ATI Buyer's Guide, Part III: All Graphics Cards!

Test Results Of The Individual Cards

Asus EAX X1600 XT Silent

Asus's cooling solution follows the creed that silence is golden, and indeed, that's what this card is. The Radeon X1600 XT uses heatpipes to convey the heat to the large heatsink on the back of the card. Unfortunately, the passive cooler is also literally the card's downside. Due to its large size, it can protrude into the space required by the northbridge's heatsink. In the case of our Intel testbed motherboard, an Intel D957XBX, the two coolers were actually flush against each other when the card was mounted in the upper PEG slot.

The GPU supports Pixel Shader 3 effects as well as HDR rendering combined with anti-aliasing. The card offers just enough 3D performance for the current crop of complex 3D games. The Vivo breakout box that provides video input and output connectivity is a welcome feature.

Gecube Radeon X1800 GTO

The GTO chip is a replacement for the Radeon X1800 XL, although it is marginally slower than the part it replaces. It offers performance comparable to that of the Nvidia GeForce 6800 GS, GT and Ultra parts. The GPU supports Pixel Shader 3 effects as well as HDR rendering, combined with anti-aliasing. Gecube's software bundle includes a software DVD player, applications for video and image editing, as well cables for S-Video and HDTV.

MSI RX1900 XTX-VT2D512E

This graphics chip is the ideal choice for games like Spellforce 2, F.E.A.R. or Oblivion that make heavy use of shader effects. HDR rendering and anti-aliasing can be enabled simultaneously. MSI's card also comes with the most generous collection of tools and applications of all the X1900 XTX cards. On the flipside, the card's overclocking potential of only 1.5 percent is the lowest in the entire field. The bundled Power Cinema application can utilize the card's video input and output functionality as well as the HDTV interface - its user interface turns the PC into a media center.

Powercolor Radeon X1300 Hypermemory 2

The junior member of the Radeon family offers support for Pixel Shader 3 and HDR with simultaneous anti-aliasing. The concept behind Hypermemory is similar to that of shared memory, which you may remember from the world of AGP graphics cards. Using this technique, Powercolor compensates for the card's rather small on-board memory size of only 128 MB, bringing the card up to the performance level of a Radeon X1300 with 256 MB. However, this is far from enough for current games, and the card's 3D performance is about 50 percent lower than that of an X1600 XT. Thus, the X1300 Hypermemory 2 is more suited to a DVR system or a PC for players who prefer turn-based strategy games.

Sapphire Radeon X1600 XT

This card comes with a comprehensive set of cables for HDTV and S-Video; the software bundle consists of one game and Power DVD. The chip supports Pixel Shader 3 effects, as well as HDR rendering paired with anti-aliasing. The card offers just enough 3D performance for current 3D games, such as Tomb Raider: Legends, Oblivion and F.E.A.R..

Sapphire Radeon X1800 XL

It looks as though the XL chip will be replaced by the GTO version, which will in turn stick around until the last X1800 cards make their final exits in favor of the X1900s. It offers performance comparable to boards based on Nvidia's GeForce 6800 GS, GT and Ultra. The graphics chip supports Pixel Shader 3 effects as well as HDR rendering with simultaneous anti-aliasing. The bundle includes DVD player software, a video editing application and cables for S-Video and HDTV.