ATI 512MB Radeon X800 XL

More buffer, gentlemen?

Today's titles

We're not quite there yet, of course, but there are immediate, detectable benefits for games running on a 512MB board, especially if they don't quite exert memory pressure on a 256MB board all the time, but do so every now and again. Slight overflows in card memory due to memory pressure, causing the board to go out to system memory with data, are manifest as frame rate hitches, pausing gameplay for a short length of time. With a larger memory space, that hitching can be lessened, resulting in a higher minimum frame rate, slightly higher average frames per second and an smoother overall game experience. For many gamers that will be the primary benefit, over any ability to increase resolution or image quality.

Surely all that extra memory lets you use higher resolutions in your games, or more AA at the same resolution? Of course. One of the things 512MB of memory will bless one of today's fairly high-end boards with is the possible ability, especially if you're on the cusp of being shader limited, to bump up the resolution of your game and keep pretty much the same settings and frame rate. Or bump up your AA level at the same resolution. However - and this is a huge however - who realistically has the display capable of doing much more than the 1600 x 1200 that current high-end hardware is happiest with? I used to have a CRT that would cope with greater resolutions, but it neither had the screen real-estate or image quality to make me want to do so.

With LCD monitors, you're realistically limited to a 1600 x 1200 or 1680 x 1050 resolution, unless your display budget runs into the thousands, rather than the hundreds that most of us spend.

The board

That leaves a 512MB board something to ponder rather than jump on as soon as it appears. So with all that said, would you like a peek at some 512MB high-end 3D hardware? Ah, go on then.

The 512MB Radeon X800 XL doesn't quite use the same PCB as the Radeon X850 Pro, but it's close, and the cooler is identical. Weighing in at 389g, slightly more than the 385g X850 PRO, the 512MB XL remains a single-slot board with almost identical thermal properties to that hardware.

Sixteen 256Mb Samsung K4J55323Q DRAMs provide the larger frame buffer on the board. Needing more than 75W, the PCI Express-based X800 XL has a six-pin power connector for extra power that can't be supplied via the slot.

Dual-DVI makes a welcome appearance and the Rage Theater on the rear of the board gives you VIVO capabilities. You use the S-Video port on the backplane for that. The cooler is an ADDA AD4512HB-E03, a 45mm ball bearing blower fan, 12mm thick. It takes a 12V DC supply, the H in 'AD4512HB' denoting high speed. Be thankful it's not a U. Finally, the 3 in 'E03' denotes control by an IC and speed sensor, so you can be sure it's controllable by the driver and other software.

At the default fan speed of 54 per cent of maximum, the blower in the X850 PRO's cooler assembly is quiet. At 100 per cent it's less irritating than that in the X800, but still rather loud. The blade design of the cooler seems to be responsible for all the audible noise as the blower shoves air across them. The pitch changes of the fan aren't that annoying to my ears, thankfully.