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MSI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB (RX1800XT-VT2D512E) Review December 21, 2005 Brandon Sandman Bell |
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Summary: With street prices on Radeon X1800 XT cards now approaching the $500 mark, X1800 XT cards are quickly becoming popular among gamers and enthusiasts. The X1800 XT provides excellent performance, shader model 3.0, and now CrossFire support. Today we're taking a look at MSI's X1800 XT board, the RX1800XT-VT2D512E. See what separates this card from ATI in this review!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 11 ) |
The tale in some ways actually begins over a year ago, with the debut of shader model 3.0 in NVIDIA’s GeForce 6 lineup. After trailing ATI early-on in the days of DX9, NVIDIA gambled big and jumped from the first generation of shader model 2.0 DX9 shaders straight to shader model 3.0, which, among other things added support for longer, more complex shader programs, as well as features designed to make writing 3.0 shaders easier such as dynamic branching/looping. ATI on the other hand played it more conservative, opting instead to adopt shader model 2.0b for their Radeon X800 series of graphics products.
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ATI argued all along that shader model 3.0’s requirement of 32-bit precision didn’t become feasible for them until they move to 90-nanometer. Their argument was that producing a high-end shader model 3.0 part on TSMC’s existing 130-nm manufacturing process would be too costly, the die would be massive and selling it even at high-end $400+ price points wouldn’t be practical. Basically they didn’t want to compromise on their margins. At that time, TSMC’s smaller 110-nm process was used solely in value graphics products, no one at the time had a clue the clock speeds 110-nm would ultimately prove capable of achieving with high-end parts containing 200 million transistors or more. This wasn’t proven until NVIDIA’s GeForce 7800 GTX debut in June of 2005 over one year later.
ATI’s decision to wait for 90-nm probably wouldn’t have been a bad one if they could have stuck to their initial goals for the X1800, namely those being very high clock speeds (700MHz or more has been reported) with a launch date around the early summer time frame of 2005 – right in line with NVIDIA’s GeForce 7800 GTX introduction. After all, the X1800 contains a whopping 320 million transistors (roughly 18 million more than GeForce 7800 GTX despite containing fewer pixel pipelines), a 300+ million transistor chip built on TSMC’s larger 0.13-micron process probably would have been costly for ATI to manufacture. In addition, ATI’s X800 line performed well in comparison to GeForce 6800, in fact ATI took the performance crown from NVIDIA at the beginning of this year with their Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition, only SLI and ATI’s nagging supply issues kept the X850 line from being more successful.
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On launch day for the Radeon X1800 XT, the card showed signs of promise, but it was by no means a slam-dunk product. The Radeon X1800 XT 512MB was able to outperform the GeForce 7800 GTX in Direct3D titles, but OpenGL applications like Doom 3 and IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles favored NVIDIA’s 7800 GTX. When you factored in the board’s price and availability, the general consensus was that the GeForce 7800 GTX came away as the better value.
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Availability is improving on the X1800 XT and as a result, prices on retail boards are falling quickly. In addition, newer drivers from ATI have improved the X1800’s performance considerably – the X1800 XT now outpaces the GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB in both Direct3D and OpenGL applications.
With all this in mind, lets take a look at MSI’s Radeon X1800 XT board, the RX1800 XT VT2D512E.
| Board analysis | Page:: ( 2 / 11 ) |
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For the Radeon X1800 XT 512MB, MSI plays it more conservatively, sticking completely with ATI’s reference board design, right down to the card’s dual-slot copper cooling. MSI most likely opted to stick with ATI’s reference design in order to bring their card to market as quickly as possible. Their RX1800XT-VT2D512E is one of the first Radeon X1800 XT 512MB boards on the market.
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In addition to the reference board design, MSI sticks with ATI’s reference clock speeds on the RX1800 XT VT2D512E. This means that the graphics core on the card runs at 625MHz, while the board’s memory is clocked at 750MHz (1.5GHz effective). As a result, the board performs just like the Built By ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB we previewed a few months ago. In fact, we wouldn’t be surprised if MSI’s board was built on the same production line as the ATI card. Graphics card manufacturers frequently do this on their first generation boards to hit retail as quickly as possible, they’ll then follow these first-gen boards up with second generation cards that are often outfitted with more unique features, such as custom cooling. It does after all, take time to adequately test and then manufacture a custom solution.
Basically, this means that you shouldn’t be concerned that the MSI card isn’t “Built By ATI”. Its got all the same features and functionality as the ATI card, including two dual-link DVI connectors, making it perfect for hooking up two high-end Apple 30” Cinema displays (in comparison, GeForce 7800 GTX only has one dual-link DVI connecotr). ATI OVERDRIVE support is provided as well.
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Software and accessories
Where the MSI RX1800XT-VT2D512E goes beyond ATI’s own Radeon X1800 XT card is in the software bundle. MSI includes a copy of the game Colin McRae Rally 05, which is by far the best rally-racing game on the PC right now, if not the most entertaining PC racing game in general. MSI actually goes beyond the basics, not only providing the a copy of the game on DVD-ROM, but also the retail box and full manual. Most game bundles just come with the installation disc(s), skipping the packaging and the game’s manual to save space.
