ATi Radeon X1800 XL review
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ATi promised the release of its new graphics chips in ‘Summer 2005’. A look out of the window confirms that ATi is pushing the definition of summer by a long way, but it may have been worth the wait. The reason for the delay is that the X1800 GPU has been through three circuit revisions before a certain gremlin was spotted and removed. With three optimising revisions, we should see less flaws and higher yields when it comes to final production, meaning availability should be good too.
The biggest initial shock is that the X1800 is ‘only’ a 16-pixel pipeline GPU. Compared to the 24-pixel pipes of the 7800 GTX and 20 of the 7800 GT, you’ll think something’s amiss. Not so. Both nVidia cards actually have 16 ROPs (Render Output Processors) and so can still only throw 16 pixels into the frame buffer per clock cycle, just as the X1800 can. But this XL GPU runs at 500MHz compared with its rival 7800 GT’s 400MHz, letting it theoretically output an extra 1. 6-billion pixels per second more. This difference in core clock speeds is largely thanks to the use of 90nm transistors. These are more efficient than the 110nm transistors in the 7800 GPU, switching faster and using less power.
These are impressive advances considering this is ATi’s first Shader Model 3-compliant chip – a significant change from the previous generation. That means support across the whole X1000 range for the shiny new graphics in next year’s Windows Vista and, right now, the real possibility of High Dynamic Rendering in games such as Far Cry and the imminent Lost Coast level for Half-Life 2. But where the 7800 GPU applies brute force, with its extra pixel pipelines taking excess load, ATi uses techniques such as dynamic branching between pixel pipelines, and claims that these should now be called pixel processors.
Whatever they’re called, they’re certainly more intelligent and complex than basic pipelines. Pixels are asked which textures they require before entering the pixel processor, and told to wait in line while these are fetched from local memory. In the meantime, using the branching structure, the pixel processor can be sent another pixel with attendant textures. This ensures that every pixel processor is working on a pixel whenever it can, instead of idling while textures for a pixel are fetched. To help the large amounts of data move quickly around the GPU, there’s a 512-bit Ring Bus architecture memory controller. This leads ATi to boldly claim that certain operations on its hardware can take one clock cycle compared to seven on nVidia’s.
But only benchmarking will show whether this is of more than academic interest. Pitched against nVidia’s 7800 GT, it’s clearly faster in Far Cry; 8fps faster at our standard settings and 12fps faster at 1,600 x 1,200 with the same AA and AF. Doom 3 is a different story, however, with nVidia still the king of OpenGL. ATI’s card remains around 15fps slower at both resolutions – there’s clearly more work to be done here, but it can’t be taken as indicative of performance as OpenGL games are a dying breed. However you look at it, this is a fantastically quick card, and we’d expect to see better scores with finished drivers and game patches too. This is especially the case when it comes to HDR, which produced the same mediocre results, regardless of other settings – most likely a glitch in the early software.
There’s also a new anti-aliasing technique called Adaptive Anti-Aliasing (AAA). Not only does this add gamma correction to the anti-aliasing, but the effect is used only where it would bring an improvement to image quality, thus improving performance. In testing, we saw little difference, but again we were using beta drivers. There’s also a High-Quality anisotropy mode to correct shimmering errors as well as blending textures smoothly.
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Radeon X1800 XL — Technical City
ATI
Radeon X1800 XL
Buy
- Interface PCIe 1. 0 x16
- Core clock speed 500 MHz
- Max video memory 256 MB
- Memory type GDDR3
- Memory clock speed 1000 MHz
- Maximum resolution
Summary
ATI started Radeon X1800 XL sales 1 October 2005. This is R500 architecture desktop card based on 90 nm manufacturing process and primarily aimed at gamers. 256 MB of GDDR3 memory clocked at 1 GHz are supplied, and together with 256 Bit memory interface this creates a bandwidth of 32 GB/s.
Compatibility-wise, this is single-slot card attached via PCIe 1.0 x16 interface. Its manufacturer default version has a length of 241 mm. 1x 6-pin power connector is required, and power consumption is at 70 Watt.
