What about X800XL 512?

[morulis]

What is your opinion about X800XL with 512MB? Is worth buying? I have read in Anandtech that there is no enough bandwidth to exploit the 512MB of RAM efficiently. But in games like HALF-LIFE 2 where ATI's cards have the best results we had an increase about 11%.

 

[cbehnken]

no it's not worth it at all

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

There's already a huge thread about this.

Obviously not worth buying as the AT article stated. For $449 you can get a better card that will outperform the X800XL in everything.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello
There's already a huge thread about this.

Obviously not worth buying as the AT article stated. For $449 you can get a better card that will outperform the X800XL in everything.

QFT.

512MB on anything less than an X850XT or 6800U is a waste, and it's probably still not even close to being worth it on those cards.

 

[imported_Kensai]

It's junk.

 

[Dman877]

No, just wait until they drop 512mb onto a X300SE. That sucker will pown.

 

[MBrown]

Right here. I started this.

 

[jiffylube1024]

It's not worth the extra money. Get an X800XL instead, or if you want something faster, look at a 6800 SLI setup or an X850XT.

 

[PrayForDeath]

You should've searched a bit before starting this thread.
Anyway, like what others said, there's no point of buying such card.

 

[dug777]

like everyone said, QFT

don't bother when you can get a bargain x800xl for peanuts that will equal the 512mb card in everything except hl2 (and there for the same price get a x850xt that will crap all over it )

 

[ddogg]

what if they played HL2, Doom3 and other games at 2042x1600 resolution....they should show some benchmarks at that resolution to see if there is any performance difference.

 

[Gamingphreek]

More framebuffer is not going to aid enough at that resolution. THe card itself is simply not fast enough, fill rate, as well as bandwidth wise.

-Kevin

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: ddogg
what if they played HL2, Doom3 and other games at 2042x1600 resolution....they should show some benchmarks at that resolution to see if there is any performance difference.

the card has NO saving graces

 

[ddogg]

Originally posted by: Gamingphreek
More framebuffer is not going to aid enough at that resolution. THe card itself is simply not fast enough, fill rate, as well as bandwidth wise.

-Kevin

well then in that case...512MB XL is totally useless :thumbsdown:

 

[n7]

Complete waste.

 

[ronnn]

If you read b3d, it is not a complete waste. Just as many have pointed out - better ways to spend your money. Sure has been boring lately - the vid market. At least prices have been dropping.

 

[UzairH]

The amount of memory in any system doesn't define the power. You don't qualify our PC as a 1 GB computer, you say its an A64 3500+ with 1 GB of PC3200 RAM. Performance fundamentally depends on two things:

- The power of the processor, whether it a CPU or a graphics processor
- The memory bandwidth and latency

The actual amount of memory only effects the system performance to the extent of holding the data sets. Thus if your OS is light enough and application is not data-oriented, you could run your uber FX-55 comp perfectly fine with 32 megs of ram.

In a similar way the amount of RAM on a graphics card only determines the size of data the card can work with at a time. But remember that the first limitation is how much data the GPU itself can process at a time, and after that the other main limitation is how fast you can move data between the processor and memory - the bandwidth. Thus putting 512MB of ram on a card that can only handle 256 MB in most situations is useless. As far as memory is concerned the bandwidth is always more important than size.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: ronnn
If you read b3d, it is not a complete waste. Just as many have pointed out - better ways to spend your money. Sure has been boring lately - the vid market. At least prices have been dropping.

i define "complete waste" as - Underperforming something else that costs less [made by the same mfg, no less]

What does B3D say that makes the X800XL 512 "worthwhile"?

NO!, i am NOT reading ANOTHER review . . . the X800XL-512's sorry benchmarks are "story" enough
:thumbsdown:

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: ddogg
what if they played HL2, Doom3 and other games at 2042x1600 resolution....they should show some benchmarks at that resolution to see if there is any performance difference.

Yeah, the 512mb version will get 15 FPS and teh 256mb version will get 13

 

[SonicIce]

does a 6800U or X850XT even need 256MB?

 

[gobucks]

i think the first cards with 512MB buffers that will actaully matter will be the G70 and R520. From what I've heard, the cards will likely be 24 pipeline designs and will probably start with 1.4-1.6GHz GDDR3, and will eventually probably transfer into ~2.0GHz GDDR4. With this amount of memory bandwidth and the fillrate potential of 24 pipes, I think they might be able to run games like Doom3 and Unreal3 based ones at high enough resolutions to see a difference in performance with 512MB cards.

For current generation parts it's pretty pointless. It's about as useful as a 256MB 6600 non-GT - by the time you're running at settings that use that large of a framebuffer, the performance has already dropped to way below playable. Just save your money. I'd either 1) Buy an X800XL or 6800GT (both are typically sub-$300 now) or 2) Buy a 6600GT for $150ish and then sell it later this year so you can buy a G70 or R520, both of which should be announced at CeBit, although i hold more faith in nvidia's part being available first given recent product launches.