PowerColor Radeon X800 GT Review

[nextpage title=”Introduction”]

Radeon X800 GT is the latest graphics chip released by ATI and it is targeted to the mid-range market, i.e., for people that can’t afford a high-end video card but can’t play with a low-end one. Usually mid-range video cards offer the best cost/benefit ratio, since they are not so expensive and they offer a good performance for the average user.

This new chip officially runs at 475 MHz, the same clock speed of Radeon X800 Pro, but it is capable of processing only eight pixels per clock cycle (the same amount as Radeon X800 SE), while Radeon X800 Pro can process up to 12 and Radeon X800 XT can process up to 16.

You have to pay a lot of attention to the memory configuration of video cards based on this chip. There are boards based on Radeon X800 GT using DDR, DDR2 and GDDR3 memories running at different speeds. We’ve seen GDDR3 models running at 980 MHz and DDR models running at 700 MHz. Also, we’ve seen video cards based on Radeon X800 GT accessing video memory at 128 bits and at 256 bits. Of course the 256-bit models will performance a lot better.

The model we reviewed from PowerColor accessed memory at 256 bits and 980 MHz, used GDDR3 chips and had a memory transfer rate of 31.36 GB/s

You can see in our tutorial “ATI Chips Comparison table” the difference between this new chip and the other chips from ATI, while on our tutorial “NVIDIA Chips Comparison Table” you can compare it to its competitors from NVIDIA. It is very important to keep in mind that NVIDIA chips from series 6 and 7 use a Shader 3.0 engine (DirectX 9.0c), while ATI chips still use Shader 2.0 (DirectX 9.0).

It is always important to remember that the “memory clock” column from these tables informs the chip manufacturer (ATI or NVIDIA) recommended clock. In some cases, specially on cheaper video cards, the card manufacturer uses simpler memory chips (in order to cut the board price) and lower memory clocks (compatible with the memory chip used), making the board to achieve a lower performance compared to boards that use the same graphics chip but with their memory chips running at the chip manufacturer recommended clock. Because of that, we always run PowerStrip software in order to check if the video card memory is running at the standard clock set by the chip manufacturer or running at a lower clock rate.

The reviewed Radeon X800 GT model from PowerColor runs at 472 MHz for the chip and 986 MHz for the memory.

This video card is targeted to the PCI Express bus, so in our review we will compare it only to other PCI Express video cards.

[nextpage title=”The Radeon X800 GT from PowerColor”]

PowerColor is a brand name from Tul. You can see Radeon X800 GT from this manufacturer on Figures 1 and 2.

Figure 1: PowerColor Radeon X800 GT.

Figure 2: PowerColor Radeon X800 GT, back view.

We disassembled the video card heatsink to take a look, see Figure 3. We were curious to see if this big heatsink touched the memory chips or not.

Figure 3: Video card with its heatsink detached.

The heatsink does not touch the memory chips, in Figure 4 we show this better.

Figure 4: The heatsink does not touch the memory chips.

This video card uses 2 ns GDDR3 memory chips from Samsung which can run up to 1 GHz, according to the manufacturer. Since this video card accesses the memory at 986 MHz, there is very little room for memory overclocking inside the memory’s specifications. But of course you can try overclock it over its specs.

Figure 5: 2 ns GDDR3 memory chip used by Radeon X800 GT from PowerColor.

This video card has two DVI connectors, allowing you to use two video monitors on your PC. The board comes with two DVI-to-VGA adapters, so you can transform these outputs into standard VGA outputs.

On Figure 6 you can see all cables and adapters that come with this video card.

Figure 6: Cables and adapters that come with Radeon X800 GT from PowerColor.

This video card comes with one complete game, Hitman Contracts.

Before going to our benchmarking results, let’s recap this video card main features.

[nextpage title=”Main Specifications”]

• Graphics chip: Radeon X800 GT running at 472 MHz.
• Memory: 2 ns 256-bit 256 MB GDDR3 memory from Samsung (K4J55323QF-GC20), running at 986 MHz.
• Bus type: PCI Express 16x.
• Connectors: Two DVI and one mini-DIN for S-Video output.
• Number of CDs that come with this board: Four.
• Games that come with this board: Hitman Contract (full version)
• Programs that come with this board: Cyberlink DVD Suite (PowerDirector, PowerDVD, PowerProducer, etc).
• More Information: https://www.powercolor.com
• Average Price in the USA*: USD 160.00

* Researched on https://www.pricewatch.com/ on the day we published this review.

