Well, here we are in the spring of 2009, and this once $549.99 card is now utterly obsolete. Isn't that something?

Well, here we are in July 2006 and the X1800XT is available in 256MB guise for around $250 (£160)

At this price it's significantly cheaper than a Geforce 7800GTX and generally outperforms it based on the newest generation of games.

A close match for the similarly priced 7900GT, the nearest competitor in today's market.

Below is a link follow it. It proves that Core speed and mem speed start to mean nothing when you increase res and aa and have more memory capcity, funny a x800xl 512mb thrashes a x850xt ... LOL.

Now correct me if i am wrong but the X1800XT is 512 mb and the current 7800gtx is 256mb... when nvidia releases a 512mb 490 core and 1300 mem nvidia card ( which you can buy as a standard OC) and see what the performance is like. oh and let put aside the fact the ATI isnt out for another month... ATI has won nothing yet.

http://www.amdzone.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=in...

ati is teh suck.

they cheat by bumping up the core frequencies way high to 650+mhz. i can imagine these cards burning up shortly after the 1 year warranty is up

Hey Scott, I appreciate all the work you do to churn out these reviews.

However, when you're testing new cards like this, would you mind not including the results for SLI setups on the main graphs? Having the numbers for SLI on there makes it much more difficult to visually see where the new cards fall, since SLI setups are so much faster than the single-card setups and therefore (visually) skew the graphs.

I don't so much mind having the numbers for SLI, but I think the main graphs would be more informative if the SLI numbers were put in an "extra" section--off to the side, but still accessible to those of us who have large amounts of cash to drop on SLI rigs.

I just read the x1x00 review on Anandtech, and found their power draw measurements (under load) to be quite different from TR's. Here's an abbreviated list of both (difference to 7800GT baseline result in brackets):

TR

X1800XT 250 (+46)
7800GTX 225 (+25)
6800U 224 (+20)
X850XT 218 (+14)
X1800XL 207 (+3)
7800GT 204

Anandtech

X850XT 296 (+60)
6800U 294 (+58)
7800GTX 285 (+49)
X1800XT 282 (+46)
X1800XL 242 (+6)
7800GT 236

I realize that the components used in the tests were different to a degree. However, TR used the nForce4 chipset for nVidia GPUs and the Xpress200 for ATi GPUs, whereas Anandtech used the same setup for both GPU manufacturers. Therefore I would presume that Anandtech's setup is more suitable for power draw comparisons.

With that out of the way, I looked at the 7800GT measurements as a baseline number, and went from there. The interesting thing is that, relative to the 7800GT, the X1800XL and the X1800XT produce fairly similar figures in both TR's and Anandtech's tests. The other GPUs are all over the place, though. According to TR's measurements the X850XT, the 6800U and the 7800GTX are nicely sandwitched somewhere halfway between the X1800XL and the X1800XT. Anandtech, on the other hand, shows the X850XT and the 6800U as the ultimate power hogs of the bunch, while the 7800GTX does a little worse than the X1800XT.

So, what is going on here?

EDIT
Just to add a little more to the confusion, here are the results from X-Bit Labs:

X1800XT 112 (+55)
7800GTX 81 (+24)
6800U 77 (+20)
X850XT(PE) 72 (+15)
X1800XL 59 (+2)
7800GT 57

They produced results very similar to TR, although the X1800XT has an even larger appetite here...

It's a little early to bury the x1600. For one thing, Scott pointed out that the x1600 will really be able to stretch its feet when next generation shader-heavy games become the norm. Early critics of the new x1000 series mustn't forget that initial driver releases for new GPU architectures generally leave a lot of room for performance improvements. Also, the heavily programmable nature of the x1000 chips lends itself well to per-game performance optimizations - and by that I refer to real optimizations that do not degrade quality, not cheats.

The power consumption of these new chips is a little worrying, but maybe this can also be improved upon with future drivers that more aggressively throttle back the frequency or turn off certain sections when idle. TSMC (or whoever is manufacturing the chips) could also tweak their 90nm process to reduce leakage.

All in all, surely this wasn't the perfect execution of a product launch many were expecting to counter nVidia's recent success, but then hardly anyone ever gets it 100% right. The 7800 was an exception not the norm. You need only to look at the 5800 dustbuster fiasco or the handicapped video acceleration in the 6800 to realize this.

