The X800 XL board

Dual DVI and VIVO

If you recall the specs for the X800 XL, you’ll know that ATI’s reference design only calls for a DVI/VGA display configuration. Dual DVI is exclusive to the X850 line only. However, PowerColor has decided to integrate dual DVI connections on their RADEON X800 XL card, allowing card owners a greater amount of flexibility in display options. (The Silicon Image DVI transmitter is located on the top of the card, just in front of the card’s fan.) This allows you to connect two high-end flat panel monitors via the dual DVI connections for sharper visuals, or if you have a CRT and an LCD, you can use the bundled DVI adapter to power your CRT monitor.

PowerColor RADEON X800 XL card

Back of the card

The one aspect we were a little disappointed with was the lack of a second DVI adapter. PowerColor only includes one adapter in the card’s packaging. So if you’d like to use your PowerColor X800 XL card with two VGA-based monitors, you’ll have to pick up a second DVI-to-VGA adapter.

Dual DVIs on the card

Silicon Image DVI transmitter

The second aspect that sets the PowerColor RADEON X800 XL apart from other manufacturer’s cards is its video input capability. PowerColor uses ATI’s Rage Theater chip for VIVO (video-in/video-out) support. PowerColor includes one other hardware goodie with their X800 XL card: a component video cable for outputting directly to your HDTV (an S-Video cable is also provided). The HDTV cable is a feature that we only expected to find in X850 cards.

Rage Theater chip

2.0ns memory module

Besides those changes, the other feature you’ll notice on PowerColor’s RADEON X800 XL card is its cooler: rather than sticking with ATI’s reference cooler design, which is borrowed from the X800 PRO/XT and is copper-based, PowerColor decided to go with a larger aluminum cooler of their own design.

As you can see, the aluminum heatsink PowerColor uses is massive, nearly encompassing the entire board. The heatsink is then encapsulated in a thin metal shroud. A large fan is responsible for feeding the card with fresh air, which passes within the duct, over the R430 core and memory, and finally, out the sides of the X800 XL card. PowerColor places the fan offset of the graphics core to increase the effectiveness of the ducting system.

We assumed that the fan on the PowerColor board was designed to operate dynamically based on temperature, as most RADEON cards have been designed to do, however the fan ran at top speed at all times. Normally the fan on previous RADEON cards we’ve tested runs at full speed when you first turn on your computer, then slows down to more moderate levels – the fan only cranks up to full speed again when the board begins to overheat. Since the PowerColor fan never cranks down, the increased noise levels can get a little annoying, especially when the system is running conventional 2D applications on the Windows desktop such as Word or when browsing the internet.

Heat exits here

Power connector added to board

One interesting board design change we noticed on the PowerColor RADEON X800 XL board was the presence of an external power connection on the upper right edge of the board. If you look at our RADEON X800 XL reference card provided by ATI last year, you’ll notice that it doesn’t require an external power connection. We were curious to see if the power connector was necessary. Therefore, we decided to try and run the PowerColor board without using the power connector. Needless to say, our experiment didn’t work – the PowerColor board required the external power connector. Without it, the board merely booted up to a warning message telling us to turn off the system and connect the external power connection.

Hardware/software accessories

Besides the DVI adapter, HDTV and S-Video cables, PowerColor also includes one composite cable, a 6-pin PCI Express power adapter, and VIVO cable. Software bundled with the card includes the driver CD, a copy of Hitman: Contracts, PowerDVD 5.0, PowerProducer 2.0 Gold DVD, PowerDirector 3.0 SE, Power2Go 3.0, and Media Show 2.0 SE.