Bruce
May 4th, 2005, 04:52 PM
GameSpot Article
http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-17118-1925-x-x-x
If you're willing to make the risky bet that game developers will actually put out titles that demand 512MB video cards in the next 18 months, then this is the card for you.
By James Yu
Posted Tuesday, May 3rd 2005
You could say that the push toward 512MB video cards started on July 26, 2004. That's the day that id programmer Robert Duffy explained that Doom 3 doesn't default to "ultra quality" graphics settings right out of the box, because the uncompressed graphics data in ultra mode can only completely fit into a 512MB card. Duffy warned that "hitching" or chugging can occur on cards with less memory.
screenshot
The front of the 512MB X800 XL has a heavy-duty heatsink.
It turns out that Doom 3 still ran really well in "high quality" mode, but Duffy's statements still created a good deal of hardware anxiety among gamers who couldn't stand the thought of not being able to run the game at the best graphical setting available. It took almost a year, but the first 512MB video cards are finally hitting the market.
Featuring more onboard memory than many desktop PCs, ATI's new 512MB Radeon X800 XL video card is just right for forward-looking gamers who are concerned about the memory demands of next-generation PC titles. ATI tweaked its Radeon X800 XL board design to make room for 16 memory modules. The card will have a 16-pipeline, 400MHz core, 490MHz memory (980MHz DDR-effective), and Dual DVI connectors with an additional VIVO (video-in, video-out) port.
The 512MB Radeon X800 XL will retail for $449, which is $150 more than the $299 Radeon X800 XL 256MB. Given its price, the 512MB card is primarily for consumers looking at cards like the Radeon X850 XT and the GeForce 6800 Ultra. Even though the X850 XT and the 6800 Ultra offer higher clock speeds, some gamers may choose the 512MB in preparation for next-generation game titles that will require a large amount of video card memory for the highest-quality video settings.
ATI will not be producing any 512MB Radeon X800 XL cards itself. The new luxury card will only be available from ATI's board partners: Sapphire, Abit, MSI, Gigabyte, TUL, and HIS.
screenshot
The memory on the back of the card has extra cooling.
While the 512MB video card might be good for hardware chest-puffing, it's really not necessary in current games. In our 3DMark and game testing, we tried ratcheting up anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering settings to get the extra memory put into play, but the peculiar benchmark results on the more demanding tests indicate that some of our cards might be disabling filters for the settings that they can't run. However, we can still say that the 512MB isn't worth it right now since we had to increase image quality settings to the point where we were sacrificing an unreasonable amount of performance just to find areas where games might be limited by graphics memory.
The 512MB option is an expensive forward-looking proposition. If you're willing to make the risky bet that game developers will actually put out titles that demand 512MB video cards in the next 18 months, then this is the card for you. The Radeon X800 Xl 512MB offers great performance by virtue of its 400MHz, 16-pipeline core, but given the fact that most game developers are still creating games for the 128MB or 256MB target high-end video card, it'll probably be safe to wait a graphics generation or two before making the leap to 512MB.
http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-17118-1925-x-x-x
If you're willing to make the risky bet that game developers will actually put out titles that demand 512MB video cards in the next 18 months, then this is the card for you.
By James Yu
Posted Tuesday, May 3rd 2005
You could say that the push toward 512MB video cards started on July 26, 2004. That's the day that id programmer Robert Duffy explained that Doom 3 doesn't default to "ultra quality" graphics settings right out of the box, because the uncompressed graphics data in ultra mode can only completely fit into a 512MB card. Duffy warned that "hitching" or chugging can occur on cards with less memory.
screenshot
The front of the 512MB X800 XL has a heavy-duty heatsink.
It turns out that Doom 3 still ran really well in "high quality" mode, but Duffy's statements still created a good deal of hardware anxiety among gamers who couldn't stand the thought of not being able to run the game at the best graphical setting available. It took almost a year, but the first 512MB video cards are finally hitting the market.
Featuring more onboard memory than many desktop PCs, ATI's new 512MB Radeon X800 XL video card is just right for forward-looking gamers who are concerned about the memory demands of next-generation PC titles. ATI tweaked its Radeon X800 XL board design to make room for 16 memory modules. The card will have a 16-pipeline, 400MHz core, 490MHz memory (980MHz DDR-effective), and Dual DVI connectors with an additional VIVO (video-in, video-out) port.
The 512MB Radeon X800 XL will retail for $449, which is $150 more than the $299 Radeon X800 XL 256MB. Given its price, the 512MB card is primarily for consumers looking at cards like the Radeon X850 XT and the GeForce 6800 Ultra. Even though the X850 XT and the 6800 Ultra offer higher clock speeds, some gamers may choose the 512MB in preparation for next-generation game titles that will require a large amount of video card memory for the highest-quality video settings.
ATI will not be producing any 512MB Radeon X800 XL cards itself. The new luxury card will only be available from ATI's board partners: Sapphire, Abit, MSI, Gigabyte, TUL, and HIS.
screenshot
The memory on the back of the card has extra cooling.
While the 512MB video card might be good for hardware chest-puffing, it's really not necessary in current games. In our 3DMark and game testing, we tried ratcheting up anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering settings to get the extra memory put into play, but the peculiar benchmark results on the more demanding tests indicate that some of our cards might be disabling filters for the settings that they can't run. However, we can still say that the 512MB isn't worth it right now since we had to increase image quality settings to the point where we were sacrificing an unreasonable amount of performance just to find areas where games might be limited by graphics memory.
The 512MB option is an expensive forward-looking proposition. If you're willing to make the risky bet that game developers will actually put out titles that demand 512MB video cards in the next 18 months, then this is the card for you. The Radeon X800 Xl 512MB offers great performance by virtue of its 400MHz, 16-pipeline core, but given the fact that most game developers are still creating games for the 128MB or 256MB target high-end video card, it'll probably be safe to wait a graphics generation or two before making the leap to 512MB.