Introduction

Now: R480 and R430 – have passed since the launch of two new ATi graphics chips a few months and slowly spin a graphics cards with these chips at the many online vendors in this country. While the Radeon X 850 XT Platinum Edition – How should it be different – yet in the category short supply falls, there’s Radeon X 800, X 800 XL and X 850 XT in larger quantities available for purchase; much to the delight of customers, because they can buy their awaited high end card after the misery with the R420 chips last year finally. We want to here and today a more Radeon X 850 XT to the acid test and check how it differs 850 XT of the Sapphire Radeon X tested by us.

Specifically this involves a video card from the House of Club3D. We look forward, now in the future more frequently to test cards this manufacturer, also a neat prize but often promise them along with an interesting design. Also applies to this 850 XT from Club3D Radeon X? At the latest in the conclusions, we will know it.

Technical data

Is also Club 3Ds Radeon X 850 XT largely based on the specifications with given ATi the various producers with the launch of R480 on the way. Because since the last generation as good as anything on the architecture has changed, we want to waste no superfluous words and summarize all important data on the basis of a table.

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ATis X8xx series now consists of well and like to seventeen different graphics cards. That there is confusion of the day when such a wide variety, can be hardly avoided. To bring at least some light in the darkness, we take all available models in a clearly arranged table together – of course divided by AGP and PCI-Express interface.

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The card

Overview

To Club 3Ds version of the Radeon X 850 XT better to be able to take the lane, we want to make the most important data of a map of the Sapphire Radeon X 850 XT a table opposite.

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Impressions

Club3D Radeon X 850 XT

Club3D understands itself as an exclusive manufacturer of video cards of all stripes. Only in the Radeon X 850 series familiar you seem fully on ATis standards and is also here the reference cooler. A short price at skinflint results in an average price of around 440 euros and currently (17.4.2005) first models even to 399 euros are available. With the availability, it looks at the moment still bad.

Because the PCB of the Club3D map based on the standard established by ATi, the card in addition to a D-Sub – has also a DVI output, as well as a video connection. Alternatively, Club3D offers also a version of the Radeon X 850 XT with two DVI outputs. Furthermore, also the Radeon X 850 XT from Club3D has the compulsory, six-pole power connector which supplies the R480 chip with additional power.

The arrangement of the components on the PCB Radeon X 850 XT corresponding meanwhile to fully the requirements of ATis. As already mentioned, also Club3D when own adapting of the X sets 850 XT to the reference cooler, which blocked a second slot for the first time in the history of Canadian graphics chip manufacturer.

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256 MB framebuffer based total to eight chips of type GDDR3 Samsung company. These chips each have a minimum access time of 1.6 ns and qualify so the estimated 540 MHz of BIOS for operation at up to 600 MHz. counterpart ‘ is therefore a difference of 60 MHz, which can be used for any Übertaktungsversuche. For such activities should be also beneficial that the memory chips on the front by pads with the copper base of cool are connected; the chips of the back be passively cooled at least by an aluminum bar.

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Test system

Test system PCI Express:

• Processor
  • Intel Pentium 4 3.4 GHz EE (Gallatin, 512 kB level 2 cache, 2048 kB level 3 cache)
• Motherboard (timings via SPD)
  • MSI 925X neo (socket LGA775, Intel i925X)
• Memory
  • 2 x 512 MB Kingston DDR2-533 (4-4-4-12)
• Graphics cards (coloured blue in the diagrams)
  • ATi Radeon X 850 XT Platinum Edition (540 / 590 MHz)
  • Club3D Radeon X 850 XT (520 / 540 MHz)
  • ATi Radeon X 800 XT (500 / 500 MHz)
  • ATi Radeon X 800 XL
  • ATi Radeon X 800
  • ATi Radeon X 700 XT
  • ATi Radeon X 700 Pro
  • ATi Radeon X 600 XT
  • nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra
  • nVidia GeForce 6800 GT
  • nVidia GeForce 6800 (256 MB) *
  • nVidia GeForce 6600 GT (500 / 500 MHz)
  • nVidia GeForce 6600 (300 / 275 MHz)
  • nVidia GeForce PCX 5900
• Peripherals
  • Pioneer DVD-drive (slot-in)
  • Western Digital 80 GB P-ATA HDD (8 MB cache)
• Driver versions
  • nVidia ForceWare 66.93
  • ATi catalyst 4.11
• Software
  • Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2
  • Microsoft Windows Media Player 9
  • Microsoft DirectX 9.0 c

Test system AGP 8 x:

