 www.bit-tech.net
|
In the site:
In its current state, the fan operates at its higher speed setting more often than its at the lower speed, meaning that the card is often loud.
Over the course of this article, we'll explain the architecture behind ATI's new X1000 series to you, and then go on to evaluate the gaming performance of Sapphire's Radeon X1800XL.
The days of getting the same titles over and over again when you upgrade your video card are gone - if the games bundle is important to you, Sapphire seems to have it all covered.
Don't get me wrong, it's great that this card has a single slot cooling solution, but in practice, the cooler seems to be lacking in the silence department.
The box design is an interesting one for Sapphire - we're used to seeing dark blue coloured boxes from them.
We were introduced to this idea at CeBit and it is great to see that Sapphire have gone ahead to include it with their Radeon X1800XL.
On launch day, availability was non-existent , despite ourselves, and many other publications being under the impression that at least a limited number of cards would be available in time for the launch.
Seeing as the card has two dual-link DVI ports, we hope that Sapphire will amend this bundle to include a second VGA-to-DVI converter for those gamers who are still running two analogue monitors.
bit-tech.net | Sapphire Radeon X1800XL
Finally, there is some additional software included to get you started with the VIVO capabilities that this card has.
Sapphire has included PowerDVD and PowerDirector from Cyberlink, along with an instruction manual and driver installation CD.
On the 5th October, ATI announced its new Radeon X1000 series of video cards. Today, Tim Smalley has a look at Sapphire's X1800XL implementation and also chews on the technology behind R520. We compare the card with three different GeForce 7800 GT's in a variety of real-world gaming scenarios.
Last week, ATI announced its new and highly anticipated line of graphics processing units, headed by the heavily-discussed R520.
When gaming, the card operates at full speed all of the time and it was clearly louder than the cooler on both the GeForce 7800 GT and GTX.
At the least, we hope that Sapphire and the rest of ATI's partners will spend time improving the cooling solution on this card, or at least the fan speed thresholds.
It is not surprising to see Sapphire as one of the first board partners to ship ATI's new video cards, as they're ATI's biggest partner worldwide by a considerable margin.
We were finally able to refer to R5xx series of graphics processors as the Radeon X1000 product line.
We're used to ATI's video cards being a lot shorter than the competing models from NVIDIA, but it appears that things have changed this time around.
Once you've used the trial period up, you'll be asked to enter a registration code or asked if you would like to purchase the game to continue playing.
Without doubt, we feel that the adjustable fan speed thresholds need a little reworking in the VGA BIOS, as we found this card is unexpectedly loud for an ATI video card.
|
You will find:: Sapphire, Radeon, R520, XL, review, HDR, 7800GT, technology, Ring Bus Memory Controller, GeForce, 7800 GT, X1000, X1800, benchmark, architecture, X1800XL, ATI
|
