X850 Series Reviews & Discussion

Fodder · 2nd December 2004, 4:03 PM

All discussion of the new Radeon X850 line in here thanks guys.

Reviews:
AnandTech
Beyond3D
HardOCP
TechReport

My thoughts:

While it does seem to just be more of the same, ATI have at least stated that this refresh is more about availability than performance. Going by the power consumption figures though, it seems this comes at a cost, and ATI may have to forgo their "cool and quick" reputation as the X850XTPE appears to be sucking significantly more juice than the 6800U.

Personally I'm far more interested in how R430 turns out, and if NVIDIA are working on a 110nm high-end refresh.

fxr91 · 2nd December 2004, 5:03 PM

At least now we know that the fan on the thing is in fact pushing the air out of the case, not as some other people were speculating in drawing in from the PCI slot.

One thing i like the sound of (pun not intended) is that the fan, in a case with good airflow, should be fairly quiet even in overclocking and gaming. Apparently only goes to full speed on POST which proves to be loud, but I still doubt that would be as noisy as the FX5800 system

From a fps standpoint, there is no real need to upgrade from the existing X800XT, unless you are getting the latest and greatest to replace a 9200SE or need the latest and greatest card

Hopefully it does indeed mean better availability of the cards, because the X800XT's are paltry in numbers available.

Nong23 · 2nd December 2004, 8:17 PM

Hey guys,

The X800XL appears to be the pick of the bunch pricewise, decent competition for the 6800GT it seems, 16 pipes 400/1000 clocks. 350US should roughly equal to 700 on Australian shores, but no agp!. That's a real bummer, Nvidia still has the edge there with the 6800nu and 6800GT, and the 6700 (I assume there will be an AGP version?) on the horizon. Its a 0.11 part though so overclocking should be interesting.

If only there was a nice 6-7 hundred dollar AGP 16 pipe, 256mb card from ATI would the 6800GT have competition. As Fodder was saying the top end parts also come at a price of cooling noise and power usage.

Unless PEG16 becomes rather dominant in the next few months I feel it'll be a bit tough for ATI in the next few months, even if these new cards are much more widely available than their predecessors. It adds a lot more glut to the lineup at a price too. A bit confusing methinks!

Cheers,

Nong23

oldiedaman · 2nd December 2004, 9:57 PM

will this be likely to bring the X800 prices down?

Hom3br3w · 2nd December 2004, 10:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by oldiedaman

will this be likely to bring the X800 prices down?

Knowing ATI's efforts previously this will have little or no effect.

The only thing that it might effect is improve availiability and indirectly reduce prices on the ultra high end cards.

Hom3br3w · 2nd December 2004, 10:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nong23

Hey guys,

The X800XL appears to be the pick of the bunch pricewise, decent competition for the 6800GT it seems, 16 pipes 400/1000 clocks. 350US should roughly equal to 700 on Australian shores, but no agp!. That's a real bummer, Nvidia still has the edge there with the 6800nu and 6800GT, and the 6700 (I assume there will be an AGP version?) on the horizon. Its a 0.11 part though so overclocking should be interesting.

ATI realised that they got it wrong. having the grapgics interface controller, AGP or PCI-E on die was too hard to manage. Instead of the two or three usual High end parts ATI had to deal with 5 or 6 high end parts and showed everyone that they could not deiliver. Imo they bit of far more than they could chew.

Ati have dug themselves into a hole on this one and only through the mas adoption of PCI-E will it be rectified

fxr91 · 3rd December 2004, 1:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hom3br3w

ATI realised that they got it wrong. having the grapgics interface controller, AGP or PCI-E on die was too hard to manage. Instead of the two or three usual High end parts ATI had to deal with 5 or 6 high end parts and showed everyone that they could not deiliver.

ATI didn't choose to put the chipset onto PCI-E or AGP cards on the X800 series, the manufacturers did. There was no magical redesign of the X800 to allow for the PCI-E architecture, that was simply a case of the manufacturers deciding to put the X800 chipset onto PCI-E capable PCB's to allow the Intel people to have a card to go with the 9xx chipset

Even the current X850 is not a "native" PCI-E part. Put it onto an AGP PCB and you would see SFA difference in performance, as you already see with the X800 chipset. The fact that this chipset is PCI-E only has absolutely nothing to do with performance, it is all about sales, as NF4 is coming out soon

In other words, the card is simply aimed at the high-end enthusiast market, because they are the people who will be picking up NF4 chipset based boards and without a readily available ATI based PCI-E card, which manufacturer do you think would get all the accolades

Fodder · 3rd December 2004, 8:03 AM

R420 is AGP native. RV410, R423, R430 and R480 are PCIE native. AGP X800s use R420, PCIE X800s use R423 (and now R430). No ifs, no buts, no maybes.

fxr91 · 3rd December 2004, 1:33 PM

Hm ok, so I was a little wrong

But even so, isn't it just a bridge chip used to go from AGP to PCI-E?

caz67 · 3rd December 2004, 1:47 PM

This card, is nothing outstanding..Ill wait for the R500 core..

wastegate · 3rd December 2004, 1:50 PM

Which will be speced early next year, 6months to get engineering cards out, another 6 months to get it into production, then 6 months later you might get a card if you are lucky to be on a waiting list.

All I want to know is if I can fit this cooler to my X800 XT PE...

Fodder · 3rd December 2004, 2:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fxr91

But even so, isn't it just a bridge chip used to go from AGP to PCI-E?

