It was only a
few weeks ago that we took a look to the most powerful
offering from NVIDIA, the
GeForce 7800 GTX, and while the
high-end graphics market barely gives us room to breathe
until a new performance king is declared, this time around
NVIDIA has been able to take a sizeable advantage over its
most fierce rival, ATI.
It’s been many years of heavy battling
not only in the add-in graphics arena, but also in the
chipset market where both companies have been able to steal
market share from traditional manufacturers such as Sis,
VIA, Ali, and even Intel.
As of now, we have been kept waiting for
ATI’s multi-GPU technology that will rival NVIDIA’s SLI, and
just like its competitor, ATI will be using their own
chipsets to make that happen until other makers like Intel
jump aboard. ATI is also expected to announce the R520, the
long awaited successor to the X800 series, launch which is
expected before the end of the year.
But until that happens, we have prepared
a full ATI graphics round-up covering most of the current
Radeon line. Going from top to bottom we have ATI’s flagship
GPU, the Radeon X850 XT PE, then more mainstream choices,
the Radeon X800XT and X800XL, down the line to the value
market we have the X700 Pro, and the budget contenders,
Radeons X600 Pro, X300 and X300SE.
Certainly, it’s not easy not to fall for
the amazing performance offered by cards like the X850 XT
PE, however these come at a premium that not everyone is
willing to pay. That’s where mid-range cards come into play,
and even some casual gamers may find current budget products
sufficient to attend their needs.
Before going into further detail we have
prepared the following comparison table, so you can know
beforehand where each of the chips currently stand in the
market, along with NVIDIA direct competitors, which have
also been included in our performance tests.
