ATI Radeon X800 XL - A $299 6800GT Competitor
by Anand Lal Shimpi on December 15, 2004 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
System Level Power Comparison
While it's far from the best way of measuring the power consumption of just the graphics card, with only a handful of days to play around with the X800 XL, our system level power consumption tests are the best option that we have. The tests work like this: we take our testbed, an Athlon 64 FX-55, and measure the power consumption of the entire testbed (RAM, HDD, motherboard, CPU, video card and power supply) at the electrical outlet. What this tells us is the total power consumed by the system, essentially the amount of power for which you're billed. Since we're keeping all other components the same and only swapping out the video card, the impact on power consumption is almost exclusively due to the video card - we say "almost exclusively" because a faster GPU will make the CPU work harder and thus, consume more power and vice versa. But in the end, it's a fairly good indicator of what GPUs consume more power (and thus produce more heat) relative to one another.Our first test has our test bed idling at the Windows desktop at 1600 x 1200. The system specs are as follows:
| System Configuration | |
| Motherboard: | ASUS nForce4 A8N-SLI Deluxe |
| Processor: | AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 |
| RAM: | 1GB Corsair DDR400 |
| Video Drivers: | NVIDIA ForceWare 67.02 Drivers ATI Beta Catalyst Drivers 8.08-041111a-019256E (no Catalyst version has been assigned to this package yet) |
| Operating System(s): | Windows XP Service Pack 2 with DirectX 9.0c |
All performance tests were run at 1600 x 1200, some benchmarks were also run at 1600 x 1200 with 4X AA and 8X AF enabled.
Cool 'n Quiet is disabled, giving us the following breakdown in system power consumption:
We see that at idle, there's no big improvement to the 0.11-micron process on the X800 XL.
Then we fired up Half Life 2 and ran through our at_prison_05 demo, one of our most stressful GPU tests to see how far we could push power consumption. Here, we see a slight advantage to the X800 XL, but definitely not as dramatic as we would've thought. Given that we're running at a lower core clock, we'd expect the 0.11-micron X800 XL to impact system power consumption more than it did. We would also expect power consumption to decrease as the 0.11-micron process matures and if/when a low-k dielectric is used in conjunction with the smaller transistor feature size.
The X800 XL does consume less power and thus, will run cooler than the 6800GT, which is a plus for ATI. Given that the 6800GT is already a single slot solution, the power/heat advantage isn't one that is entirely noticeable considering that the X800 XL cannot be run fanless.
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DeathByDuke - Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - link
#3 nvidias response is rumoured cancellations of NV48 and NV50(GF7?), its NV40-NV44 refresh. then again noone else has said anything about that other than The Inquirer..... *rolls eyes* nvidia has a knack for surprising though.Avalon - Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - link
An X800 XL for $299 and an X800 for $199...once the cards actually hit the shelves, it appears that ATI will have the mid-range in their grasp. The only thing worth going up against them is gambling on a $250 softmoddable 6800NU (which I had no problem doing, and am quite happy).:P
flexy - Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - link
finally i hear some "official" rant regarding the recent delays/misleadings/paper launches and all that. I totally agree with all you said there. This was a horrible year.But also realize that you as "famous" hardware
reviewers are probably still in the best possible situation - because (even with shortages without an end) the vendors probably beg you to send you their stuff...eg. nForce 4 boards and all the nice things.
Imagine "us", the common people...we can only dream of getting ahold of pre-releases. All "we" have is your pre/reviews because noone sends us the nice stuff to review :)
Phantronius - Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - link
I'll stick with my eVGA 6800GT for awhile, maybe next time ATi.eRAZOR2007 - Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - link
For gods sake stop reviewing (graphics) hardware that is not available like THG does.Houdani - Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - link
Some minor corrections...Page 1, Table: Add the X800 XT to the list, please.
Page 1, Table: Change price of the X800 XL to $299.
Page 1, Table: Change the "memc" for the X800 to 0.700 (instead of 700).
Page 1, last paragraph: Change the "$50" to "$100" to reflect the change in price of the card.
I think all other references to price in the article are correct. I only noticed the two spots on the front page which referred to the original $349 price.
Much obliged. Thanks for the review. Good read.
LoneWolf15 - Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - link
P.S. To #6, I agree that the 6800NU is the price point ATI is truly competeing against, and it costs less than $299 easily, so ATI should think hard on their pricing scheme. Though I've seen perhaps a 50-50 success rate on unlocking them so far, so I wouldn't tout that as a feature. Mine didn't unlock, but I'm okay with that.LoneWolf15 - Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - link
Quote:>Despite all of the issues with availability, about >a week ago, ATI fired us off an email saying that >we should expect a Radeon X800 XL at our doorsteps.
Perhaps you should have sent a note back saying "You should expect a review right around the time this card is available to the public."
Problem with paper launches is, they still get press. Hardware sites still publish reviews of hardware not available to the public because they're afraid someone else will scoop them on it, which perpetuates more paper launches. I'd love to see an alliance of the major hardware sites on the net join together and send a note to ATI and nVidia stating that "If you cannot make a product available in reasonable quantity to consumers, we will not review it".
mongoosesRawesome - Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - link
"If you are looking for an AGP card, your only option at this price point is really the 6800GT. There are cheaper alternatives, but not better performing AGP alternatives at $400 or less."Umm.. how about the 6800NU? I've seen some sold at 200 dollars. Throw on a arctic cooling heatsing for 25-30 bucks, unlock those pipelines - and you've got yourself a 6800GT, minus the extra memory bandwidth and 128 MB of ram. For 200 to 250 dollars less than the GT, I think that is the AGP deal here. At least until ATI comes out with an AGP version of the X800 XL.
davidos - Wednesday, December 15, 2004 - link
Anand, thanks for the great review.... Do you have any knowledge or hints as to when the pci-e 6800gts are going to start showing up in more volume?