SUMMARY: In August we saw the introduction of ATI's Radeon X800GT which finally gave some competition to nVidia against their mighty mid-range GeForce 6600GT. Maybe the X800GT was a stop gap for ATI until their next-generation of cards is released but nevertheless the VPU is penetrating the market and we've got two new cards in the labs from HIS and PowerColor. Read on as we take a look at both graphics cards and work out which is best in this head to head battle!
PowerColor changed the design of their box a bit back and I can say that we aren’t a huge fan of the new style. While it’s smaller the constant black throughout the line up isn’t quite as happy feeling as some of the other boxes we see. The design is quite basic with not a lot happening on the front and just the main features of the card being mentioned.
In this case we have Dual DVI, 256MB DDR3 256-bit memory along with a few more specifications on the other side.
The back is very similar in information as we have on the front, the slightly extended specifications in a multiple of languages, what the board supports along with a little spiel on what the X800GT is.
On the inside we have an S-Video cable, RCA cable, RCA to S-Video adapter and a DVI to VGA connector.
The only paper work side of things we find on the inside is the manual which we will find ourselves shoving to the side.
On the software side of things we have our driver CD, Cyberlink DVD solution package and a copy of Pacific Fighters a 2CD slight simulation game from Ubisoft.
It is nice to have a full version game inserted into the bundle which will go down well with many since the card is still quite cheap.
- The Card
Moving over to the card we have a nice cooler that covers up a vast amount of the card including the memory. Thanks to the slightly larger fan it doesn’t have to spin at a ridiculously high RPM which helps keep the noise level down to a minimum.
Turning over it is disappointing to see that PowerColor haven’t used some memory sinks to cover the back of the card. Cooling the front isn’t that useful when the back doesn’t get cooled.
Moving to the side of the card it is nice to see that PowerColor have implemented a Dual DVI design. This is good news for people who run multiple LCDs which utilize a DVI connection as you don’t have to buy an expensive card like the X800XL to get use out of them.
The PowerColor X800GT follows a very standard design that we have seen over and over again. PowerColor are using the standard 486/500MHz core and memory speed that is the standard clock speed for X800GT cards.
