Gigabyte Radeon X1800 XL (GV-RX18L256V-B) Review

Back in October of last year, ATI launched a whole new range of Radeon graphics cards that are typically referred to as the X1000 or X1K family. The X1000 family was the first set of cards unleashed by ATI to support Shader Model 3.0 across the entire range of cards. This set of cards includes the X1300 series (entry-level), the X1600 series (mid-range) and the X1800 series (high-end). More info on the X1000 family can be found in our launch article covering the cards.

Just last month, ATI decided to top its own flagship cards (the X1800 series) with the X1900 series. While the X1800 cards feature 16 pixel shaders, the X1900 cards boast 48 pixel shaders. Unfortunately, I don't have an X1900 card in my possession yet, but I think it's important for you to know that the X1800 series are no longer the best that ATI has to offer.

The Gigabyte Radeon X1800 XL (GV-RX18L256V-B) that I have on the test bench today competes with NVIDIA's GeForce 7800 GT. As such, I will be comparing it directly to a single XFX 7800 GT. Although the X1800 XL is capable of running in ATI's CrossFire multi-GPU mode, I did not have an X1800 CrossFire master card available for such testing. Read on to see how the Gigabyte X1800 XL and XFX 7800 GT compare one on one in some of the more recent games to hit the market.

Features

• Powered by ATI Radeon X1800 XL VPU
• Supports PCI Express and 16 pipelines
• Microsoft DirectX 9.0C and OpenGL 2.0 support
• Integrated with the industry's best 256MB GDDR3 memory and 256-bit memory interface
• Features dual DVI-I / D-sub (by adapter) / TV-OUT
• Supports HDTV function and HDTV cable enclosed
• Supports VIVO function for video editing
• ATI Avivo technology
• Ultra-Threaded Shader Engine
  • Support for Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 programmable vertex and pixel shaders in hardware
  • Full speed 128-bit floating point processing for all shader operations
  • Up to maximum 512 simultaneous pixel threads
  • Dedicated branch execution units for high performance dynamic branching and flow control
  • Dedicated texture address units for improved efficiency
• Ring Bus Memory Technology
  • Maximum 512-bit internal ring bus for memory reads
  • Programmable intelligent arbitration logic
  • New cache design
  • Improved HyperZ™

Specifications

• Chipset: ATI RADEON X1800 XL
• Memory: 256 MB
• Memory Bus: 256 bit
• Memory Type: DDRIII 8Mx32
• PCB Form: ATX
• BUS: PCI-e x 16
• D-SUB: Y (By Adapter)
• TV-OUT: Y
• DVI Port: Y (DVI-I)
• VIVO: Yes
• MultiView: Y