ATI X800XL clocked slower in retail?

[MojoX]

Although review sites, including AnandTech (great review by the way), show the X800XL as having 400/1000(500) clock speeds, it seems that ATI have clocked the memory speeds down a bit.

Having a look at ATI's new X800 product page, it seems the X800XL is actually 400/980(490) instead.

http://www.ati.com/products/ra...nx800series/index.html

Now seeming as all the review sites have the faster clocked version, their benchmarks will be slightly higher than what people will buy in stores. Will the 20MHz make that much of a difference (for someone who doesn't overclock)? Maybe Anand can downclock the card to 400/980 to see if any performance difference exists.

 

[stnicralisk]

its a 2% decrease in memory speed? I doubt it will have much effect at all. They probably just want to be able to use chips that dont quite make 1ghz.

 

[MojoX]

You're likely right, but it'd be nice to have a card with 1GHz of memory, lol.

Still, if this is what ATI needs to do to keep this awesome card at that price, I guess it'd be fine. It'd still probably out perform the X800/X850Pro anyway.

 

[CrystalBay]

I would think ATI will drop the 850 pro altogether , because savy buyers wont go for that gouge... who knows

 

[MojoX]

Well X850 is a bigger number than X800, so maybe ATI is relying on people who don't know much about graphics cards to get the X850Pro.

 

[ronnn]

Originally posted by: MojoX
Well X850 is a bigger number than X800, so maybe ATI is relying on people who don't know much about graphics cards to get the X850Pro.

With that logic they better add on 512 mb of some super slow memory.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: ronnn

Originally posted by: MojoX
Well X850 is a bigger number than X800, so maybe ATI is relying on people who don't know much about graphics cards to get the X850Pro.

With that logic they better add on 512 mb of some super slow memory.

I would actually be surprised if they didn't do that on at least one or two of the cards in this refresh...just slap on some old EDO RAM sticks or something.

 

[Sylvanas]

Originally posted by: SynthDude2001

Originally posted by: ronnn

Originally posted by: MojoX
Well X850 is a bigger number than X800, so maybe ATI is relying on people who don't know much about graphics cards to get the X850Pro.

With that logic they better add on 512 mb of some super slow memory.

I would actually be surprised if they didn't do that on at least one or two of the cards in this refresh...just slap on some old EDO RAM sticks or something.

but isnt what ram they put on up the manufacturer's decision? e.g. Abit/Asus/Powercolor etc?

 

[imported_umbra]

personally 20mhz doesn't bother me. I'm pretty sure you can oc an extra 10mhz

 

[nRollo]

Originally posted by: umbra
personally 20mhz doesn't bother me. I'm pretty sure you can oc an extra 10mhz

I'm pretty sure you don't need to- the difference between 980 and 1000 RAM wouldn't be noticeable, probably even benchmarking.

This is making a mountain out of a molehill.

 

[jiffylube1024]

20 MHz is nothing (ok, it's 20 Mhz, but still...).

It's not enough of a difference to be tangible. More importantly, I'd be concerned about how long it takes to actually make it to retail channels (hopefully it will be soon).

ATI is generally VERY conservative with their memory (the exception being the X800XT PE, which was pushing that technology right to the edge). The X800 Pro used 2.0ns and 1.6ns at 900 MHz; these chips are rated for 1000MHz and ~1150 Mhz, respectively, so they had TONS of headroom.

The X800XL I would suspect should have good memory o/c potential too (I guess we'll see soon).

I'm intrigued as to the core's overclockability since it's on .11um (even though it doesn't have low-k).