ATI Radeon X800 XT Mac Edition: Competition in the Mac Market
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 5, 2005 7:38 PM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Final Words
Without Doom 3 it’s tough to give a full gaming performance evaluation of the X800 XT, especially as it compares to the GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL. If the Mac port of Doom 3 is anything like the PC version, then we’d expect the 6800 Ultra DDL to be the GPU of choice for it, and unlike the PC front – there is no Half Life 2 to balance things out.
The X800 XT remains quite strong and competitive in Halo, our only shader enabled GPU test here, and offers much higher performance than the 6800 Ultra with anti-aliasing enabled. In older games, the X800 XT and the 6800 Ultra are both fast enough to be CPU bound by even a 2GHz G5, so the performance there is basically a toss up.
We are a bit disappointed by the X800 XT’s lower UI performance than the 6800 Ultra DDL, which is an issue but one that we hope ATI can address through future driver updates.
The biggest advantage ATI offers here is in the size of the X800 XT vs. the 6800 Ultra. Occupying only a single slot, the X800 XT doesn’t touch any of the limited 3 PCI-X slots on the G5, whereas the 6800 Ultra prevents you from using one of them. The two cards produce about an equal amount of noise outside of the G5 tower, but both are noticeably louder than the fanless 9600 XT.
At the $499 price point, the X800 XT Mac Edition is a better buy than the $599 6800 Ultra DDL, and while we didn’t compare to the $499 6800GT, we’d expect the X800 XT to be a better overall performer considering the two cards have equal memory bandwidth while the X800 XT has a 36% higher peak fill rate.
However, if you are interested in running two 30” Cinema Displays then you are out of luck with the X800 XT. Our recommendation right now is if you’re looking to run two 30” displays then the 6800 family is the way to go, otherwise the X800 XT is just as good of an option. Once Doom 3 arrives for the Mac however things could change, as we’ve seen on the PC side, Doom 3 has been a very strong seller of NVIDIA GPUs since its release.
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Eric5h5 - Thursday, January 6, 2005 - link
Yes, Halo does have FSAA, enabled either as an option at startup, or--more importantly--by using the ATI Override control panel. This is a big advantage over nVidia, at least on the Mac, since you can use various types and amounts of FSAA (and some other options like vsync and 16x AF) with any game, regardless of whether that option was originally programmed in or not. Very useful for older games, still often good for newer ones (especially since you can fiddle with options on the fly, while the game's running, as long as the game allows switching to the OS). All options don't necessarily work with all games, but usually they do.(The FSAA in Halo occasionally resulted in large slow-downs, but either the OS X 10.3.7 or the Halo 1.5 updates fixed that, at least on my 9600XT.)
Oh, and the human eye can see rather a lot more than 30 fps; let's not get into that again....
mlittl3 - Thursday, January 6, 2005 - link
#22, Lol!Cindy, you are such a love/hate sort of person. Just when I think you are a diehard Mac fan, you knock them down a little. I loved your comments on the last Mac article.
Anyway, I just wanted to ask one question. Are you reviewing graphics cards that are only available for purchase separately? Apple has been bundling the G5's with 9600xt's and 9800xt's for awhile now and I was wondering why they weren't included.
Also, the frame rates look a little low for these games compared to PCs. I'm sure this is because these games are heavily optimized for PC architecture instead of other's so any port to the Mac is not as heavily optimized.
Since this is the case, how about a more subjective review of Mac graphic cards and games. Instead of graphs with fps, why don't you just get a bunch of current games (and yes there are a bunch of games for the Mac) and look at image quality, playability and maybe even the ease (or difficulty) of playing multiplayer games in a PC/Mac mix of computers. Do they both connect using TCP/IP (I'm sure they do)? Do the Macs causing any lag while playing others on PCs, etc. etc.
There are more sides to a review on games with a certain computer hardware than graphs showing fps. The human eye can only see up to 30fps anyway, so let's look a little more a different titles and their playability while keeping an eye on which card "feels" better than the other.