The only card that was interesting to me was the cheap X1300 based cards, sadly missing in the review. The X1600 series looks like a good future mid-range card for modern games as well.

Oh, and thank for the review - one suggestion for the charts with lots of datasets - make all nVidia cards a shade of green and all the ATI cards a shade or orange/red? At the moment they are very hard to read.

Looks like they are good at DirectX based games, but OpenGL is letting ATI down again.

If ATI sorts out the yield issues, then the small die sizes will give them an advantage.

Once ATI is using the new R520 cores, I expect we will start seeing some overclocked by default cards being released. Might be worth holding on a few months to see what happens, and to see what nVidia's 7x00 midrange is like.

We waited this long, for *this*? I am all for competition, but really my o/c'ed 6600GT is running all the games I play at decent frame rates. Why spend $500 bucks to see uber high frame rates?

Sure, if I had the money I'd spend it but really. ATI is really behind here and needs to come out with something revolutionary, not evolutionary. Will there ever be a Radeon 9700 Pro like product again?

I will not be buying an ATI card in the foreseeable future for one big reason -- buggy and overly-complicated-to-download drivers.

nVidia has one simple driver file for their cards, and the version number is easy to check. I bought an ATI card 2 years ago, and the "latest" drivers were filled with bugs. No thanks.

This is a complete and utter dissapointment. X1800XT is the only one which is competitive from a performance point of view, the rest is simply sh.t. I don't get it, what is Ati thinking? They introduce a new generation of graphics cards with the same (X1800XL) or much worse performance (X1600XT, X1300Pro) than their last one, with higher price and absolutely terrible heat output.

It's like:

X1300,Pro: did you buy a 9600Pro or XT two or three years ago? Buy it again for the same price today!

X1600XT: anybody who bought this one for $250 would have to be completely brainwashed. An X800 or X800GTO with REAL 12 pipes coupled to real 12 texturing units and real 256bit memory bus would simply mop the floor with this crap. For almost $100 less. Instead of a 12x1 card you can buy a 12x0.33 one. The only thing I regret is that Scott haven't included an X800/GT/GTO/Pro/XL into the review. The historic moment when a hardware company introduces a new generation product which is slower, more expensive and even unavailable could be exposed beautifully.

X1800XL: it's performance is for all purposes equivalent to an X850XT, which is sold for only a little more than $300. MSRP for an X1800XL is $450. Nice try.

And I can't get over the power consumption. I have an X800Pro and the amazing thing is that it outputs less heat than the 9800Pro I had before. With the AC Silencer it runs passively cooled when idle. Now look at X1600XT. It consumes more power idle than an X850XT, while X800Pro will run circles around it when actually in use. Ati really did f..k up this one. I mean this generation.

Oh, Canada.

ATI doesn't look very competitive this product cycle, and I doubt they can manage the sort of turn-around they pulled off circa the Radeon 8500. They'll probably be facing some (frivolous) shareholder suits..

http://www2.ati.com/multimedia/radeonx1k/ATI-Demo-ToyShop-v1.1.zip

demo.

Nvidia should vapor release a "Nvidia x1801 ultravapor" series card, basically they could take a couple of their engineering samples paint them red, double the memory, throw a doublewide cooler on it and clock the hell out of it and send it to some review sites. They could then claim back the throne claiming that they will be shipping shortly. It may even work as a business tactic(especially the name).

Scott:

Where are the HL2 Benchies???.. What about AGP?

I see no compelling reason to buy this generation whatsoever.

I'm sticking with my X800XT (bought it from tiger direct for $225).

W

The high power and heat of the X1000 series are surprising, I was expecting lower than before due to 90nm.

TR: I'd love to see that useful and interesting power usage chart include the same system with an old old low-wattage card just for an idle-only baseline. As it stands, we can't tell what fraction of that power is due to the video card. Slap an old Matrox Millenium or something in there (which shouldn't take more than a watt or two?) and we'll know a good baseline to subtract.

Mostly disappointing.

The X1600 series are utterly unattractive against previous generation cards, whether that's a 6600GT or a X800GT.

