joe-cool's Full Review: ATI RADEON® X800 PRO, (256 MB) AGP Video Card
When I got my Dell system two years ago, my graphics card was mid grade, but it still pulled off some amazing things. But now, being two years later, my Geforce MX410 was getting a little tired. And since I want to run everything so it looks all nice and pretty, I needed an upgrade.
I liked Nvidia and I figured that I'd just stick with it and get another Nvidia card. But some of the recent releases that they've spun out did't look too great. Their 5800 Ultra model was dubbed "the leaf blower," and their 5950 Ultra model wasn't much faster than the cards out during that time...and both took up two slots and required a junk load of power! So with all of this funky two slot nonsense and ridiculous wattage recommendations, I decided it was time to convert.
Good things:
Alright, let's the most obvious out of the way: the graphics look damn fine on this thing and this card is damn fast. I know it's no ATI X800 XT or Nvidia 6800, but the graphics are still 'effin spectacular, and I've still got (some) money left in my pocket. As opposed to most modern day graphics boards, the X800 has a whooping 12 parallel pixel pipelines, while most other graphic cards have 8. This gives games a much more colorful and richer look; textures on anything looks a lot better than any other card I've seen in action. Simply put, this card is amazing when it comes to handling graphics.
I've been able to throw any current game at this beast and then watch the card laugh as it renders everything perfectly. I play Max Payne 2 with everything maxed out, which includes 6 samples of Antialiasing and Trilinear texture filtering (and a whole lot more). All of this at a resolution of 1280 x 1024 x 32, without a single slow down, even when you run through thick smogs of smoke and such. I almost cried on how...perfect it looked. There wasn't a single jagged line anywhere, and the textures looked amazing. The big copper heatsink and the large fan keep this card cool too; I never experienced a lock-down or a crash because of overheating. Not to mention that this card runs Pixelshader very well, something that the MX410 didn't even come with, meaning that half of the cool games that were out with Pixelshader couldn't even run on my computer. I was thrilled to finally play Dues Ex 2, with 6x multisampling and at a resolution of 1280 x 1024, because I had to wait nearly half a year to play it. And of course, the X800 handled it perfectly like it was its job to (okay, that was bad). This card also runs Direct X 9.0 mighty fine as well, and it also has OpenGL 2.0 support.
Now you might be thinking, "Man this guy's computer must be tricked out to the max!" Well, not exactly. The only thing to brag about other than the X800 is my 768 RAM! I've got only a P4 1.8 GHZ running in there, but the graphics are still great. If you got a mid-range system like mine, getting the X800 will increase graphic qualities ten fold. Eventually I plan to upgrade to a P4 3.0 GHZ soon, which I will discuss in a moment.
But what about some other top notch games that are out? How does the X800 pro stack up? Well, first off, we've got the PC game of the year: Half-Life 2 This game looks great! I mean, like great!. I've got it running at a cool 30+ framerates with Antialiasing at 4X and Anisotropic 8X and maxed out textures, all at a screen resolution of 1024 X 768, which is not that bad at all. (Also, the X800 is supposed to perform better in regards of Half-Life 2. I talk more about it in my Half-Life 2 review). Basically put, the game looks freaking amazing, and the X800 is a wise choice for Half-Life 2.
And let me tell you that Doom 3 looks gorgeous also! The gritty textures of the Mars base look too real, the creatures look too scary, and it runs with a resolution of 1024 x 768, with 4 samplings of antialiasing, with all the goods turned on (shadows, bump mapping, high effects), with all the effects turned to medium quality...all on my computer, whose processor is barely meeting the minimum requirements! Although I did see some slow downs when a lot of bad monster guys came on the screen, it was due to my processor, and not he X800. My brother bought the same game himself and has the same graphics card that I used to, and let me tell you: my eyes felt like they were going to bleed. So if you're reading this review to find if this graphics card is supreme for Doom 3, you won't be disappointed. I'm surprised I got the thing running with all of my other stuff under the hood, and the biggest aid comes from the X800.