NVIDIA were sending round a few slides that supposedly 'proved' ATI's PCIE parts were using an 'internal bridge', but as far as I know that's a load of bollocks.

fxr91 · 3rd December 2004, 3:07 PM

Ah ok, thanks for the confirmation

BTW, how do you know it is indeed a load of bollocks?

Fodder · 3rd December 2004, 3:12 PM

From talking to people who know an awful lot more than I do about chip design.

Hom3br3w · 4th December 2004, 1:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fodder

NVIDIA were sending round a few slides that supposedly 'proved' ATI's PCIE parts were using an 'internal bridge', but as far as I know that's a load of bollocks.

your point being?

Nvidia only require 3 dies for their range of cards,
a 6800 a 6600 and a 6200

These are of coures clocked differently to give different models. Whit the HSI chip Nvidia can double the number of cards that it can sell by modifying the PCB design.

Fodder has named 8 different dies that ATI has to manafacture - develop aceptable performance levels think XT PE

Imo 3 cores would be far easier to manage than 8+

Imo ATI should have bothered with PS3.0 and not have bothered with useless things like PCI-E nativity - hell they barely utilise AGP4X why would 8x the bandwith improve anything?

2nd December 2004, 4:03 PM	#1
Fodder (Banned or Deleted) Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Sunny Melbourne Posts: 10,662	X850 Series Reviews & Discussion All discussion of the new Radeon X850 line in here thanks guys. Reviews: AnandTech Beyond3D HardOCP TechReport My thoughts: While it does seem to just be more of the same, ATI have at least stated that this refresh is more about availability than performance. Going by the power consumption figures though, it seems this comes at a cost, and ATI may have to forgo their "cool and quick" reputation as the X850XTPE appears to be sucking significantly more juice than the 6800U. Personally I'm far more interested in how R430 turns out, and if NVIDIA are working on a 110nm high-end refresh. Last edited by Fodder; 2nd December 2004 at 4:33 PM.

2nd December 2004, 8:17 PM	#3
Nong23 Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Melbourne Posts: 269	Hey guys, The X800XL appears to be the pick of the bunch pricewise, decent competition for the 6800GT it seems, 16 pipes 400/1000 clocks. 350US should roughly equal to 700 on Australian shores, but no agp!. That's a real bummer, Nvidia still has the edge there with the 6800nu and 6800GT, and the 6700 (I assume there will be an AGP version?) on the horizon. Its a 0.11 part though so overclocking should be interesting. If only there was a nice 6-7 hundred dollar AGP 16 pipe, 256mb card from ATI would the 6800GT have competition. As Fodder was saying the top end parts also come at a price of cooling noise and power usage. Unless PEG16 becomes rather dominant in the next few months I feel it'll be a bit tough for ATI in the next few months, even if these new cards are much more widely available than their predecessors. It adds a lot more glut to the lineup at a price too. A bit confusing methinks! Cheers, Nong23 Last edited by Nong23; 2nd December 2004 at 8:21 PM.

3rd December 2004, 8:03 AM	#8
Fodder (Banned or Deleted) Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Sunny Melbourne Posts: 10,662	R420 is AGP native. RV410, R423, R430 and R480 are PCIE native. AGP X800s use R420, PCIE X800s use R423 (and now R430). No ifs, no buts, no maybes. Last edited by Fodder; 3rd December 2004 at 8:05 AM.

3rd December 2004, 1:33 PM	#9
fxr91 Member Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Brisbane, QLD Posts: 7,548	Hm ok, so I was a little wrong But even so, isn't it just a bridge chip used to go from AGP to PCI-E? Last edited by fxr91; 3rd December 2004 at 1:36 PM.

3rd December 2004, 1:47 PM	#10
caz67 Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Adelaide Posts: 831	This card, is nothing outstanding..Ill wait for the R500 core.. __________________ i7 3930K \| Corsair H100 \| Rampage 4 Formula \|16GB Vengeance \| Inno3D 680 TRI - SLI \| Intel 520 180 GB \| 2x WD Black 4TB RAID 0 \| Asus Essence STX \| Corsair 800D \| Silverstone Strider 1500 \| Dell U3011 \| Swan M50's

2nd December 2004, 5:03 PM	#2
fxr91 Member Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Brisbane, QLD Posts: 7,548	At least now we know that the fan on the thing is in fact pushing the air out of the case, not as some other people were speculating in drawing in from the PCI slot. One thing i like the sound of (pun not intended) is that the fan, in a case with good airflow, should be fairly quiet even in overclocking and gaming. Apparently only goes to full speed on POST which proves to be loud, but I still doubt that would be as noisy as the FX5800 system From a fps standpoint, there is no real need to upgrade from the existing X800XT, unless you are getting the latest and greatest to replace a 9200SE or need the latest and greatest card Hopefully it does indeed mean better availability of the cards, because the X800XT's are paltry in numbers available.

2nd December 2004, 9:57 PM	#4
oldiedaman Member Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Lake Maquarie, NSW Posts: 380	will this be likely to bring the X800 prices down?

3rd December 2004, 1:50 PM	#11
wastegate Member Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: North Shore Posts: 99	Which will be speced early next year, 6months to get engineering cards out, another 6 months to get it into production, then 6 months later you might get a card if you are lucky to be on a waiting list. All I want to know is if I can fit this cooler to my X800 XT PE...

3rd December 2004, 3:07 PM	#13
fxr91 Member Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: Brisbane, QLD Posts: 7,548	Ah ok, thanks for the confirmation BTW, how do you know it is indeed a load of bollocks?

3rd December 2004, 3:12 PM	#14
Fodder (Banned or Deleted) Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: Sunny Melbourne Posts: 10,662	From talking to people who know an awful lot more than I do about chip design.