[nextpage title=”How We Tested”]

During our benchmarking sessions, we used the configuration listed below. Between our benchmarking sessions the only different device was the video card being tested.

Hardware Configuration

• Motherboard: DFI LAN Party 925X-T2 (Intel 925X, Sep. 20th, 2004 BIOS)
• CPU: Pentium 4 3.4 GHz LGA 775
• Memory: Two 512 MB DDR2-533 CM2X512-4200 CL4 from Corsair memory modules
• Hard Drive: Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus (40 GB, ATA-133)
• Screen resolution: 1024x768x32@85 Hz

Software Configuration

• Windows XP Professional installed using NTFS
• Service Pack 2
• Direct X 9.0c
• Intel inf driver version: 6.0.1.1002
• ATI video driver version: 4.10 (6.14.10.6483)
• ATI video driver version: 4.12 (Radeon X850 Platinum Edition)
• ATI video driver version: 5.3 (Radeon X800 GT)
• NVIDIA video driver version: 66.93
• NVIDIA video driver version: 77.72 (GeForce 7800 GTX)
• NVIDIA video driver version: 78.02 (GeForce 7800 GT)
• MSI video driver version: 77.50 (GeForce 7800 GTX with D.O.T.)

Used Software

• 3DMark2001 SE
• 3DMark03 Business 3.50
• 3DMark05 Business 1.10
• Doom III
• Far Cry 1.3

We adopted a 3% error margin; thus, differences below 3% cannot be considered relevant. In other words, products with a performance difference below 3% should be considered as having similar performance.

[nextpage title=”3DMark2001 SE”]

3Dmark2001 SE measures video card performance simulating DirectX 8.1 games. It is very effective software for evaluating the performance from previous-generation games, programmed using DirectX 8. In this software we run six tests. We run the software in three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32, first without antialising and with no frame buffer, then we put the antialising at 4 samples and the frame buffer at triple-buffering. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to note that ATI chips can run at 6x antialising. Since NVIDIA chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialising to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our bechmarks, allowing direct comparison between them.

You may be asking yourself why we added an old program in a review of a latest generation  video card. To us, it is as important to know the performance of a video card with the latest games as it is to know its performance in an older game. That’s why we kept this software in our methodology.

At a resolution of 1024×768 without any image quality enhancement, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 19,79% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 22,51% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600 and 38,01% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 32.87% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 26.25% faster, MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 25.24% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 21.57% faster,  NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 21.54% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 17.25% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 15.94% faster, Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, which was 7.61% faster, and XFX GeForce 6600 GT, which was 3.28% faster than the board was been tested.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 39.54% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 41.14% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 67.99% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro and to XFX GeForce 6600 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 31.15% faster, MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 26.46% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 26.29% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 26.04% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 22.33% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 15.86% faster, and HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 13,65% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 6.68% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 14.66% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 61.27% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 79.71% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 117.11% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 32.67% faster, MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 30.19% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 29.97% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 29.37% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 24.17% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 14.89% faster, and HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 6.09% faster.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 13.33% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 59.00% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 73.07% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, and 88.21% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 32.04% faster, MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 28.44% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 28.28% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 24.31% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 18.66% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 11.23% faster, and HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 6.19% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 9.62% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 29.24% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 95.99% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 124.05% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, and 135.50% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 36.11% faster, MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 30.20% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 28.78% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 26.32% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 20.28% faster, and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 11.54% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 14.93% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 64.15% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 205.42% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 239.06% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 317.00% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 49.99% faster, MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 47.54% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 44.13% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 41.36% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 32.68% faster, and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 8.85% faster.

[nextpage title=”3DMark03″]

3Dmark03 measures performance by simulating games written to DirectX 9, which are contemporary games. We run this program in three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32, first without antialising and anisotropic filtering, and then configuring antialising at 4x and anisotropic filtering also at 4x. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to note that ATI chips can run at 6x antialising. Since NVIDIA chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialising to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our bechmarks, allowing direct comparison between them.