We have no data on Radeon X1800 XL benchmark results.
General info
Of Radeon X1800 XL’s architecture, market segment and release date.
Place in performance rating | not rated | |
Architecture | R500 (2005−2007) | |
GPU code name | R520 | |
Market segment | Desktop | |
Release date | 1 October 2005 (17 years ago) | |
Current price | $195 | of 49999 (A100 SXM4) |
Technical specs
Radeon X1800 XL’s general performance parameters such as number of shaders, GPU base clock, manufacturing process, texturing and calculation speed. These parameters indirectly speak of Radeon X1800 XL’s performance, but for precise assessment you have to consider its benchmark and gaming test results.
Core clock speed | 500 MHz | of 2610 (Radeon RX 6500 XT) |
Number of transistors | 321 million | of 14400 (GeForce GTX 1080 SLI Mobile) |
Manufacturing process technology | 90 nm | of 4 (GeForce RTX 4080 Ti) |
Thermal design power (TDP) | 70 Watt | of 900 (Tesla S2050) |
Texture fill rate | 8.000 | of 939.8 (h200 SXM5) |
Compatibility, dimensions and requirements
Information on Radeon X1800 XL’s compatibility with other computer components. Useful when choosing a future computer configuration or upgrading an existing one. For desktop video cards it’s interface and bus (motherboard compatibility), additional power connectors (power supply compatibility).
Interface | PCIe 1.0 x16 | |
Length | 241 mm | |
Width | 1-slot | |
Supplementary power connectors | 1x 6-pin |
Memory
Parameters of memory installed on Radeon X1800 XL: its type, size, bus, clock and resulting bandwidth. Note that GPUs integrated into processors have no dedicated memory and use a shared part of system RAM instead.
Memory type | GDDR3 | |
Maximum RAM amount | 256 MB | of 128 (Radeon Instinct MI250X) |
Memory bus width | 256 Bit | of 8192 (Radeon Instinct MI250X) |
Memory clock speed | 1000 MHz | of 21000 (GeForce RTX 3090 Ti) |
Memory bandwidth | 32 GB/s | of 14400 (Radeon R7 M260) |
Video outputs and ports
Types and number of video connectors present on Radeon X1800 XL. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference graphics cards, since for notebook ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model, while non-reference desktop models can (though not necessarily will) bear a different set of video ports.
Display Connectors | 2x DVI, 1x S-Video |
API support
APIs supported by Radeon X1800 XL, sometimes including their particular versions.
DirectX | 9.0c (9_3) | |
Shader Model | 3.0 | |
OpenGL | 2.0 | of 4.6 (GeForce GTX 1080 Mobile) |
OpenCL | N/A | |
Vulkan | N/A |
Benchmark performance
Non-gaming benchmark performance of Radeon X1800 XL. Note that overall benchmark performance is measured in points in 0-100 range.
We have no data on Radeon X1800 XL benchmark results.
Here is our recommendation of several graphics cards that are more or less close in performance to the one reviewed.
User rating
Here you can see the user rating of the graphics card, as well as rate it yourself.
Questions and comments
Here you can ask a question about Radeon X1800 XL, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch.
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Place in the performance rating | The | 9 | Architecture | R500 (2005–2007) | 90 ti) |
Memorial capacity | 32.00 GB/s | of 14400 (Radeon R7 M260) |
Video Exigions
Types and number of video connectors present on Radeon X1800 XL. As a rule, this section is relevant only for desktop reference video cards, since for laptop ones the availability of certain video outputs depends on the laptop model.
Video connectors | |
OpenCl | N/A | VULKAN |
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These are the results of Radeon X1800 XL rendering performance tests in non-gaming benchmarks. The overall score is set from 0 to 100, where 100 corresponds to the fastest video card at the moment.
We don’t have any test results for the Radeon X1800 XL.
Here we recommend several video cards that are more or less close in performance to the reviewed one.
User rating
Here you can see the rating of the video card by users, as well as put your own rating.
Tips and comments
Here you can ask a question about the Radeon X1800 XL, agree or disagree with our judgements, or report an error or mismatch.