SUMMARY: GeCube in Taiwan sent us their complete collection of PCI Express graphics cards based around the new "X" series from ATI. After taking a quick look at each of the cards we compare the performance of the entry level X300 all the way up to the beastie X800. If you're on the market for a PCI Express graphics card from ATI and need to know where each of your options stands, read on!
We are looking at two different X300s today; the first is an SE version of the X300. This is the current entry level graphics card from ATI and will offer an upgrade from the built in graphics on the 915G motherboards. Performance is expected to be similar to that of a 9200SE so we don’t expect a lot from it. The card itself is quite ordinary looking but does offer us DVI and VGA as well as the all important TV out port that we have grown so accustom to. The X300SE has a memory bus of 64-bit with 128MB of memory and can be found here on our price comparison website with prices being around the $80 - $90 US mark.
- X300
Moving it up a notch we move to the full blown (entry level) X300. The X300 is also 128MB like the X300SE but uses a 128-bit bus instead of the 64-bit bus on the SE version of the X300. The difference between the two cards physically is that the X300SE is a low profile card where the X300 is a full height card which makes the X300SE a great option for people using the 915 or 925 chipset in a low profile server. You can find prices on the X300 here. Pricing is roughly $20 more expensive and we will see if it’s worth spending that extra money. The version we are looking at today is a 256MB one yet the price difference shouldn’t be much higher.
With the lower end of the X line up out the way let’s move onto the X600 line which is what people will more likely be looking at if spending all the money on a brand new 775 processor and motherboard.
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