Radeon X800 XL review

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Overclocking & TweakingBefore we dive into an wide-ranging series of tests and benchmarks, we need to explain overclocking. With most videocards, we can do some easy tricks to boost the overall performance a little. You can do this at two levels, namely tweaking by enabling registry or BIOS hacks, or even tamper with Image Quality. And then there is overclocking, which by far will give you the best possible results.

What do we need?
One of the best tool for overclocking NVIDIA and ATI videocards is our own Rivatuner that you can download here. If you own a NVIDIA graphics card then NVIDIA actually has very nice built in options for you that can be found in the display driver properties.

Where should we go ?
Overclocking: by increasing the frequency of the videocard's memory and GPU, we can make the videocard increase its calculation clock cycles per second. It sounds hard but it really can be done in less then a few minutes. I always tend to recommend to novice users and beginners not to increase the frequency any higher then 5-10% of the core and memory clock. Example: If your card would run at 300 MHz then I suggest you don't increase the frequency any higher than 330 MHz.

More advanced users push the frequency often way higher. Usually when your 3D graphics will start to show artifacts such as white dots ("snow"), you should go down 10-15 MHz and leave it at that.

The core can be somewhat different. Usually when you are overclocking too hard, it'll start to show artifacts, empty polygons or it will even freeze. I recommend that you back down at least 15 MHz from the moment you notice an artifact. Look carefully and observe well.

All in all... do it at your own risk.

Copyright Guru3D.com 2005
Overclocking your card too far or constantly to its maximum limit might damage your card and it's usually not covered by your warranty.

 

  Reference
Design		 Default on this x850 XT PE
Maximum overclockCore Clock Speed 400 MHz 400 MHz 443 MHzMemory Clock Speed 500 MHz 500 MHz (x2) 563 MHz(x2) 

The Radeon x800 XL seems to be a very nice card to overclock.

You will benefit from overclocking the most with a product that is limited or you may call it "tuned down". The XL is exactly that. We know that the graphics core is often limited by tact frequency or bandwidth limitation, therefore by increasing the memory and core frequency we should be able to witness some higher performance results. A simple trick to get some more bang for your buck.

Copyright Guru3D.com 2005

The x800 XL at default is doing 398 MHz on the core. It's GDDR3 memory is (2x) 493 thus 986 MHz effective.

The default clock setting you can alter them by using Rivatuner, which you can download here. We pushed everything to 443/563 where things remained 100% stable.

One small reminder though, our overclocking results are never a guarantee for your results. Manufacturers' choices in components differ and so will the end-results. This however is a good indication of what is possible (or not).

The Test System
Now we begin the benchmark portion of this article, but first let me show you our test system.

Benchmark Software Suite:

  • Far Cry (Guru3D config & timedemo)
  • Splinter Cell (Guru3D custom timedemo)
  • Half-Life 2 (Guru3D custom timedemo)
  • 3DMark03
  • 3DMark05
  • AquaMark 3
  • Unreal Tournament 2004 (Guru3D custom timedemo)
  • Doom 3

 

The numbers (FPS = Frames Per Second)

 

Now what you need to observe is simple, the numbers versus the screen resolution. The higher the better.

The numbers represent what we call FPS, this means Frames per second. A game's Frames per second is a measured average of a series of test. That test often is a timedemo, a recorded part of the game which is a 1:1 representation of the actual game(play). After forcing the same image quality settings this timedemo is then used for all graphics cards so that the actual measuring is as objective as can be for all graphics cards. in todays article a GeForce 6800 GT PCI-Express.

If a card reaches >30 FPS then the card is barely able to play the game. With 30 FPS up-to roughly 40 FPS you'll be very able to play the game with perhaps a tiny stutter at certain, intensive on the graphics card, parts.

When a graphics card is doing 60 FPS at average or higher then you can rest assured that the game will likely play extremely smooth at every point in the game.

You are always aiming for the highest possible FPS versus the highest resolution versus the highest image quality.
 

Frames per second Gameplay
 <30 FPS very limited gameplay
30-40 FPS average yet playable
40-60  FPS good gameplay
>60 FPS best possible gameplay
  

           

 

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