FiringSquad posted their REAL review.
FS notes that the X800XT will get OverDrive but the X800PRO will not. (The PRO seems to OC better too.)
Here's their conclusion:
Just when we thought NVIDIA?s GeForce 6800 Ultra was the new king of the hill, ATI comes back and reclaims the performance crown in many popular benchmarks, including next generation titles such as Far Cry.
This news must have come as a stunning surprise to NVIDIA, who have quickly whipped up an overclocked GeForce 6800 Ultra part to try and keep up, but even NVIDIA?s overclocked 6800 Ultra Extreme part falls short of ATI?s impressive clock frequencies. If you recall previous architectures, it was NVIDIA that was breaking new ground in clock speeds. But thanks to X800?s 160 million transistor, 0.13-micron process with low-k, ATI is able to scale to higher clock speeds than NVIDIA can with GeForce 6800 without consuming large amounts of power or generating a lot of heat.
Basically, we continue to be impressed by ATI?s engineering team. They were able to push TSMC?s 0.15-micron process to new levels with RADEON 9700 PRO and its follow-up parts, RADEON 9800 PRO and RADEON 9800 XT. Now they?re doing the same with 0.13-micron.
ATI?s 3Dc compression technology could be a huge trump card for the X800 series provided its implemented by more game developers. The performance and quality benefits are dramatic and can be easily implemented. ATI has one killer app onboard, Half-Life 2, now they?re working on confirming more developers. Eventually ATI would like to get 3Dc (or some variant of it) integrated into a future variant of DirectX. Considering that two of the three engineers (Rick Bergman and Raja Koduri) who originally developed S3TC hold senior positions within ATI, they?ve certainly got the experience to make this happen.
For added flexibility, ATI has added a new temporal AA mode to their repertoire. Temporal AA isn?t the perfect solution, it will require sustained high frame rates for the best image quality, but it?s nice to see ATI add another AA option for its users to play with. After all, if you don?t like it, you can always turn it off.
We?re also impressed by ATI?s driver quality. While NVIDIA?s ForceWare 61 driver is riddled with bugs, we found our experience with ATI?s beta driver for the X800 series to be a much more pleasurable experience. For instance, the ForceWare control panel wasn?t always up to snuff, even as frames would occasionally pause for three seconds or more in IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles regardless of the GeForce card used. Right now, we?d have to give the driver quality edge to ATI, despite the fact that their current CATALYST driver doesn?t provide all of the features currently found in ForceWare 50, much less NVIDIA?s upcoming 60 release (although we?ve been told that ATI?s CATALYST team has quite a few goodies in the works for ATI card owners). We?d take stability over features any day of the week in a display driver and this is exactly what ATI is delivering at this moment.
ATI will also beat NVIDIA to market with X800. The X800 PRO has begun shipping to retailers as of today, while the high-end X800 XT Platinum Edition will be shipping on May 21st. The X800 PRO occupies the same $400 price point as the GeForce 6800 GT while the $500 X800 XT Platinum Edition will duke it out with NVIDIA?s GeForce 6800 Ultra. As of right now, we?d take the X800 XT Platinum Edition over NVIDIA?s GeForce 6800 Ultra if we were in the market for a graphics upgrade.
It?s a close call at the $400 price point though. The X800 PRO has its fair share of positives, while the GeForce 6800 GT is no slouch either. We?ll have to wait for retail GeForce 6800 GT boards before a definitive answer can be determined. But based on our performance results and overclocking, ATI?s X800 PRO definitely won?t disappoint if you?re looking to upgrade.
Now, that's what I call a 1-2-3 punch!
FS notes that the X800XT will get OverDrive but the X800PRO will not. (The PRO seems to OC better too.)
Here's their conclusion:
Just when we thought NVIDIA?s GeForce 6800 Ultra was the new king of the hill, ATI comes back and reclaims the performance crown in many popular benchmarks, including next generation titles such as Far Cry.
This news must have come as a stunning surprise to NVIDIA, who have quickly whipped up an overclocked GeForce 6800 Ultra part to try and keep up, but even NVIDIA?s overclocked 6800 Ultra Extreme part falls short of ATI?s impressive clock frequencies. If you recall previous architectures, it was NVIDIA that was breaking new ground in clock speeds. But thanks to X800?s 160 million transistor, 0.13-micron process with low-k, ATI is able to scale to higher clock speeds than NVIDIA can with GeForce 6800 without consuming large amounts of power or generating a lot of heat.
Basically, we continue to be impressed by ATI?s engineering team. They were able to push TSMC?s 0.15-micron process to new levels with RADEON 9700 PRO and its follow-up parts, RADEON 9800 PRO and RADEON 9800 XT. Now they?re doing the same with 0.13-micron.
ATI?s 3Dc compression technology could be a huge trump card for the X800 series provided its implemented by more game developers. The performance and quality benefits are dramatic and can be easily implemented. ATI has one killer app onboard, Half-Life 2, now they?re working on confirming more developers. Eventually ATI would like to get 3Dc (or some variant of it) integrated into a future variant of DirectX. Considering that two of the three engineers (Rick Bergman and Raja Koduri) who originally developed S3TC hold senior positions within ATI, they?ve certainly got the experience to make this happen.
For added flexibility, ATI has added a new temporal AA mode to their repertoire. Temporal AA isn?t the perfect solution, it will require sustained high frame rates for the best image quality, but it?s nice to see ATI add another AA option for its users to play with. After all, if you don?t like it, you can always turn it off.
We?re also impressed by ATI?s driver quality. While NVIDIA?s ForceWare 61 driver is riddled with bugs, we found our experience with ATI?s beta driver for the X800 series to be a much more pleasurable experience. For instance, the ForceWare control panel wasn?t always up to snuff, even as frames would occasionally pause for three seconds or more in IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles regardless of the GeForce card used. Right now, we?d have to give the driver quality edge to ATI, despite the fact that their current CATALYST driver doesn?t provide all of the features currently found in ForceWare 50, much less NVIDIA?s upcoming 60 release (although we?ve been told that ATI?s CATALYST team has quite a few goodies in the works for ATI card owners). We?d take stability over features any day of the week in a display driver and this is exactly what ATI is delivering at this moment.
ATI will also beat NVIDIA to market with X800. The X800 PRO has begun shipping to retailers as of today, while the high-end X800 XT Platinum Edition will be shipping on May 21st. The X800 PRO occupies the same $400 price point as the GeForce 6800 GT while the $500 X800 XT Platinum Edition will duke it out with NVIDIA?s GeForce 6800 Ultra. As of right now, we?d take the X800 XT Platinum Edition over NVIDIA?s GeForce 6800 Ultra if we were in the market for a graphics upgrade.
It?s a close call at the $400 price point though. The X800 PRO has its fair share of positives, while the GeForce 6800 GT is no slouch either. We?ll have to wait for retail GeForce 6800 GT boards before a definitive answer can be determined. But based on our performance results and overclocking, ATI?s X800 PRO definitely won?t disappoint if you?re looking to upgrade.
Now, that's what I call a 1-2-3 punch!