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Reviews for ATI RADEON X800 XT Graphics Card

256MB 256bit - MPN: 100435317

|3 reviews

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By anonymous - Mar 9, 2006

ATI or nVidia??????

Strengths: Fast, single slot, drives my ADC 20", 2d & 3d look great.

Weakness: Cant find any.

About a week ago I worked some overtime and thought this is the time for the final upgrade to my Mac G5. I found a nVidia 6800 ultra for $400. and this ATI for $380.
and bought them both to decied for myself whats right for me. I ran both cards thru my
favorite games and the 800 out did the 6800 in every one! I really wanted the nVidia to smoke the ATI because I've never liked those Canadians! and nVidia is a few towns over from me. Bottom line is this! I've got to go with the better card and the 800 is by far the better of the two.

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Reply by member: timhood
Dec 28, 2006

You might be happy to know that ATI was bought by AMD, so even though they are still in Canada, they are a little less "Canadian". :-)

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By member: osxboi - Apr 23, 2005

ATI RADEON X800 XT Graphics Card

Strengths: Well designed card-seamless integration with Mac OS X.3.8. Very fast. On X-Plane 7.63 with all rendering options at 1024x768 fps stays >50. In UT2K4 full-screen on 20" LCD gameplay is fluid.

Weakness: Printed documentation is weak, and not specific to the X800XT. No over-clocking capabilities with the supplied ATI utility program.

At $450.00, this card is a bit over-priced, however it performs well and should be considered by all serious Mac gamers. I've read reports on Apple Discussions (www.apple.com/support) of low-quality technical support from ATI, so if tech support is important to you, you might think twice about buying this card. Some people have had problems with the most recent ROM update (April, 2005) hosing the card, and requiring it to be returned to ATI for 'repair'. My card accepted the ROM update without problem, and I've noticed no oddities at all in the card's performance. I'm a happy camper!

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By member: slickninja - Feb 21, 2006

Powerhouse graphics

Strengths: Fastest AGP card for Mac Relatively fair priced

Weakness: Spendy Gotta have air flow Not much for Mac gaming is it worth $370 for a graphics card upgrade for a computer that's likely 1-2 years old?

Really Mac users are pretty locked in graphic purchases. As of writing this the Mac ATI Radeon 9800 Pro sells for $220 at the lowest end and the PC ATI Radeon 9800 Pro is $130 where as the X800 XT is $370 vs $350 for its PC counterpart.

Due to the small market (Mac is niche then factor in the only people with the ability to change graphics cards are a PowerMac users, G5 users at that minus the narrow margin of modders) selection is slim pickings.

Recently my OEM 9800 Pro bit the dust and I had to have a new card pronto for school. Gaming isn't a huge concern for me, 9800 Pro worked fine for Apple Motion but I always had a slight yerning for a X800 XT, especially after getting a Dell 2405FPW (24 inches of 1920 x 1200 viewing pleasure) as its about the last internal upgrade I could as I already have 5 (yes 5) internal HDs in my G5, all my DIMM slots full for a so-so 3.5 gigs of ram and stuck in a faster DVD-RW with DL capacity.

I installed the card and it worked fine although slightly noisey. I originally figured it might be the BIOS as the initial BIOS on the cards caused the fans to roar, however the card I purchased ships with the 109 Bios.

Due to the lack of drive bays in the G5s, I had to get creative to fit all my HDs in my G5. I had three stacked in my PCI chamber and never had any problems but due to the noisey fan it became rather apparent I had to move them for the X800 XT. I then proceeded to hide one above my DVD-RW and two infront of the fans for the CPU boxes. This seemed to do the trick as the X800 XT stopped going into overdrive and causing my G5's fans to rev up.

Gaming performance is pretty good, playing Halo maxed out at 1920 x 1200 is a kick. The Sims 2 University ran at 1920 x 1200 although sluggishly maxed out. Due to the lack of many Mac games, its really hard to justify the X800 XT.

Apple Motion 2 got a noticable speed increase. In one project a scene using four videos being composited on my ATI 9800 Pro would dip to about 5-8FPS making it unplayable in real time where as the X800 XT chugs along at 12-14 FPS making it not entirely necessary to do RAM previews which is rather nice. Final Cut Pro seemed to work just the same when doing keying. Exposé also got a speed bump as I have show all windows (a massive shrinking effect) tagged to my MX1000 and now seems buttery smooth even with 30 windows in various apps smooth. Neat but certainly not amazing.

Had my R9800 PRo not unexpectedly died, it'd feel like a wasted purchase as I don't do much gaming. Sure Motion gets a speed boost, I can play most games at 1920 x 1200 on my main display.

The Radeon 9800 Pros on the Mac didn't have variable fan speeds, however the 9800 XTs did making them quieter when not doing graphical not under heavy stress. I'd reckon the X800 XT is slightly quieter than the 9800 Pro (although I heard the R9800 Pro OEMs were louder which I've never confirmed).

Unless you're able to find an OEM X850 XT on ebay, this the fastest card you're gonna get for an AGP G5.

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Reply by member: timhood
Dec 28, 2006

Thanks for the thorough review. It sounds like the step up from a 9800 Pro may not be so overwhelming. I have a 64MB 9600 Pro, so I'm expecting an even more pronounced boost.

BTW, it sounds like you've got quite a bit rigged up in your G5. Are you aware that Sonnet makes a product called the G5 Drive which provides a safe, secure mounting of 3 drives in the G5? It's not cheap, but I would recommend it highly. OWC has it for $80.

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