The X1800XL is certainly an improvement over the previous X850, but that $449 SRP sure doesn't look attractive with 7800GTs all over the place at $350.

The X1800XT is impressive, but it sure looks like a paper launch. If these are actually available at SRP in a month, that's a more appealing card than a $475 7800GTX.

The X1000 series (it feels weird to say that) is competative. That's what counts.

Maby just don't have the internet plugged in?

Or if that doesn't work, there are some *cough cough hack* copies of Half-Life 2 that don't need steam.

Overall a good review. Hopefully this "release" will be in time to save ATI, but then again, they already have a steady income flow that will start pouring on more in November (X-Box 360)

Hmmmm....

As far as I can tell, ATI didn't even give Nvidia a reason to introduce the 7xxx series mid-range cards that must be in the works. The price points on the new ATI cards are crazy. Donning my tinfoil hat, I can only speculate that they are trying to limit demand because yields are the suck.

Of course, ATI says that R580 is on schedule and will be here in the not too distant future. (And why should we have any reason to doubt that?) Assuming R580 does arrive in early '06, it would push all these cards down on the pricing chain, and everything would make more sense.

For everyone who simply must have an ATI card RIGHT NOW, here is the most compelling reason to buy one that I can see:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102595

For all intents and purposes you get an X850XT PE for $200. Buy an X800GTO2 today and enjoy fine performance on current games 'til next spring. By then the real R5xx cards might actually be available at reasonable price points. And they might even have shipped Crossfire!

With twice the ram on the 1800xt vs the 7800gtx, as well as it running 300mhz faster, doesn't it seem like ATI is using up any potential pricing advantage they have with their smaller core on their memory costs? I can't imagine that ram is cheap....

well, it's better than I was expecting but not enough to take ATI out of second place

"We may have a rematch between the Radeon X1800 XT 512MB and a new 512MB version of the GeForce 7800 GTX shortly, too, that could produce a clear champ."

Has a 512MB 7800GTX been mentioned anywhere by Nvidia ?

If so, more info please :P

No contest when it comes to the x1800xt. That thing kicks arse. What is the deal with the rest of the line though? Sure they would be competitive if their price was reasonable. I would rather have the 7800gt/gtx for the price of a x1800xl. Same goes for the x1600xt.

Hmm. Is it the extra memory and bandwidth making that much of a difference with the X1800XT? I don't see much else that could be causing it -- the 7800GT/X1800XL and 7800GTX/X1800XT are both pretty evenly matched in terms of pixel power.
EDIT - According to the AnandTech review X1800XL can only have 128 threads like the lower end cards, and only the XT gets 512. If true, this could certainly be another factor...

Also, as previously mentioned, I would be most highly unsurprised if nVidia were to release and ship the 7800 Ultra right around the time the X1800XT actually starts becoming available, with the 80 series drivers to accompany it. Question is whether it'll still be 110nm (rather more likely, in my estimation), or they'll make the jump to 90 as well...

Biggest disappointment has to be the X1600XT. Back when its specs were leaked, I was honestly expecting nVidia to get whopped -- 12 pipes at 600MHz looked like something to go toe to toe with the 6800 Ultra. And at $200-300, nearly double the performance of the 6800. Instead, even in 3DMark05 it only somewhat outperforms it, and gets soundly beaten otherwhere. Meh.

You might note that at a couple points the 1800xt is able to beat sli rigs. If it were a clean sweep, I might agree with you, but as these new cards are occasionally able to beat sli rigs, I'd say it's definitely useful for people to see the comparison visually.
EDIT: This was supposed to be a reply to #26.
many apologies.

I like how the pricegrabber for me listed prices for Nvidia's cards. Nuff said.

*yawn* good solid review, ho hum product. maybe next gen 520's will be a bit more interesting.

Good read, as always.
I have to disagree with alot of the comments here: the 1800XT is a beast of a card. Simply blowing the 7800gtx away in most of the DirectX games. That's impressive, if I do say so myself.
However, the vast suckage on the part of ATI in the realm of OpenGL (quake 4 anyone?) will render it not as widely desired in the high-end, IMHO. Too bad there's not a GLmark05 ;-)