At a resolution of 1024×768 without any image quality enhancement, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 5.42% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 16.42% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 75.22% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 105.74% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 144.90% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 88.63% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 82.20% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 76.66% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 62.02% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 50.50% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 32.14% faster, and HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 7.55% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 11.65% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 26.05% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 90.64% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 125.59% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 169.05% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 94.97% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 87.37% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 81.45% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 63.04% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 52.91% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 31.00% faster, and HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 4.36% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 9.57% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 29.10% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 89.84% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 138.57% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 182.92% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 115.50% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 106.86% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 99.19% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 93.19% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 65.44% faster, and  NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 40.52% faster.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 14.05% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 39.67% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 100.34% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 142.32% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 184.59% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 124.52% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 116.20% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 108.42% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 88.90% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 70.19% faster, and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 45.24% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 37.53% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 42.75% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 134.00% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 159.29% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 189.03% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 138.42% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 128.95% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 120.75% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 95.29% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 79.22% faster, and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 47.64% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 43.27% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 50.61% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 151.80% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 253.28% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 278.07% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 157.77% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 149.61% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 137.74% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 127.11% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 94.28% faster, and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 55.38% faster.

[nextpage title=”3DMark05″]

3DMark05 measures performance by simulating DirectX 9.0c games, i.e., using the new Shader 3.0 model. This programming model is used by Far Cry game and other games to be launched in the future. This new programming model is used by GeForce 6 and 7 series from NVIDIA and Radeon X1000 series from ATI.

We run this program in three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32, first without antialising and anisotropic filtering, and then configuring antialising at 4x and anisotropic filtering also at 4x. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to note that ATI chips can run at 6x antialising. Since NVIDIA chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialising to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our benchmark, allowing direct comparison between them.

At a resolution of 1024×768 without any image quality enhancement, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 31.05% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 31.69% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 122.34% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 163.92% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 177.07% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 86.25% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 83.95% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 79.51% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 67.72% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 51.56% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 19.96% faster, and HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 5.58% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 34.84% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 55.24% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 141.30% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 192.12% faster than Sapphite Radeon X600 Pro, and 206.25% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 112.11% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 106.65% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 99.70% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 81.17% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 56.02% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 23.27% faster, and HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 5.07% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 35.49% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 91.77% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 156.78% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 197.79% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro, and 242.37% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 138.37% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 130.61% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 121.58% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 97.44% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 62.17% faster, and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 27.52% faster.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 43.55% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 148.95% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 208.67% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro, 242.67% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, and 254.82% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 100.09% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 95.91% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 88.89% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 73.50% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 55.15% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 15.48% faster, and HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 9.96% faster.

To run at 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements on 3DMark05 the video card must have at least 256 MB of memory, because of that some video cards couldn’t run this test. Here PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 44.43% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 209.71% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 328.06% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 125.25% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 117.49% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 108.52% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 87.54% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 61.96% faster, and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 19.38% faster.

To run at 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements on 3DMark05 the video card must have at least 256 MB of memory, because of that some video cards couldn’t run this test. Here PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 41.56% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 230.22% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 470.38% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 126.32% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 122.62% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 114.29% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 92.60% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 70.95% faster, and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 14.81% faster.

[nextpage title=”Doom 3″]Doom 3 is one of the heaviest games available today. As we’ve done on other programs, we ran this game at three resolutions: 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32. This game allows several image quality levels and we’ve done our benchmarking on two levels, low and high. We ran demo1 four times and wrote the obtained number of frames per second. The first result we discarded at once, since it is far inferior than the other results. This happens because at the first time we run the demo the game must load all textures to video memory, fact that doesn’t happen from the second time we run the demo on. From the three results left, we consider as our official result the middle result, i.e., we discard the highest and the lowest values. Curiously almost all times the values obtained at the second round on were the same.

A very important detail that we must mention is that Doom 3 has an internal FPS lock: it is only capable of generating 60 frames per second, even if your board is able to produce more frames per second than that. This is done in order to make the game to have the same “playability” sensation independently from the video card installed on the PC. This lock, however, is disabled in the game benchmarking mode.

For further details on how to measure 3D performance with Doom 3, read our tutorial on this subject.

At a resolution of 1024×768 without any image quality enhancement, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 25.36% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 28.84% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 125.57% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 176.59% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 37.45% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 35.58% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 35.01% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 34.00% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 21.23% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 18.65% faster, and XFX GeForce 6600 GT, which was 8.90% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 27.35% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 29.78% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 142.35% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 196.88% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 96.21% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 90.53% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 90.32% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 84.21% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 61.26% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 59.58% faster, and XFX GeForce 6600 GT, which was 26.11% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 20.00% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 24.71% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 142.75% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 200.00% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 167.92% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 158.18% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 154.09% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 139.62% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 102.52% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 96.23% faster, and XFX GeForce 6600 GT, which was 44.34% faster.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 31.15% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 35.73% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 137.77% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 188.65% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 44.33% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 42.81% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 41.91% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 41.60% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 26.48% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 23.60% faster, and XFX GeForce 6600 GT, which was 7.11% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 31.10% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 35.03% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 145.11% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 200.67% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 105.10% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GT, which was 98.45% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 96.67% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 92.24% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 64.97% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 60.53% faster, and XFX GeForce 6600 GT, which was 23.06% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 23.20% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 27.80% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 165.52% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 199.03% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 173.05% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 162.34% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 159.42% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 144.16% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 98.38% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 95.78% faster, and XFX GeForce 6600 GT, which was 40.91% faster.