The board also ships with a copy of CyberLink’s StarDVD Family, which includes StarCinema, Star2Go, and StarProducer, as well as two DVI adapters, a VIVO (video-in/video-out) cable, component video cable for the hooking the card up to an HDTV, power adapter, and S-Video and composite video cables.
In comparison, ATI’s own X1800 XT card comes with no software bundle outside of a driver CD. So you’re essentially getting more for your money with the MSI card.
| Test Systems | Page:: ( 3 / 11 ) |
System Setup
AMD Athlon 64 FX-57
ASUS A8N32-SLI Deluxe
2GB OCZ DDR400 SDRAM
MSI RX1800 XT VT2D512E
ATI RADEON X1800 XT
CATALYST 5.12
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB
Driver version ForceWare 81.95
250GB Maxtor Hard Drive Maxline III SATA Hard Drive w/16MB Cache
Windows XP Professional SP1
DirectX 9.0c
Benchmarks
IL-2 Sturmovik: Forgotten Battles
Call of Duty 2
Half-Life 2
F.E.A.R.
Battlefield 2
Quake 4
| Half-Life 2 4xAA/16xAF | Page:: ( 4 / 11 ) |
Half-Life 2 – Direct3D
| Battlefield 2 | Page:: ( 5 / 11 ) |
Battlefield 2 – Direct3D
| Quake 4 | Page:: ( 6 / 11 ) |
Quake 4 – OpenGL
| IL-2 4xAA/16xAF | Page:: ( 7 / 11 ) |
IL-2: FB – OpenGL
| F.E.A.R. Performance | Page:: ( 8 / 11 ) |
F.E.A.R. – Direct3D
| Call of Duty 2 | Page:: ( 9 / 11 ) |
Call of Duty 2 – Direct3D
| Ballistics Report | Page:: ( 10 / 11 ) |
Pros
Radeon X1800 XT core: At the heart of MSI’s RX1800XT-VT2D512E is ATI’s Radeon X1800 XT graphics core. The Radeon X1800 XT is ATI’s first shader model 3.0 part, sporting 16 pixel pipelines and eight vertex units, and runs at 625MHz, the highest clock speed in the industry. Radeon X1800 also boasts improved anti-aliasing thanks to ATI’s new adaptive anti-aliasing mode, which uses supersampling to improve AA quality. The X1800 is also the only GPU on the market that supports high dynamic range lighting (HDR) with AA. With NVIDIA’s GeForce line, you have to turn AA off if you intend to use HDR.
ATI has also integrated a new programmable memory controller into the X1800. This new memory controller is largely responsible for the phenomenal performance gains X1800 cards have achieved in OpenGL titles just recently. The X1800 XT’s memory subsystem consists of 512MB of GDDR3 memory running at 750MHz (ATI has also announced a 256MB X1800 XT SKU, but so far this board hasn’t hit retail), providing up to 48GB/sec of peak memory bandwidth.
Finally, the Radeon X1800 XT provides full support for ATI’s Avivo video technology. Avivo provides improved DVD/video playback as well as dedicated hardware acceleration for high-definition video formats like H.264.
512MB memory: With 512MB of memory onboard, it can be argued that the MSI RX1800XT-VT2D512E is more future-proof than your typical 256MB graphics card. As game developers continue to use higher resolution textures and normal maps, the added memory may come in hand. In theory, the larger frame buffer provided by the 512MB of memory should do a better job of keeping the graphics card fed with data in these situations, resulting in better performance.
Another area where the added memory may reap benefits is when running ATI’s SuperAA mode with CrossFire. ATI’s 14xAA mode is bound to be memory intensive, especially at higher resolutions.
Bundle and accessories: MSI provides a copy of Colin McRae Rally 05 on DVD-ROM, giving rally racing fans a free copy of the best WRC game on the market right now for the PC. MSI even goes the extra mile by providing the game in a DVD case and also including the full paper manual. Great job MSI!
Price and availability: Street prices on Radeon X1800 XT 512MB cards like the MSI RX1800XT-VT2D512E lie in the $500-$580 range, putting them well below ATI’s MSRP of $600. In fact, MSI’s RX1800XT VT2D512E board is the cheapest full retail X1800 XT 512MB card on Newegg right now. Considering the stratospheric pricing of NVIDIA’s GeForce 7800 GTX 512MB, the X1800 XT 512MB is a downright value. It sells for a little more than the GeForce 7800 GTX 256MB, but also remember that it performs better than the 7800 GTX 256MB too.
CrossFire-ready: We can verify that MSI’s RX1800XT-VT2D512E is 100% compatible with ATI’s CrossFire solution for the Radeon X1800 XT. We ran the board in a CrossFire system with no problems.
Cons
First-gen reference design: Enthusiasts looking for something different than ATI’s reference design are bound to be disappointed with the RX1800XT VT2D512E, as it’s an exact replica of ATI’s own Radeon X1800 XT 512MB card. We wouldn’t be surprised though if MSI was cooking up something special for a prospective second-gen card, as they’ve definitely done it in the past.
| Finak Verdict | Page:: ( 11 / 11 ) |