So anyways, setting the graphics card up isn't that hard at all. The hardest part for me was just getting the case open. Then all you have to do is whip out your old card, and slip in the new, copper obsessed X800 and plug in the cables to your hard drive and your power supply. That's right, this thing does require you to plug it in to the power supply, but it's not that hard to do or figure out (and the included instructions are very helpful too). After that, plug everything in, and then load the new Catalyst software on, and you're ready to enter a whole new dimension of gaming. The Catalyst software is extremely effective for I have been able to play all of my old and new games without a problem at all.
The card's instructions say that you should run the X800 on a 300W to 350W power supply. Just be thankful, though, that this card has such low power requirements. The competitor, the Nvidia 6800, requires a 480 watt power plug in! Holy coconuts! Anyway, I've been lucky running this thing on only a 250W power supply. Although I've been running this card fine, I would recommend that you run it under the recommended power requirements. My computer is in a very well ventilated area, and not underneath some desk, so if yours is under your desk enclosed in a wooden cabinet of some sort, I recommend that you get at least a 300W power supply. Not really a con of the card, but you might want to be over prepared in this situation.
Additional things that come in the box are composite and S-video cables, a HDTV (?!) out cable, a DVI to VGA adapter, plus a power cable connector. If you're a multimedia nut and you're ready to hook this thing up to your TV the instant you get it, you'll go crazy over the stuff they give you. Personally, I really don't use such things. My other graphics card had a TV/OUT option, but I just didn't feel like playing games on the tube. As for the HDTV, I wish I had that, but the box claims that the graphics presented is close to HDTV quality, and I wouldn't argue with that.
Basically, this card takes kicking butt to a whole 'nuther level. It's amazing and worth every cent. Go out and buy it right now.
Not so Good things:
Oh wait, I forgot about this category. Let me think...okay. This thing craves CPU power. I've got it running under a P4 1.8, and with everything turned on maximum when it comes to gaming, I'm achieving around 30 FPS in pretty much every single game. In PCGamer, I've seen benchmarks at least 20 FPS higher in the same games, but that was on a system with a P4 3.0. Really, the limiting factor in my benchmarks is the actual processor. If you've got a fast CPU, then fine, but others below something equivalent of a P4 2.0 GHZ might want to look in upgrading further down the road, so they don't cheat the X800 out of the possible performance that it could be achieving, because it's capable of doing a heck of a lot of things. I'm still satisfied with the performance its giving me currently, but eventually I'm going to upgrade.
Another con that's not really associated with the X800 is this whole thing about PCI Express. My mother board is AGP slotted, so I didn't feel like upgrading my whole mother board to get the PCI equivalent. Even though it is 16X fast (twice as fast as the AGP version), my guess is that you'd be fiddling with a few framerates, unless you've got a non exsistant P5 4.3...at least I hope so. I think I'm just being a little too paranoid. I mean, when you've got a graphics card that blistering fast, the processor is the limiting factor, like I said before. Still, I just hope that AGP sticks around for a little longer. Go AGP!
Other than that, there's really nothing to complain about the card. It's expensive, yes, but if you want a card that's amazing, you're gonna have to shell over some dough to get it. I was really fortunate to get this thing for a "steal" at $350 at Bestbuy.com, but that was with a sale going on. I would've ordered from Newegg.com, for I've heard nothing but praises from that site, but their price was almost as much as the retail for the ATI Radeon X800 XT, so I decided to pass on that offer. The retail price should be around $400, but I'd say it's worth every penny.
The last con is that this thing doesn't come with a ticket for Half-life 2. I've seen a few, not many, but a few cards, primarily by ATI, that have a free coupon to get Half-life 2...whenever it ships. That is kind of a bummer, but it's not like every single graphic card out there ships with such an option, so I just whatevered it.
The Verdict:
Don't let the long list of Bad things fool you. The only real "bad" things are its price and its CPU feeding frenzy. Other than that, this card has cured my computer of jaggy lines, and low resolutions, and any game I throw at it is handled with pure professionalism. This card is great, and now that I've converted from Nvidia to ATI, I don't think I'm ever going back.
Plus, the box brags about it being the official graphics for Half-life 2. What more can you want from that statement? (And don't say Half-Life 2!)
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