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ATI RADEON X800 XT & X600 XT PCI-E Performance Preview June 19, 2004 Brandon Sandman Bell |
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Summary: While ATI announced its PCI Express graphics cards earlier this month, performance figures weren't disclosed. But now that Intel has officially launched their PCI Express chipsets, it's time to reveal the performance of these parts. In today's article Brandon examines the performance of the RADEON X800 XT and RADEON X600 XT. See how much of a difference PCI Express makes, as well as how the X600 XT compares to the RADEON 9600 XT. And with our CPU-scaling benchmarks, you can determine which processor to pair with these cards. It's all inside!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 28 ) |
With today’s launch of Intel’s 915 and 925 family of chipsets, PCI Express finally makes its debut on the PC. In case you didn’t know, PCI Express is Intel’s next generation bus that’s been designed to replace today’s PCI and AGP devices. On the graphics side, PCI Express can deliver up to twice the bandwidth of AGP 8X when fully configured, ushering in the capability to perform a wide variety of applications beyond just gaming.
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In preparation for PCI Express’s debut, ATI has been busy preparing a top-to-bottom family of native PCI Express solutions. ATI feels this gives them a distinctive advantage in both performance and cost over NVIDIA, and based on our talks with board partners who have seen PCI Express hardware from both companies, this is true. Here’s a look at ATI’s AGP and PCI Express parts for this summer:
Notes
As you can see, ATI has no plans for an AGP X800 XT board, or AGP-based X600 and X300 cards. Meanwhile, the X800 PRO will be AGP only. Keep in mind that this chart summarizes ATI’s current plans and not those of its board partners: we saw quite a few PCI Express X800 PRO boards at Computex a few weeks ago. Don’t expect to see an AGP X600 or X300 card from any manufacturers however.
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ATI is currently shipping all of its PCI Express cards to OEM and SI channels, with retail availability to follow later at an unspecified date, the prices listed above indicated with a tilde should be considered approximations until they officially ship. According to ATI: “PCI Express products that are "shipping now" are shipping to OEM and SI customers. As there isn't an upgrade or DIY market for PCI Express graphics cards we will not be shipping to retail until later. Retail availability of these products has not yet been fully determined. Some may be available from ATI and its partners, some from partners only. The final retail availability will be somewhat dependant on the retail market for build-your-own PCI Express systems.”
| The X800 XT and X600 XT | Page:: ( 2 / 28 ) |
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ATI’s X800 XT
As you probably know by now, ATI’s new flagship is the RADEON X800 XT Platinum Edition. The Platinum Edition is built for the enthusiast who wants uncompromising performance, and is willing to pay a king’s ransom to get it. One OEM however didn’t like the thermals on the Platinum Edition board for PCI Express, hence the need to create a slightly slower XT part that generated less heat, as this OEM is a significant chunk of ATI’s business. This is how the PCI Express-only X800 XT was born.
The X800 XT sports the same 16-pixel pipeline architecture as the X800 XT Platinum Edition, only its memory and graphics core are clocked more conservatively: 500MHz on the core, and 500MHz (1.0GHz effective) on the memory. Also like the PCI Express X800 XT Platinum Edution, the X800 XT requires an external power source to keep the card fed with juice while the PCI Express version of the X800 PRO doesn’t need an external power connection. A new 6-pin plug has replaced the Molex connector found on AGP boards (an adapter is provided just in case your power supply doesn’t have the new connector on it):
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Physically the X800 XT looks just like previous X800 boards, ATI has made no changes to the reference design. The only distinctive characteristic that separates the X800 XT from previous AGP-based X800 cards we’ve benchmarked is its longer PCI Express interface, and while our board is equipped with video input support (which is provided by the Rage Theater chip on the underside of the board) final retail boards may or may not ship with this feature onboard.
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Our board shipped with 2.0ns GDDR3 memory modules (part number K4J55323QF), which is good for 500MHz exactly. Platinum Edition reference boards have been shipping with 1.6ns modules.
ATI’s OVERDRIVE software functions perfectly with the RADEON X800 XT, just as it does with the Platinum Edition. Unfortunately, the core clock frequency was limited to just 506MHz in our testing, an adjustment of just 6MHz over default (temperature reading was 45 degrees Celsius). Hopefully with a bit more prodding we can eventually get the X800 XT to run a little higher than this. We should also note that in order to compare the performance of the X800 XT to its AGP-equivalent, we underclocked an X800 XT Platinum Edition to the X800 XT’s standard clocks using Powerstrip.
X600 XT
If you recall our X600/X300 preview, you’ll remember that the X600 is essentially based off the RADEON 9600 XT architecture; that is the chip sports a four pixel pipeline configuration, with one texture unit per pixel pipeline. Unlike its “X” designation suggests, the X600 family doesn’t support one of the X800’s key new features, 3Dc.
