Sometimes, just when you think you understand the world in its entirety, something turns your perceptions upside down and convinces you that black is white, up is down and that zebras really shouldn't bungee jump. This month, that revelation is the Gigabyte Radeon X1800XL.
First things first, however. The Gigabyte is clearly a reference design X1800XL, so it looks almost identical to the Connect3D and Sapphire cards we reviewed last month. Like these cards, the Gigabyte is clocked at the reference speeds, so the core runs at 500MHz, and the 256MB of GDDR3 RAM runs just under that, at 490MHz (980MHz effective). The HSF is the noisy, single-slot reference model, and is differentiated from its peers by its bright pink colouring and an image of a weird-looking elfish girl.
While the Gigabyte may have average X1800XL vibes oozing from its every pore, it does something rather shocking. It goes really fast, especially if you know where to look. ATi's Catalyst drivers - at least up to 5.11, which is the version we used this month - have a problem in F.E.A.R. When you run F.E.A.R., the driver engages a series of optimisations for the game, to help the card perform to the best of its abilities. With the current drivers, when you run F.E.A.R., the driver recognises the game's EXE file - and turns off the optimisations. Oops. A schoolboy error, to say the least. There's an easy solution to this though: just rename FEAR.exe and watch the X1800XL's performance leap by up to 30 per cent.
Once you change the file name, the X1800XL produces excellent frame rates. Obviously, 1,600 x 1,200 with 4xAA and 8x AF is out of the question, as it is for all graphics cards on their own, but at 1,280 x 960 with 4x AA and 8x AF, the Gigabyte averaged 44fps, compared to the 38fps of the EVGA GeForce 7800 GT. While this meant the game was mostly smooth, the card's minimum rate of 23fps will be on the low side for some, so we're erring on the side of caution by saying that 2x AA and 2x AF are the 'best playable' settings. Even so, the X1800XL outperforms even a heavily overclocked GeForce 7800 GT in F.E.A.R.
Battlefield 2 provided the Gigabyte with no meaningful challenge at any resolution or quality setting, and while we've become accustomed to this for high-end cards, it's still pleasing to see.
Catalyst 5.11 offers even better performance in Quake 4 than last month's Catalyst 5.10, as the Gigabyte averaged 51fps in Quake 4 at 1,280 x 1,024 with 2x AA and 8x AF, compared to the 45fps of the Connect3D. With an average of 51fps, the Gigabyte is still slightly behind a pre-overclocked GeForce 7800GT, such as the EVGA, but only by about 3fps. Again, we're being cautious by saying 1,280 x 1,024 with 2x AA and 8x AF are the 'best playable' settings for both the Gigabyte and the EVGA. Having played the entire game, we think that 4x AA is too much for both the GeForce 7800 GT and X1800XL to maintain throughout every single setting and level, even at 1,280 x 1,024.
The new BETA version of ATITool now supports X1000-series cards, so we used this to overclock the Gigabyte's core to 540MHz, and the RAM to 510MHz (1.02GHz effective), an increase similar to that managed by the Connect3D and Sapphire. This boost bumped up the card's average frame rate in F.E.A.R., which is always welcome in such a demanding game.
CONCLUSION
This is it: ATi's GeForce 7800 GT beater - just. As long as you don't mind the obvious bug in the drivers, it's that little bit quicker than the GeForce 7800 GT. The X1800XL offers lots of performance potential for new games. There's nothing particularly unique about Gigabyte's card - it's a reference design through and through, complete with noisy, irritating cooler, and has nothing to offer over rival X1800XLs, unless pink is your favourite colour. The key right now is to shop around and get the cheapest X1800XL you can, at least until the manufacturers cut loose some non-reference designs.
Author: Phil Hartup
Gigabyte Radeon X1800xl Gv-rx18l256V-B