|
|
Radeon X800 Pro Card Roundup
[Abstract]
ATI's Breadwinner Of The High-EndSlightly more than a half a year after its launch, the ATI RADEON X800 XT Platinum Edition is still the highest performing product on the AGP front. Supporting ...
[Content] PCDigitalMobileGame
Conclusion
Based on our findings, we rate the graphics cards under several subcategories to better paint the picture of how these cards fared in various aspects of our testing. Please note that each category carries different weightage and do not necessarily total up for the final rating of the product. Pricing information reflected in the table below may not reflect the absolute price of a product, but most are suggested retail prices that are accurate at the point of writing.
The RADEON X800 PRO Graphics Adapter Report Card
| | ABIT RX800 PRO | Connect3D RADEON X800 PRO | GeCube GC-X800 PRO256-VIVO | Gigabyte GV-R80 P256V | HIS Excalibur X800Pro IceQ II VIVO | PowerColor RADEON X800 PRO | Sapphire RADEON X800 PRO VIVO | | Performance | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | | Overclocking | 3.5 | 4.5 | 4 | 4.5 | 5 | 3 | 5 | | Features | 3.5 | 3.5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 3.5 | 4 | | Image Quality | 3.5 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4.5 | 4 | 4.5 | 4.5 | | Temperature | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 5 | 3 | 3.5 | | Noise | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | | Software Bundle | 2.5 | 2 | 3.5 | 5 | 3.5 | 5 | 4.5 | | Cables/Accessories | 5 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | | SG Pricing (est.) | S$635 | S$734 | S$799 | S$845 | N.A. | S$749 | S$779 | | US Pricing (est.) | US$399 | US$395 | US$460 | US$479 | US$399 | US$422 | US$430 | The rating for each aspect is equivalent to our familiar star rating system.
Here's a little description for some of the subcategories for better clarification:-
Features: This is rated based on the features of the graphics cards such as video capturing, hardware monitoring or other exclusive highlights. HIS scored full marks here for its IceQ II cooler.
Image Quality: This was judged based on the display output on our test CRT monitor (Philips Brilliance 202P4). Attributes such as text clarity, sharpness and color vividness were some of the aspects we use to judge the output quality.
Software Bundle: Rated in accordance to our evaluation of relevance, quality, quantity, version, inclusion of games and quality/quantity of game selection. Connect3D had nothing bundled besides the drivers CD, hence it obtained a low score in this segment.
Studying the report card above, selecting a graphics card that best meets your criteria is an easy affair. If you fancy a product that looks like none others in the shootout, has an incredible cooling capability and is totally quiet at the same time, the HIS Excalibur X800Pro IceQ II VIVO comes highly recommended. In fact, its cooling and exhaust system is powerful enough to make a positive impact to your overall system cooling.
For the best overclocking capability in terms of raw clock speed increment, we award both the HIS Excalibur X800Pro IceQ II VIVO and the Sapphire RADEON X800 PRO VIVO our Most Overclockable Product award. With the huge cooling system on the HIS card, overclocking is second to nature. Sapphire on the other hand, still relied on the reference cooler unit and yet it obtained equally impressive overclocking figures. Connect3D deserves a mention here as well with high VPU clock, but was held back by its slower memory parts.
For Value hunters, two products stood out at the forefront for their attractive price points and great features. They were the GeCube GC-X800PRO256-VIVO and the HIS Excalibur X800Pro IceQ II VIVO, both of which we conferred our Most Value For Money Product award. We found GeCube to be quite a good all-rounder plus the least expensive 16-pipeline enabled product, while HIS with its SRP of US$399 is undeniably a tempting option with many positive attributes going for it. However, it wasn't able to steal the show due to a few niggling issues. As highlighted earlier, they pertain to its display output quality and the fact that it hogs multiple expansion slots. ABIT's X800 PRO could have been a lucrative candidate for the MVFM award if not for its sub-par display output that plagued it at high resolutions.
Gathering our experience with each card in this shootout and considering the outcome of all the categories in which the cards were judged, our Winner Of The ATI RADEON X800 PRO Shootout goes to the Gigabyte GV-R80P256V graphics card. Though it is the most dearly priced card of the roundup, it had excellent out of the box performance thanks to it VPU having 16 active rendering pipelines, furnished with one of the best software/game/accessory packs and we had no qualms of its display output capabilities either. Thanks to the card's custom cooler design, it also excelled in the overclocking department to a certain extent. That combined with its unlocked graphics core, it is now the highest performing AGP graphics card of www.hardwarezone.com®, surpassing the stock performance of an ATI RADEON X800 XT Platinum Edition, which is the industry's current fastest AGP card.
|
|
|
ATI's Development RADEON X850 Graphics Cards to Acquire 512MB of GDDR3 (2005-02-24)