With only a few cards available for the Mac, a comparison of which is faster is rather pointless anyway since each card has its own purpose outside of which is better for game frame rates. I.e., the 6800 DDL is for driving two 30" displays, the X800XT is good just for playing games with modern architecture (so you get a price break for not being able to drive two displays) and the 9800 pro (9600xt, 9800xt) is for the average power user who just wants the power of the G5 processors, Mac OS X and an upgradable tower (don't have this with the eMac, IMac, etc.).
Just my .02.
ViRGE - Thursday, January 6, 2005 - link
Good article Anand, especially where you talk about DDL and what makes these cards a bit different from their PC counterparts. I'm a bit flabbergasted that ATI did not make it 2xDDL though, since the Mac market does a lot more business with the kind of professionals that would need such a setup, than the PC market comparatively. I also second a2daj's comments about the benchmarks, they were more lacking than they needed to be. And what's up with a lack of FSAA testing? ATI's control panel lets you enable it wherever you want(unlike Nvidia, damn them), so it's not like it's too hard.PS What's up with ATI releasing this card now, instead of waiting a couple of weeks for MacWorld SF2K5? I would think his Steveness would want more new stuff to show off.
#22: The slot is an AGP 8x PRO slot; let me say this again, PRO slot. The slot has everything to do with it, as the Pro specification was designed so that cards could have extra power if they needed it. You're not entirely off base with your point about stubs(you do need another stub to hit the extra power pins of the Pro slot), but Apple isn't doing any strange Voodoo here, this is all part of a current AGP spec.
#18: With Halo and FSAA, my guess is that it has something to do with OpenGL. Whether the FSAA+Shader problem is only a Direct3D thing, or if it was a Halo problem fixed in the PC->Mac port I'm not sure, but by the sounds of it, FSAA can be done on the Mac.
CindyRodriguez - Thursday, January 6, 2005 - link
Anand says: "he X800 XT Mac Edition is an AGP Pro 8X card (thus requires no external power)"Nope. Not even close to correct. The fact that it's in an 8x slot has zero to do with why you don't need external power. The card, very visibly, has an additional power stub that corresponds with the extra power stub on the G5 motherboard. It's 28 V. I believe but I'd have to confirm that.
As for plugging it into a PC (which many people have asked about..) it will never run in a PC. As mentioned above, it uses a proprietary power stub not found on any PC motherboard. The stub is actually there to drive a monitor that may be on the ADC port but it also provides the extra power to that big, hungry GPU. It's not a bios issue.. It simply won't fit into a PC.
One last bit on this.. in typical Apple bone-headed fashion, (yes, I like Apple but they do stupid stuff occasionally).. Apple moved the power stub between the G4 and the G5. This card will ONLY run in a PowerMac G5.. not any other Macintosh.
cindy.
P.S. Thanks for perservering with the Mac reviews.. even if you aren't getting everything correct yet.
motoxpress - Thursday, January 6, 2005 - link
Another vote of appreciation for having this article. I also recommend you contact apple and get a copy of Motion for testing. It is a VERY good OpenGL killer ;)mx
MAValpha - Thursday, January 6, 2005 - link
Even if you reflashed the cards with their PC counterparts' BIOSes, I doubt they would work. As aliasfox already pointed out, the hardware is different. The TMDS transmitters are different, though I am still unclear as to whether or not there are twice as many, or whether each one simply has two signals running side-by-side. Either way, the graphics processor has to be able to communicate with its signal generators.eetnoyer - Thursday, January 6, 2005 - link
Perhaps you should start up an Irish version of your website for this sort of article: MacAnandtech.comOf course you probably wouldn't get many hits for it.
Sc4freak - Thursday, January 6, 2005 - link
Why was Halo tested with Anti-Aliasing? Halo doesn't support anti-aliasing as far as I know.MadAd - Thursday, January 6, 2005 - link
Man the size of that card is ridiculous - Nvidia remind me more and more of 3dfx these days.ksherman - Thursday, January 6, 2005 - link
"running two 30” Cinema Displays"**wonders in amazement**
Oh wait, I cant even imagine that! I can hardly fathom a single 30" display, let alone TWO!!!