. i would put money on the fact that the X1800XT cards will not ship in any major quantity. besides, ATI will "refresh" their product line within a year to release a WGF 2.0/DirectX 10 capable part. i'm guessing they will use it as an opportunity to "fix" several of the issues that exist in it. thing 5800->5900 series. or possibly, the 5900->6800 series.

[Helevitia]

Interesting new "tweak" being released for all X1k cards that will increase performance by 35% in all OpenGL games. Yes, it says Doom3, but looking over at Beyond3D shows that the tests work on all OpenGL games.

http://elitebastards.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12215&sid=1d6a14a029cebbfae265a0be1cb7de4c

[GT98]

If the price for a X1800XL drops to the $350 range I might be tempted to pick up one.

[Tjalfe]

If the price for a X1800XL drops to the $350 range I might be tempted to pick up one.

Surely it will.. and even cheaper, if you wait long enough