ATI and Nvidia are back in action as they compete for the number one spot with their next generation video cards.  ATI’s fastest graphics card is the X800XT while Nvidia’s is the Geforce 6800 Ultra.  Today, I will be taking a look at PowerColor’s X800XT Platinum Limited Assassin Edition (try and say that 10 times fast)!  This graphics card as the name implies uses the X800XT graphics chip, which is currently the fastest offering by the Canadian company ATI.  In this article, we will examine the new technologies present in the chip and review PowerColor’s graphics card to see how well it performs.  The graphics card will mainly be compared against ATI’s previous generation card, the 9800.  Although the X800XT is meant to be the successor of the 9800 XT, I apologize beforehand that I only had the 9800 Pro to compare with it.  The 9800 Pro is still only slightly slower than the XT version, so you will at least have a general idea of how the new card compares.

If you are not aware already, the PowerColor card is actually made by a Taiwan-based company called Tul.  The PowerColor company is distributor for the PowerColor graphics cards. 

I asked a representative at Tul: “What makes your graphics cards different from other manufacturers?”  The person responded by saying that their graphics cards are well-made and provide great value with the excellent support, great time to market as a top-tier ATI partner, and they have more configuration models of ATI graphics cards.

I was surprised to find that the graphics card came within a backpack.  The backpack is ideal to hold a laptop or it can be used as a shoulder carrying case.  There are straps which allow the backpack to be converted to be carried on the shoulders or just one shoulder.  The backpack was actually high in quality and exceeded my expectations.  At the back of the backpack is a soft-feeling cushioning support.  Did I mention that this backpack has tons of pockets?  The main pocket contained the graphics card and the included software.  The graphics card was housed inside a box in an anti-static bag.  The software was held in separate pocket which includes the driver installation CD, Hitman Contracts, CounterStrike Condition Zero, and a voucher for Half Life 2.  This software bundle is complete and provides an immense value for your money.  ATI is currently offering a promotion that if you activate your Steam account before Half Life 2 is officially released, you will receive the premier pack of the original Half Life for free.  This also includes Counter-Strike, Team Fortress Classic, Deathmatch Classic, etc.  Considering that you get Half Life 2 and the extremely popular original Half Life, you will definitely get your money’s worth if you are an online gamer.  Although Hitman Contracts was reviewed as a mediocre game, it was probably chosen to go with the ‘assassin’ theme.  Nevertheless, Hitman is still a rather good choice in putting the graphics card to good use.  Deep within the main pocket, you will find the manual.  If you’ve installed a graphics card before, then you will not find the manual necessary.  The front of the backpack with the main flap contains a net-like bag with all the extra wires and adapters.  It includes a DVI-I connector, a HDTV cable, a Video Input/Output cable,

While we’re speaking about the new X800, Tul was kind enough to show me the boxes for the other next generation cards intended to replace the current 9800, 9600, and 9200 series cards.  The next generation cards are the X800 (mentioned already), the X600, and the X300.  Keep in mind that some of these cards will be offered in PCI express versions.  The boxes shown are the X300SE, X300, X600 Pro, and the retail box for the X800XT (PCI Express).

Here are some brief details for each of these cards for those interested in what is to come.  The X300SE will have 4 pixel pipelines and 2 shader pipelines with a 64 bit memory interface and is clocked at 325Mhz.  The X300 is the same as the X300SE with the exception that it will have a 128 bit memory interface.  The X600 Pro is the same as the X300SE but with a core of 400Mhz.  Keep in mind that PCI Express is available for all these cards.

The video card is based on the usual red PCB board.  There is a large, but thin fan and heat sink covering the board.  By looking at the sides of the heat sink, you can tell that the heat sink is made of copper.  The video card is also clearly labeled indicating that this is an X800XT video card.  Based on the theme of the ‘assassin’ (part of the name of the product), there is a picture of the assassin from the game Hitman Contracts.  It does create a sense of intimidation to make the user realize that this is definitely no ordinary graphics card.  With such a high end graphics card, I was content that this graphics card only requires an extra molex connector for a little extra power.  As usual, this card comes equipped with a TV-Out and DVI port.

The video card is clocked at the standard frequency of 520/560.  This means that the processor has a frequency of 520 and the memory frequency is 560.  This card supports AGP 4x and 8x.  In order to support the high speeds, the extremely fast GDDR3 is used based on a 256-bit bus.  With its 16 extreme pixel pipelines, it can handle 16 different textures in one pass with the use of Pixel Shader 2.0.

