ATI Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition Hands-On Preview

ATI Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition Hands-On Preview

Major 3D graphics companies aim to release a new architecture every 12 months, and this breakneck pace doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon. ATI just introduced the Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition, and the company now has the Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition ready for production. Just as ATI phased out the Radeon 9700 with the introduction of the Radeon 9800, the Radeon X850 XT PE design will replace the existing Radeon X800 XT PE.

Manufacturers usually introduce product "refreshes" roughly six months after releasing a new architecture. The extra time allows companies to refine the design and improve the manufacturing process. These changes result in higher yields and increased performance. ATI is staying with the 130nm, low-k manufacturing process for the Radeon X850 XT PE, but it has "optimized the silicon" of the Radeon X800 design to remove bottlenecks, and work has also been done to improve the PCB substrate. As a result, the Radeon X850 XT PE will feature faster clock speeds and higher availability.

Entry-level and mainstream video card segments may dominate in terms of overall revenue, but maintaining the top-of-the-line flagship card is extremely important for marketing cache. The Radeon X850 XT PE has all the special features introduced with the Radeon X800 line, including Smartshader HD, Smoothvision HD, 3Dc support, and a host of Videoshader HD video processing capabilities. The main performance differences are the increased clock speeds. ATI has bumped the engine and memory clock speeds of the Radeon X850 XT PE from the 520/1120MHz found on the Radeon X800 XT PE up to a healthy 540/1.18GHz. Pixel pipeline and vertex engine counts remain the same at 16 and 6, respectively.

The MSRP for the new Radeon X850 XT PE will be $549, which is higher than the Radeon X800 XT PE's $499 MSRP, but the increased availability should keep street prices closer to $549 rather than the $700 prices we've seen for the extremely scarce Radeon X800 XT PE. Another major change is the switch to a dual-slot cooling solution. The main benefit of the dual-slot solution is a quieter fan and a thermal design that draws air from the front of the machine while blowing it out of the back.

	Radeon X850 XT PE	Radeon X800 XT PE	Radeon X850 XT	Radeon X800 XT
Pixel Pipelines	16	16	16	16
Vertex Engines	6	6	6	6
Engine Clock	540MHz	520MHz	520MHz	500MHz
Memory	256MB	256MB	256MB	256MB
Memory Clock	1180MHz	1120MHz	1080MHz	1000MHz
Memory Interface	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit
MSRP	$549	$499	$499	$499

In addition to the Radeon X850 XT PE, ATI will also bring out the Radeon X850 XT and Radeon X850 Pro. As with the PE replacement strategy, the $499, 16-pipe Radeon X850 XT (520/1080MHz ) will replace the 16-pipe Radeon X800 XT (500/1000MHz), but the $399, 12-pipe Radeon X850 Pro (520/1080MHz) will coexist peacefully with the 12-pipe Radeon X800 Pro (475/900MHz) since the X850 AGP cards won't be ready until next year. The Radeon X800 Pro price will also drop accordingly to match its lower position in the product line-up.

	Radeon X850 Pro	Radeon X800 Pro
Pixel Pipelines	12	12
Vertex Engines	6	6
Engine Clock	520MHz	475MHz
Memory	256MB	256MB
Memory Clock	1080MHz	900MHz
Memory Interface	256-bit	256-bit
MSRP	$399	$299

Gamers looking for more affordable performance options will be pleased to hear that ATI is also expanding its Radeon X800 line to include the Radeon X800 XL and a normal, nonsuffixed Radeon X800. Nvidia captured the $400 price point with the GeForce 6800 GT by offering 16-pixel pipelines while ATI's Radeon X800 Pro solution only had 12 pipes. ATI has moved the new Radeon X800 and X800 XL chips to a more efficient 110nm manufacturing process that will finally allow the company to respond to Nvidia's mainstream performance video cards. PC gamers everywhere should pay special attention to the Radeon X800 XL since the $349 Radeon X800 XL is ATI's 16-pipe response to Nvidia's GeForce 6800 GT. The Radeon X800 XL features a 400/1000MHz clock, which compares favorably to the GT's 350/1000MHz. ATI has its 12-pipe, regular Radeon X800 (400/700MHz) targeted at Nvidia's vanilla GeForce 6800 (325/700MHz).

	Radeon X800 XL	GeForce 6800 GT	Radeon X800	GeForce 6800
Pixel Pipelines	16	16	12	12
Vertex Engines	6	6	6	5
Engine Clock	400MHz	350MHz	400MHz	325MHz
Memory	256MB	256MB	128MB	128MB
Memory Clock	1GHz	1GHz	700MHz	700MHz
Memory Interface	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit	256-bit
MSRP	$349	$399	$249	$299

Test System Setup: Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz CPU, ASUS PGD52P motherboard, 1GB DDR2 memory, ATI Radeon X850 XT PE PCI Express.

Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz CPU, ASUS P4C800-E Deluxe motherboard, 1GB DDR memory. ATI Radeon X800 XT PE AGP, ATI Radeon X800 XT AGP, GeForce 6800 Ultra AGP, GeForce 6800 GT AGP.

The Radeon X850 XT PE offers excellent performance, but don't expect huge performance gains over the the Radeon X800 XT PE card that it's replacing since the engine and memory clocks have only increased by a relatively small amount. Keep in mind that the Radeon X850 series is still a product refresh at heart. The real strength of the Radeon series update will be the improved availability and the expanded product line. Note that we tested the Radeon X850 XT PE on a PCI Express platform, but we chose to use an AGP system with the other video cards since we didn't have a full suite of high-end PCI Express cards.

All of the new Radeon cards will only be available in PCI Express at first. AGP versions are in the works, but ATI has not announced shipping dates yet. The ATI Radeon X850 XT PE cards will be available in early December, and the Radeon X800 XL cards will be available in late December.