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ATI has made one enhancement to the X600 XT in particular though, the memory clock frequency has been cranked up. With its 500MHz core, often times the RADEON 9600 XT was craving more memory bandwidth. By bumping the memory clock speed up to 370MHz (740MHz effective), memory bandwidth shouldn’t be as much of an issue, especially at high resolutions or when AA/AF is applied. ATI even provides some headroom for overclocking by using 2.5ns Hynix memory modules (part number HY5DU283222AF-25). These modules are rated for up to 400MHz (800MHz effective).
Physically, the X600 XT reference board more closely resembles the RADEON 9600 PRO more than the RADEON 9600 XT. Fundamentally all three cards are based on the same 0.13-micron core with copper interconnects and low-k dielectric material, so this shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, but we still would have liked to have seen ATI transfer the RADEON 9600 XT’s larger, more powerful heatsink/fan unit onto the X600 XT as well.
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The X600 XT doesn’t support OVERDRIVE in the current CATALYST driver.
Overclocking
We tried to use both the latest version of Powerstrip (3.49) and Powerstrip’s latest beta to overclock our PCI Express ATI cards, but unfortunately, neither Powerstrip version correctly detected the clocks on our PCI Express cards. Therefore, we decided to omit overclocked testing until we’ve got a software utility that properly detects both boards.
| Test conditions | Page:: ( 3 / 28 ) |
System Setup
Intel Pentium 4 3.2GHz
Intel Pentium 4 3.6GHz @3.2GHz LGA-775
Intel Pentium 4 3.6GHz LGA-775
Intel Pentium 4 3.4GHz Extreme Edition LGA-775
ASUS P4P800 Deluxe w/Turbo Mode & MAM Enabled (865PE)
ASUS P45AD2 Premium Edition (925X)
1GB Micron DDR2 SDRAM
1GB Corsair XMS3200 DDR SDRAM
ATI RADEON X800 XT
ATI RADEON X600 XT
Driver version ATI 6.14.10.6451 Beta
ATI RADEON X800 XT Platinum Edition @ 500/500
ATI RADEON 9600 XT
Driver version CATALYST 4.6
250GB Maxtor Hard Drive Maxline III SATA Hard Drive w/16MB Cache
Windows XP Professional SP1
DirectX 9.0b
Benchmarks
Lock On: Modern Air Combat (Mig-29 custom demo)
Call of Duty (demo0032 custom demo)
Quake III: Arena version 1.32 (fscrusher demo)
Unreal Tournament 2004 (T3 custom demo)
IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles (The Black Death track)
Splinter Cell (FS custom demo)
Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness (Beyond3D custom demo)
Halo: Combat Evolved (stock benchmark)
Notes
Since the AGP slot on our P4C800 Deluxe board recently died, we decided to substitute ASUS’ excellent P4P800 Deluxe instead. When properly configured, the P4P800 Deluxe can run just as fast as the fastest 875P board, so we feel confident that we’ve got a powerful system setup to represent Intel’s previous platform.
Representing 925X, we selected ASUS’ P5AD2 Premium Edition motherboard. This motherboard gives a new meaning to the term “loaded”, with integrated Intel Hi-Def 7.1 audio, Dual Gigabit LAN, 802.11g onboard (with wireless AP mode support), triple RAID support (4 SATA with RAID 0, 1, 10 and software RAID 5/4 SATA with RAID 0, 1, and 4 IDE RAID with RAID 0, 1, and 0+1) IEEE-1394b, and an SATA external header. Once again we dialed down the memory timings and enabled the ASUS board’s “Turbo” mode for maximum performance.
Basically, both of these systems are as tuned as they’re going to get. We’ve split the article into two sections. The first deals with CPU scaling, with clock speeds ranging from 3.2GHz to 3.6GHz on the Pentium 4, while a LGA-775 Pentium 4 3.4GHz Extreme Edition was also thrown in for good measure. The second-half of our benchmarks are head-to-head comparisons between the corresponding AGP and PCI Express ATI parts.