*Table obtained from Tul’s website

The main competitor against ATI is Nvidia.  Nvidia’s next generation card is the Geforce 6800 Ultra.  The main differences between Nvidia and ATI’s card is that the 6800 supports Pixel Shader 3.0, but ATI is still relying on the more mature Pixel Shader 2.0.  Another thing interesting about the 6800 Ultra is that it requires an enormous amount of power.  It is recommended that you need at least a 480 Watt power supply to be able to take advantage of its full capabilities.  In addition, you also need two spare power connectors to be able to power the 6800 graphics card.

With all the fancy terms you’ll see on the list of features as well as on the retail box, you can get lost easily.  This part of the review will help demystify and explain the technologies that are present in the card.

A lot of the technologies in the card have the word ‘HD’.  HD is short for High Definition.  If you’ve ever looked at a HDTV, you can describe it to have a much higher resolution and a much better image quality and clarity.  ATI has brought the term ‘HD’ into the video card realm to bring the same experience to computers.  Rather than rely on raw speed for video cards, the next-generation video cards such as the X800 try to bring a better experience with higher resolutions and better image quality.  Let’s now have a look at the different technologies.

3Dc*

3Dc is an exciting new compression technology designed to bring out fine details in games while minimizing memory usage. It is the first compression technique optimized to work with normal maps, which allow fine per-pixel control over how light reflects from a textured surface. With up to 4:1 compression possible, this means game designers can now include up to 4x the detail without changing the amount of graphics memory required and without impacting performance.

SmartShader HD*

Shaders are the key technology that allow game developers to program a limitless range of visual effects that execute on the graphics processor. SMARTSHADER HD incorporates enhanced DirectX 9.0 vertex shader and pixel shader support that makes these effects easier to create. Pixel shader programs can contain up to 10x more instructions than was possible in previous products, allowing more sophisticated effects. And a combination of more efficient instruction execution, increased register counts, and new F-buffer technology ensure that even the most complex shaders run at the fastest speeds.

VideoShader HD*

VIDEOSHADER HD is a key feature of the video processing engine that allows it to tap into the power of the programmable pixel shader units of the RADEON X800 3D core. This allows shaders to be used to accelerate many different video processing tasks, including noise removal (VIDEOSOAP), de-blocking (FULLSTREAM), adaptive de-interlacing, frame rate conversion, color space conversion, and much more. VIDEOSHADER HD also provides the flexibility required to support all of the latest video formats, including MPEG1/2/4, Real, DivX, and WMV9.

*information obtained directly from ATI’s website

These technologies do support the term ‘HD’.  These technologies improve both image quality and allow you increase resolution with minimal performance degradations. We’ll leave it up to the benchmarks to support these claims.

Meet Ruby

With all the right technologies in place in the X800 graphics chip, ATI has been able to bring all these technologies together to bring out Ruby.  Ruby is ATI’s response to Nvidia’s female character Nalu.  With the power of the X800 graphics chip, you can watch Ruby in action in a real-time demo.  The introduction of Ruby not only shows the power and capabilities of the graphics chip, but it also creates a character that can represent ATI.

Installation

If you’ve ever installed a graphics card, then getting this high end graphics card to work will not be a problem.  All you have to do is install the graphics card in the appropriate AGP slot.  Then you connect one of your power supply wires into the molex connector on the graphics card.  You’re done with the physical part.  After you have booted up your computer, you need to install the drivers.  You can either use the provided drivers CD or you can go to the manufacturer’s website to download the latest drivers.  Once the drivers are installed, you are ready to go.

Test Setup

The following computer was used in order to test the graphics card:

Intel Pentium 4 3.2 Ghz (800mhz FSB)

Intel 865GLC Motherboard

1GB IBM PC2700 DDR RAM

120GB Western Digital hard drive (2mb cache)

Windows XP/w SP1

Catalyst Drivers ver. 4.7

DirectX 9.0b

Disclaimer:  The following benchmark numbers are the values that I obtained when I ran the tests on my machine.  If you have any questions or comments about how they were obtained, please contact me.  I’d be glad to re-run and retest any benchmarks that you think may be a bit inaccurate.  The benchmarks were run in order to provide a general idea of the performance of the card.  The results you obtain may be slightly different than mine.

Here are the following programs used to benchmark the card.  I obtained the latest Catalyst drivers from Tul’s website.

3DMark2001

3DMark03

Aquamark 3

CodeCreatures

Call of Duty

Unreal Tournament 2004

Far Cry

Return to Castle Wolfenstein

Halo

3DMark 2001

Although 3DMark 2001 is a DirectX 8 benchmark, I still wanted to see how well it would do in the benchmark.  In addition, the benchmark continues to be widely used.  In 3DMark 2001, the X800XT shows a healthy 2000 score increase overall in the scores.