[nextpage title=”Far Cry”]

Far Cry is a game based on the new Shader 3.0 (DirectX 9.0c) programming model available on series 6 and 7 from NVIDIA and series X1000 from ATI graphics chips. We’ve updated the game to version 1.3.
 
As we’ve done on other programs, we ran this game at three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32. This game allows several image quality levels and we’ve done our benchmarking on two levels, low and very high. To measure the performance we used the demo created by German magazine PC Games Hardware (PCGH), available at https://www.3dcenter.org/downloads/farcry-pcgh-vga.php. We run this demo four times and made an arithmetical average with the results. This average is the result presented in our graphs.

This game has a very important detail in its image quality configuration. Antialising, instead of being configured by numbers (1x, 2x, 4x or 6x) is configured as low, medium or high. The problem is that on NVIDIA chips both medium and high mean 4x, while on ATI chips medium means 2x and high means 6x, making the comparison between ATI and NVIDIA chips completely unfair. Because of that we configured antialising at 4x and anisotropic filtering at 8x manually at the video driver control panel.

For further details on how to measure 3D performance with Far Cry, read our tutorial on this subject.

At a resolution of 1024×768 without any image quality enhancement, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 5.64% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 8.30% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, and 16.04% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, ATI Radeon X600 XT and XFX GeForce 6600 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 11.44% faster, Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, which was 11.00% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, que foi 4.68% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 4.11% faster, and NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 3.35% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 43.17% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 45.34% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, and 74.96% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT and XFX GeForce 6600 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 12.17% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 12.01% faster, Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, which was 8.44% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 4.40% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 4.14% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 3.24% faster, and MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 3.21% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 11.56% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 15.89% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 92.43% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 103.84% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, and 149.62% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 17.75% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 9.83% faster, MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 9.79% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 9.40% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 9.22% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 5.23% faster, and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 4.67% faster.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 37.06% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 45.79% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 135.78% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 173.44% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro, and 197.81% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 37.27% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 35.85% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 35.07% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 35.07% faster, MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 34.72% faster, and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 21.72% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements, PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 3.80% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 41.45% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 54.49% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 164.70% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 181.91% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro, and 192.88% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 82.93% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 82.10% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 78.32% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 70.29% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 68.19% faster, and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 29.18% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was 40.48% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 43.93% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 149.20% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 249.63% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro, and 301.00% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT.

PowerColor Radeon X800 GT was beaten by MSI – DOT GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 124.23% faster, XFX GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 115.40% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 106.69% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 92.92% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 86.23% faster, and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 21.99% faster.

[nextpage title=”Conclusions”]

Radeon X800 GT was clearly launched to compete with GeForce 6600 GT, achieving a better performance than Radeon X700 Pro. In almost all tests Radeon X800 GT was faster than GeForce 6600 GT – in some cases up to 50% –, which is great news.

We think Radeon X800 GT brings a terrific cost/benefit ratio, costing almost the same thing as GeForce 6600 GT: both are in the USD 160 range, but you can find some places selling NVIDIA model a little bit cheaper.

On the other hand, you have to keep two things in mind. First, Doom 3, which is definitely a game for NVIDIA. If you are looking for a mid-range video card for playing this particular game, GeForce 6600 GT is our recommendation.

Second, GeForce 6600 GT supports SLI. If you have a motherboard with nForce 4 SLI you can buy a GeForce 6600 GT today and then another GeForce 6600 GT in the future to theoretically double your system gaming performance.

Yes, you can counter-argument that ATI has Crossfire. But so far Crossfire is still a dream. No motherboards available at the market, and you will need a “master” video card, which hasn’t been released yet. Also, since Crossfire is not available at the market yet, it is not clear if it will support Radeon X800 GT or not.

But, as we mentioned, costing almost the same thing as GeForce 6600 GT and achieving a performance up to 50% higher, depending on the game, Radeon X800 GT from PowerColor is perfect for the average user that wants good performance and good price. Go for it!