Thoughts
This initial gloss over the tech, board evaluation and performance snapshot should have you salivating at the thought of buying a 3D accelerator in the near future. Radeon 1800 XT, via a decently clocked R520 GPU and fast memories, defines the base performance the rest of the X1000 series range will scale down from. From this debut, it's arguably never been better to think about upgrading to PCI Express for graphics, or just graphics in general if you're already on the interconnect.The basic architecture, clocks and memory size of the Radeon X1800 XT make it undoubtedly the fastest overall graphics accelerator on the planet, ATI regaining the crown they've not worn since GeForce 7800 GTX and G70 blew us all away back at the end of June. The performance crown, while not as important as it used to be, is a fine fitting one to wear proudly and X1800 XT does that straight out of the gate. The general rule is that if it's D3D9 and you're not CPU limited, it'll likely blow everything else away at the time of writing.
I'm remiss in having to leave a technical analysis for a separate piece but ATI's focus on the things that define Shader Model 3.0, dynamic branching most of all, are well served by a pixel thread scheduler that can switch shader code branch with minimal penalty when called upon to do so. I read recently, with regards to R5-series' branching performance not mattering that, "...if 1% of the time is spent handling branching, and in that 1% of time a GPU is 10x faster, what is the maximum benefit? Less than 1% improvement in overall time. Now if in the other 99% of the time is spent doing good old fashioned graphics shaders (Gflops), and a GPU is 2x faster in those times, what is the maximum benefit? About a 50% improvement in time. (ie. ~2x improvement in perf)." I don't want to throw stones, but you can argue that it's only used 1% of the time by developers because it's such a performance killer for long shaders on NVIDIA hardware.
Looking elsewhere, the image quality improvements available to the R5-series of GPUs, starting with the areas of texture filtering and antialiasing, make it all the more attractive to the end user. ATI catch up in alpha texture IQ and carry on the multisample image quality lead they held with R480 and the last generation. Moving on to the hardware's ability to apply antialiasing to the floating point surfaces games will use to add high dynamic range lighting, you no longer have to trade off AA for HDR in games. That carries some caveats with regards to game support and patches to make it work, and those are discussed in the Technical Discussion.
The Avivo display and video engine, especially when H.264 transcode and decode performance can be properly measured, is a great end point to such a great basic architecture. Dual dual-link DVI outputs should be standard on all graphics boards.
The form factor could use some work, this reviewer not happy with the noise and the profile of the cooler, especially given an experiment that proves the XL's cooler can handle XT clocks (!), but it contains such a potent piece of 3D silicon and fast memories, that it's a downside that most who'll be able to afford it shortly will likely suffer. Issues of availability and price dictate possible separate editorial.
To sum up, I could waffle on for days about instruction rates, texturing latency and other such hardware specifics but for this consumer-oriented peek at the new range topper, I leave you with this sentiment and summary.
The performance - where we see massive gains in F.E.A.R., sizable improvements in Far Cry and Splinter Cell: CT, and consistent CPU-bound performance to match 7800 GTX in mostly everything else - is undoubtedly mighty. Combine that with the image quality improvements and output connectivity available from the X1800 XT in terms of Avivo, the 6x AA carried over from R480 now with less performance hit, adaptive AA for improving alpha textures and rotation invariant anistropic texture filtering for basic excellent texture IQ, and you have a compelling consumer graphics product that almost demands you purchase it as soon as possible. ATI's considerable investment in a clockable new architecture on 90nm low-k has certainly paid off, despite well documented delays. Well worth the wait.
Which one then, GeForce 7800 GTX or Radeon X1800 XT? Red ruby in the fat hack's right hand, green goblin in his left? Given the ability to bet, you'd be mad not to place your chips on the red 520. Not a betting person? He'll likely trade you a Radeon X1800 XT for a girlfriend, given the T-shirt, if you've got one spare.
HEXUS.note
While generally a very positive launch for ATI of a new architecture, their incredibly poor sampling in Europe means that HEXUS haven't been able to cover the other launch SKUs in time for today's NDA lifting. Other Eurozone publications will echo that vocally, too. Look out for performance and form factor analysis of Radeon X1800 XL, Radeon X1600 and Radeon X1300 in due course over the coming week or so.Also look out for other X1000-related editorial that'll cover Avivo performance and image quality in video, overclocking the new GPUs and retail board analysis from Tarinder and myself for the mighty HEXUS.core.
availability by David Ross
NVIDIA appeared to make a near perfect execution in the launch of its GeForce 7800 GTX.
High performing, timely and actually available on the day of its announcement, with GeForce 7800 GTX, NVIDIA capitalised big-time on the extended delays suffered by ATi Technologies in bringing this, its fifth-generation, technology to market.
Yep, in delivering 7800GTX in volume on the day of launch - when previously, such companies, including NVIDIA itself, mainly only committed to a 30-day lead-time (before products actually became available) - NVIDIA managed to ‘ass-master’ ATi.
These extended, unreliable and unreasonable lead-times have increasingly frustrated HEXUS, but perhaps more importantly both consumers and retailers alike.
In an effort to establish a true picture of the initial availability of the latest ATi products, HEXUS has spoken directly to ATi, and some of its most important Add-In-Board (AIB) partners and some very key retailers.
Currently there is no stock within the UK.
However this is believed to change, as the high-end ATi RADEON X1800 XL is set to become available over the course of this coming weekend, and the new entry-level RADEON X1300 PRO will also be available next week.
The current ultra-high-end RADEON X1800 XT will become available within three weeks, and our intelligence is that 10th November is the date for mass availability.
The mid-range RADEON X1600 is then slated to be available towards the end of November.
If ATi Technologies successfully delivers on, or before, these times then - whilst not ideal - we see little cause for concern, and it should still be able to make commercial capital throughout the important Christmas season.
HEXUS is watching…