3DMark 03

Despite the controversy regarding 3DMark03, it is still used by many people and review sites.  I have included the benchmarks for your enjoyment if you are still a fan of 3DMark03.  The tests were done both in the default mode as well as 4X anti-aliasing, and 8X anisotropic filtering.  Notice that the X800XT scores are nearly double those of the 9800 Pro.

Aquamark 3

Aquamark 3 is a Direct X 9 benchmark that is based upon an actual game engine.  You might remember that it looks almost like Aquanox 2: The Revelation.  Aquamark 3 is based on the krass engine and they claim the techniques used and performance are very similar to games today.

CodeCreatures

The CodeCreatures benchmark is the kind of benchmark that can put enormous stress on any kind of video card.  It is also based on a game engine made from scratch.  Although the benchmark is not as commonly used as I’d like, I still have included it here to show direct3D performance.

Call of Duty

Call of Duty is our first actual game that is being tested today.  According to Gamespy.com, it is the 2^nd most popular online game.  Call of Duty uses an OpenGL engine.  This World War II game has been known to provide a very realistic experience because of the graphics and excellent sound.

Return to Castle Wolfenstein

Rather than test the video card on the aging Quake III, I chose to test the card on a later game that uses a heavily modified version of the Quake III engine.  Return to Castle Wolfenstein is very similar to the free online multiplayer game Enemy Territory, therefore, you should expect similar results.

Far Cry

Far Cry has one of the best looking graphics engines to date.  Based on the Crytek engine, this game makes extensive use of shaders in Direct X 9.  At 1600x1200 resolution with 4AA/16AF, Far Cry is still very playable with an average of 39.44 frames per second.  We see that resolution increases have minimal effect on the in-game performance of Far Cry.  Far Cry on the 9800 Pro at 4AA/16AF is barely playable.

Unreal Tournament 2004

Unreal Tournament has always been a standard in benchmarking and I’m glad to present to you Unreal Tournament 2004.  This game is the type of Direct3D game that is widely played and will always be something to fall back on for benchmarks.

Halo

Knowing that Halo can have weak frame rates even on rather high end hardware, I chose to test this game.  This game makes extensive use of shaders.  I did not test this game with AA/AF because you are not meant to enable it according to Microsoft.

For most of these games, we can see several different trends for both OpenGL and Direct3D based games.  As the resolution is increased for the 9800 Pro, the performance suffers rather dramatically.  The X800XT has the opposite trend where the performance drops minimally when the resolutions are increased.  When dealing with anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, the 9800 Pro performance drops rather linearly but at a much faster rate than the X800XT.  In some cases like Far Cry, 3DMark03, and CodeCreatures, we can the see that the X800XT has nearly double the performance of the 9800 Pro.  Compared to the 9800 Pro, we really do see major performance boosts in the majority of the games.  With the all the numbers in place, I can safely say that the games are very playable when playing at 1600x1200 resolution with 4AA/16AF.  In games like Call of Duty and Unreal Tournament, we were able to easily reach close to 100 frames per second.  In actuality, you will only be able to see a certain number of frames depending on the refresh rate of your monitor; therefore, it wouldn’t hurt to sacrifice frames and to turn up the AA/AF.  The card does feature a special anti-aliasing called Temporal AntiAliasing.  I will have to examine this further before passing my judgment on it.

Overdrive is one of the features of the card.  In order to access it, you need to go to the display properties.  Overdrive is a feature that is designed to give you that extra performance boost you need in games.  When I enabled it, the clock frequency immediately went from 519Mhz to 526Mhz.  In a sense, this is a safer way of overclocking the card.  When the temperature rises, it will adjust the frequency if necessary to avoid potential problems. 

When manually overclocking the card, I was only able to bring it up to about 532Mhz, a 13Mhz increase.  The memory clock frequency was able to reach a maximum of 1.18Ghz.  It is expected that the card overclocks a little because it is reaching the limit.  I would imagine that the X800 Pro would overclock much better.

Tul’s PowerColor X800XT Platinum Limited Assassin Edition is a graphics card that will provide truly spectacular performance for those who have the cash.  If you do have the $550-$600 the card will retail for, this product is filled with value.  With the provided games like Condition Zero, Hitman Contracts, and even a voucher for Half-Life 2, you can be sure that you will spend plenty of time gaming with this card.  This product even has all the necessary wires and adapters you’ll ever need.  This product came in a great backpack that makes this package complete.  Although I have not mentioned the 6800 much in this review, I am aware that this card has the edge if you want to avoid the high power supply requirements and a simpler installation.  Overall, this card really does provide ‘HD’ gaming and shines where the 9800 falls.  I could not really see anything wrong with this card.  This product is simply superb!

Reviewed by Ronald@DigitalReviews.net