| CPU Scaling: CoD | Page:: ( 4 / 28 ) |
Call of Duty – OpenGL
| CPU Scaling: IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles | Page:: ( 5 / 28 ) |
IL-2 Sturmovik: FB - OpenGL
| CPU Scaling: LOMAC | Page:: ( 6 / 28 ) |
Lock On: Modern Air Combat – Direct3D
| CPU Scaling: Splinter Cell | Page:: ( 7 / 28 ) |
Splinter Cell – Direct3D
| CPU Scaling: Tomb Raider | Page:: ( 8 / 28 ) |
Tomb Raider – Direct3D
| CPU Scaling: Halo | Page:: ( 9 / 28 ) |
Halo – Direct3D
| CPU Scaling: UT 2004 4xAA | Page:: ( 10 / 28 ) |
Unreal Tournament 2004
| CPU Scaling: UT 2004 4xAA/8xAF | Page:: ( 11 / 28 ) |
Unreal Tournament 2004
| CPU Scaling: Far Cry | Page:: ( 12 / 28 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| CPU Scaling: Far Cry 4xAA | Page:: ( 13 / 28 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| CPU Scaling: Far Cry 4xAA/8xAF | Page:: ( 14 / 28 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Call of Duty | Page:: ( 15 / 28 ) |
Call of Duty – OpenGL
| IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles | Page:: ( 16 / 28 ) |
IL-2 Sturmovik: FB - OpenGL
| IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles 4xAA | Page:: ( 17 / 28 ) |
IL-2 Sturmovik: FB - OpenGL
| Lock On: Modern Air Combat | Page:: ( 18 / 28 ) |
Lock On: Modern Air Combat – Direct3D
| Lock On: Modern Air Combat 4xAA | Page:: ( 19 / 28 ) |
Lock On: Modern Air Combat – Direct3D
| UT 2004 4xAA | Page:: ( 20 / 28 ) |
Unreal Tournament 2004
| UT 2004 4xAA/8xAF | Page:: ( 21 / 28 ) |
Unreal Tournament 2004
| Splinter Cell | Page:: ( 22 / 28 ) |
Splinter Cell – Direct3D
| Tomb Raider | Page:: ( 23 / 28 ) |
Tomb Raider – Direct3D
| Halo | Page:: ( 24 / 28 ) |
Halo – Direct3D
| Far Cry | Page:: ( 25 / 28 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Far Cry 4xAA | Page:: ( 26 / 28 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Far Cry 4xAA/8xAF | Page:: ( 27 / 28 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Conclusion | Page:: ( 28 / 28 ) |
While the new PCI Express interface delivers double the bandwidth of AGP 8X, don’t expect to see a significant increase in performance between AGP and PCI Express, at least not with today’s titles – the added bandwidth just isn’t needed.
ATI has improved its position in the mainstream segment of the PCI Express market by boosting the memory frequency on the X600 XT. This should allow it to compete with GeForce PCX 5900, which is based on NVIDIA’s GeForce FX 5900 XT graphics core, meanwhile, the PCX 5700 represents NVIDIA’s PCI Express equivalent of the GeForce FX 5700. The X600 PRO shores up ATI’s defenses here. Initially we were a little disappointed with the specs of the X600 series, as it’s essentially a derivative of the RADEON 9600 XT, which was based on the RADEON 9600 PRO before it. This means that we’re basically dealing with one year old technology. But when you talk to board partners, you quickly realize that there isn’t much happening in the mainstream sector at the moment.
On the high-end, ATI is the only manufacturer shipping PCI Express parts to OEM and SI channels -- every NVIDIA board partner we talked to at Computex mentioned a late summer timeframe for NVIDIA’s GeForce 6800-based PCI Express parts. This fact, coupled with good yields on X800 XT and X800 XT Platinum Edition cores, means that ATI won’t be producing a PCI Express X800 PRO board of their own. ATI must feel that without any competition and good production, there just isn’t any need to hurt their margins by producing their own X800 PRO boards. This is a pretty comfortable position to be in if you’re ATI. Fortunately other board partners will be producing PCI Express X800 PROs, we saw quite a few on display at Computex.
EDIT 6/23/04: It has come to our attention that NVIDIA is currently ramping up production on its PCI Express-based GeForce 6800 Ultra and GeForce 6800 GT cards. OEMs will get the first shipments, with retail availability to follow in September.
The big question now surrounding ATI is retail availability: at the moment every PCI Express board ATI produces is going to OEM and SI, not retail. ATI hasn’t set a timeframe for when this will change, but they will follow the market closely.
On the CPU side, ATI’s X800 XT really shines on a fast processor, the Pentium 4 3.4GHz Extreme Edition definitely applies here. In fact, we were still CPU-limited in Splinter Cell with the 3.4GHz Extreme Edition/RADEON X800 XT combination at most resolutions! On the other hand, the X600 XT scaled very little moving from 3.2GHz to 3.6GHz. Keep all of this in mind when shopping for that next part(s) to upgrade.
Now that PCI Express is finally here, the million-dollar question is how quickly will the market adopt this new technology? That’s a question that’s too soon to answer. In fact, it seems as if the entire PCI Express infrastructure is waiting for the answer. But make no mistake about it, PCI Express is here to stay.