Gigabyte Radeon X800

Overclocking

As I suspected, the Gigabyte Radeon X800 did not allow us to overclock its core very much at all. In fact, it took after the Gigabyte GeForce 6800, and I couldn't even push 2 more MHz out of it without causing some sort of freezes or crashes in a 3DMark 2005 loop. A stock 400 MHz it is. The GPU temperature after a loop or two at 400 MHz was around 75C.

The memory, however, is a completely different story. In the introduction I mentioned that the stock memory speed on this board was 480 MHz (960 MHz DDR). I was able to push that memory far beyond that, all the way to 545 MHz! This is a whopping 65 MHz overclock (130 MHz DDR) on memory chips that are rated at only 20 MHz more than the stock speed of the card. Very impressive.

Doing some quick benchmarks in Half-Life 2, I saw up to a 5% difference in performance at the higher resolutions with AA/AF.

Conclusion

The Gigabyte X800 is a tough cookie to summarize. It is an excellent product from the perspective of the price/performance ratio, just as the Gigabyte GeForce 6800. For anyone interested in an HTPC/silent PC, products of this genre are perfect, as the R423 core is a first-class DX9 core ideal for medium to heavy gaming, yet they are completely silent. The X800 delivers in spades and will present a serious challenge to the 6800 and especially the 6600GT. Again, the Gigabyte X800 pricing is not exactly at the ATI suggested 199$ SRP but arguably the extra cost is justified by the extra (and faster) memory along with the heatpipe design. There is still the X700 Pro at the 199$ range and I guess board partners don't want boards cannibalizing each other.

As a customer trying to make a purchase decision if I were aiming for a 100% silent PC, I would probably end up narrowing down my choices to either one of the two heatpipe solutions from Gigabyte in either their RADEON X800 or the NVIDIA 6800. At that point, I would decide on what games are more important to me, and what brand (ATI vs. NVIDIA) I've had better experiences with in the past. If I were more interested in games like Far Cry or Half-Life 2, I'd pick the X800. If Call of Duty, Doom 3, or Jedi Knight 2 were my favourites, I'd probably pick the GeForce 6800. The biggest weakness on the ATI side is the OpenGL thorn and with other marquee titles like Quake 4 this will be a lingering question. On the D3D side, the X800 is consistently fast.

As it stands right now, the Gigabyte X800 is a worthy product for both the enthusiast gamer and casual gamer, as well as one of few obvious choices for anyone on a quest to reduce computer noise. While it may not be the screamer that the X800 XT or 6800 Ultra are, it is still head and shoulders above most of the graphics solutions that the average person possesses.


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