Final thoughts
Final thoughtsPowerColor's added to its range of Radeon X800 GT-based graphics cards by releasing a couple of special editions that bring something new to the table. Taking the Xtreme version first, it's differentiated from the standard edition by the use of faster Samsung GDDR3 memory that's run at 1050MHz (up from the default 980MHz) and, in tandem, with an increased core speed of 500MHzm which, again, is above the default's 475MHz. The price you pay for faster clocks through the use of better components is a price rise of around £20 above the £105 X800 GT 256MB card.
The problem that PowerColor faces with its £125 X800 GT Xtreme 256MB package is one brought about by ATI having a number of SKUs at midrange price-points. £120 or so is now home to the Radeon X800 GTO 256MB model, which runs with 50% greater rendering pipelines, albeit with slower core and memory clocks. As our graphs indicated, the GTO is comfortably faster than PowerColor's souped-up dual-DVI 'GT, so much so that even in overclocked mode the X800 Xtreme GT was still slower. In view of this and the keen pricing of a bunch of Radeon X800 GTO 256MB cards, it becomes difficult to recommend it at all. Put simply, if you have £120 and want a PCI-Express card, we'd recommend looking at ATI's X800 GTO first.
Moving on to the other PowerColor card that ships with an identical PCB and, consequently, identical core and memory speeds, the X800 GT EVO Tide Water is more of a design showcase than anything else. £199 for a package that performs at sub-X800 GTO levels tells you only half the story. The other half rests with just how PowerColor has architected the card. It's the first that we've seen which ships with a self-contained watercooling kit as standard.
In cahoots with Thermaltake and its Tide Water cooling system, PowerColor's managed to release an all-in-one bundle that performs reasonably well. However, we would have liked to have seen some form of thermal monitoring on the card and, really, cooling for memory chips, too. Tide Water cooling, by its very nature, would make better sense on high-end GPUs, we feel, and it will be available to buy separately in the near future.
So, in summary, we've looked at a couple of PowerColor X800 GT cards and have come away with the feeling that whilst both offer something new in the marketplace, the respective asking prices takes away much of their shine. Novel, exciting products? Yes. Value-for-money? Not quite.
- PowerColor X800 GT Xtreme 256MB
- PowerColor X800 GT EVO Tide Water 256MB
