Ruccus
05-04-04, 01:00 AM
A while ago I posted a news article on the GeForce 6800 Ultra, the next generation graphics card from nVidia which took the reigning king from ATi and defeated the 9800XT soundly and thoroughly.
<font size="2">Well today ATi has stepped back up to the plate with their next generation offering, the Radeon X800series, and it looks like both ATi and nVidia are playing for keeps this time around. One thing to be sure is that the customer is the one who will benefit; both companies have just given us some of the largest performance jumps ever seen in their respective high end products.
Here is a collection of reviews:
The Tech Report (http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q2/radeon-x800/index.x?pg=1)
Tom’s Hardware (http://www20.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040504/index.html)
ExtremeTech (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1583627,00.asp)
Hardware Analysis (http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1710/)
AnandTech (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=2044)
[H]ardOCP (http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjEx)
X-Bit Labs (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/r420-2.html)
FiringSquad (http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_radeon_x800/)
And here is a collection of quotes from some of the above articles’ conclusions:
"At present, ATI appears to be slightly ahead of NVIDIA, but its superiority isn’t etched indelibly in silicon the way it was in the last generation of GPUs. The GeForce 6800 is an extremely capable graphics chip, and we don’t know yet how good it may become. Whatever happens, you can see why I said this generation of GPUs presents us with a choice between better and best. These cards are all killer performers, and having seen Far Cry running on them fluidly, I can actually see the logic in parting with four or five hundred bucks in order to own one." -
The Tech Report
"In our opinion, the most impressive thing about this card is how little effort ATi needed to reach the performance we saw here. The power consumption of the X800 XT is about the same as that of its predecessors in 3D applications. Additionally, the cards require only one auxiliary power connector and don’t need an especially potent power supply like the GeForce 6800 Ultra does. Even the cooler has shrunk a bit, reducing the card’s overall weight and ensuring that it would fit even into a mini-ITX case." - Tom’s Hardware
"By looking at the benchmark results it is obvious that ATi and Nvidia are both contenders to the performance crown, however it is hard to declare a winner, on paper the GeForce 6800 Ultra still is the king of the hill. But although the GeForce 6800 Ultra has the best papers in terms of features and raw performance, ATi has a card that is small, draws far less power, generates very little heat, is a single slot solution and packs a mighty punch. At the end of the day both cards are perfectly capable of playing the latest games such as Far Cry and Unreal Tournament 2004 at high resolutions which sufficiently high frame rates. As we already expressed in our first look at Nvidia’s new architecture two weeks ago, the 2nd quarter will be most interesting as we’ll again see ATi and Nvidia butting heads over who’s the reigning king of the hill." - Hardware Analysis
<font size="2">Well today ATi has stepped back up to the plate with their next generation offering, the Radeon X800series, and it looks like both ATi and nVidia are playing for keeps this time around. One thing to be sure is that the customer is the one who will benefit; both companies have just given us some of the largest performance jumps ever seen in their respective high end products.
Here is a collection of reviews:
The Tech Report (http://techreport.com/reviews/2004q2/radeon-x800/index.x?pg=1)
Tom’s Hardware (http://www20.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040504/index.html)
ExtremeTech (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1558,1583627,00.asp)
Hardware Analysis (http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/article/1710/)
AnandTech (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=2044)
[H]ardOCP (http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?art=NjEx)
X-Bit Labs (http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/r420-2.html)
FiringSquad (http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/ati_radeon_x800/)
And here is a collection of quotes from some of the above articles’ conclusions:
"At present, ATI appears to be slightly ahead of NVIDIA, but its superiority isn’t etched indelibly in silicon the way it was in the last generation of GPUs. The GeForce 6800 is an extremely capable graphics chip, and we don’t know yet how good it may become. Whatever happens, you can see why I said this generation of GPUs presents us with a choice between better and best. These cards are all killer performers, and having seen Far Cry running on them fluidly, I can actually see the logic in parting with four or five hundred bucks in order to own one." -
The Tech Report
"In our opinion, the most impressive thing about this card is how little effort ATi needed to reach the performance we saw here. The power consumption of the X800 XT is about the same as that of its predecessors in 3D applications. Additionally, the cards require only one auxiliary power connector and don’t need an especially potent power supply like the GeForce 6800 Ultra does. Even the cooler has shrunk a bit, reducing the card’s overall weight and ensuring that it would fit even into a mini-ITX case." - Tom’s Hardware
"By looking at the benchmark results it is obvious that ATi and Nvidia are both contenders to the performance crown, however it is hard to declare a winner, on paper the GeForce 6800 Ultra still is the king of the hill. But although the GeForce 6800 Ultra has the best papers in terms of features and raw performance, ATi has a card that is small, draws far less power, generates very little heat, is a single slot solution and packs a mighty punch. At the end of the day both cards are perfectly capable of playing the latest games such as Far Cry and Unreal Tournament 2004 at high resolutions which sufficiently high frame rates. As we already expressed in our first look at Nvidia’s new architecture two weeks ago, the 2nd quarter will be most interesting as we’ll again see ATi and Nvidia butting heads over who’s the reigning king of the hill." - Hardware Analysis