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The Verdict.
Okay, let me keep it short and simple (Yeah dude .. right) I like this product. End.
...okay I can't keep it short.
I actually enjoyed every minute I spent with it. In fact I think it should have been in the stores before Christmas! But ... it's not a product full of new surprises. It's once again a refresh product based on technology that has been around for quite some time now.
However, this is one of these value for money products that will kick your PC's gaming ass for real. It offers twice the performance over the Radeon 9800 Pro series for example. Now understand this, 300 USD is still a large amount of money for a graphics card, but it's in the grasp of being quite a reasonable buy. And don't get me wrong here, I just LOVE the x850 XT/PE but I'd never ever would be willing to spend 550-600 USD on a graphics card just to be able to play a game. The x800 XL however is a product I would buy .. I can afford it and it does offer a stack of performance and features for it's money that is just simply spectacular. Compared to the ATI's green colored friends this card is competing directly at the standard 12-pipe GeForce 6800. That card does have two advantages though, the first being Shader Model 3.0 and secondly, scalability thanks to the SLI interface. You can actually upgrade to more graphics power once you run out of it.
Furthermore standard stuff, the card performed absolutely stable, I do think the core can run quite hot but obviously that's not an issue for the card. When we look at tweakability then I have to give it two thumbs up. We noticed a significant boost once overclocked. With this card you can play any modern game to date in high resolutions with quality setting like AA and AF with very acceptable framerates.
In retrospect, other then the points mentioned there's nothing I can find wrong with this product. If I had to buy an ATI x800 series product right now, this would probably be it. I still need to check out the soon to be release standard x800 though, but I doubt it'll win from this choice from a price versus performance point of view. The one thing that is important for the x800 XL though is that the product needs to be available in large quantities. We've seen really absurd prices for the x800 XT's as they where low on stock/availability. So if the x800 XL remains at 300 USD or cheaper, then it is a plausible deal.
Last one-liner: The Radeon x800 XL likely offer the most bang for it's bucks compared to the entire x800/x850 range. Two thumbs up and a highly recommended buy.
+++ ATH
Radeon X800 XL
Product type: Graphics card
Manufacturer: ATI
Website: www.ati.comMSRP: 300 USD
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