ATI Radeon X1800XT Preview

The X1800 family features twelve shaders processors and is meant to compete with the 7800GTX/GT cards from nVidia while the X1600 features four shader processors and is meant to compete with the 6800 and 6600GT cards from nVidia. Finally, the X1300 is meant to compete with the 6600 and 6200 cards from nVidia. Features are same across all cards meaning even the X1300 series will offer SM3.0 and AVIVO capabilities. Due to some time constrains, today, we’re only looking at the X1800XT from ATI.

Feature-wise, ATI does good by adding Shader Model 3.0 that, unlike nVidia cards, also works with Anti Aliasing enabled at the same time. With its adaptive Anti Aliasing, ATI arguably provides the best image quality as well. AVIVO is also built-in and is sure to improve image quality for playback of videos. Lastly, with dual bandwidth DVI controllers we’re sure to be see a better and hopefully quicker implementation of CrossFire on these new generation of cads. Speaking of dual bandwidth, each of these high-end cards is capable of driving two 30 inch Apple display which is nothing short of WOW.

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