• Processor
  • Intel Pentium 4 3.4 GHz EE (Gallatin, 512 kB level 2 cache, 2048 kB level 3 cache)
• Motherboard (timings via SPD)
  • Abit IC7-G (Socket 478, Intel i875P)
• Memory
  • 2 x 512 MB DDR400 Samsung (3-3-3-8)
• Graphics cards (grey coloured in the diagrams)
  • ATi Radeon X 800 XT “PE” (520 / 560 MHz)
  • ATi Radeon X 800 Pro
  • ATi Radeon 9800 XT
  • ATi Radeon 9800 Pro
  • nVidia GeForce 6600 GT (500 / 450 MHz)
  • nVidia GeForce FX 5950 ultra
• Peripherals
  • Pioneer DVD-drive (slot-in)
  • Western Digital 80 GB P-ATA HDD (8 MB cache)
• Driver versions
  • nVidia ForceWare 66.93
  • ATi catalyst 4.11
• Software
  • Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2
  • Microsoft Windows Media Player 9
  • Microsoft DirectX 9.0 c

We took out the settings in the drivers of graphics cards as follows: basically, we tried to achieve the maximum quality and provided the IQ slider to the level of “Quality” as in all GeForce series cards so that the optimized Trilinear filtering is enabled to get behind to the ATi cards. We left all other settings in the standard, which is enabled when installing the driver. That the current nVidia ForceWare driver already supports the shader model 3.0, is quite important, because FarCry 1.3 also offers this feature in the unofficial version 1.2 and the official version. At the ATi cards, we also left the IQ settings by default. Both nVidia-as also ATi graphics cards a comparable and acceptable image quality should return to during the entire test.

*Since we had still not GeForce 6800 PCI Express in our test lab, we emulated this card with a 6800 GT for PCI-E. To disable a total of four pipelines, we use the RivaTuner dominated such a feature.

Benchmarks

The following benchmarks were used during our test:

• Synthetic benchmarks:
  • 3DMark 03 version 340
  • 3DMark 05
  • Aquamark 3
• Game benchmarks:
  • Far cry V 1.3
  • Unreal Tournament 2004
  • RtCW – enemy territory
  • Tomb Raider – Angel of darkness
  • Half-life 2 (counter-strike: source, build 2124)
  • Doom 3

Synthetic benchmarks

3DMark03

Hard controversial, but still our readers interested most always still primarily’s 3DMark03 from the House of Futuremark. This prompted us to do so, but still on the course to integrate the benchmark program, because the reader is King after all. All anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering settings have been made in the programme and not have the drivers enforced.

3DMark05

3DMark 05 is future’s newest product to test current graphics cards. The previous version was still highly controversial, a performance of the 05 version was spared until now. Features the newly developed engine, based on the 3DMark 05, includes among other things support of shader model 2.b and 3.0 of current ATi-and nVidia cards. 3DMark 03 even on older graphics cards, ran a video card with DirectX 9.0 capabilities is essential for the use of the latest part. There are more details about this program in our detailed article.

Aquamark 3

It continues with Aquamark 3, which has largely been designed by the developers as an alternative to the 3DMark03. And so a game engine is based also this benchmark was used also in AquaNox 2 – revelation and SpellForce. However, it was brought for the Aquamark 3 once again up to date and supports now even some DirectX 9 effects. All the anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering settings have been made in the programme and enforced not by the driver.

Game benchmarks

Far cry

It must be said much about the game of FarCry actually no longer. It is one of the most graphically impressive titles on the market and makes such as Doom 3 tough competition. Thanks to a very flexible and advanced engine, the developer through the patch to the version 1.2 (and now also 1.3) were able to integrate some new features in the game. So, FarCry dominated nVidias, as well as the the shader model 2.b tailored to ATis cards from immediately the shader model 3.0 of the GeForce 6000 series. While the former nVidia cards helps achieve a more efficient processing of complex shaders by the so-called “branching”, ATi the shader model 2.0 (b) uses, as far as possible to achieve a more efficient calculation of the light sources. In addition, ATis R4x0 cards dominate the “geometry instancing”, which is actually part of SM 3.0 and leads to a better calculation of geometry data.

To take advantage of the cry engine, we activated the shader model 3.0 on all of the GeForce 6000 series nVidia cards as well as on all ATi X 800 cards the SM 2.b. The quality settings in the game we made to the respective maximum and took all settings relating to anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering in the game. The demo we use was recorded in the lighting and shader-intensive research level.

Unreal Tournament 2004

Further, it goes with Unreal Tournament 2004, a pretty current multiplayer shooter. This is largely based on the engine, with which even the predecessor was been programmed. However, it was enriched effects, so that now some particle effects are representable. To charge the graphics cards tested by us, we chose a flyby demo from the map “DM Inferno”. Anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering had to be enforced via the driver, since Unreal Tournament 2004 unfortunately no corresponding function.