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Before the announcement of the updated RADEON X series, there was a big gap between ATI's midrange solutions and the high end. PCIe users had the choice between the X700Pro and the next card up on the totem pole would be the X800Pro, a jump of 200$. Compounding the problem is the speedy 6600GT which looks like the better buy when compared to the X700Pro. However ATI did not stay idle and they responded with a slew of new parts including the X800 and the X800 XL to beef up their line up between the X700 and the X85x series. In particular, ATI seemed intent on not just matching NVIDIA's acclaims with the 6600GT but crush it and it certainly seems possible as the 12 pipes, $199 SRP and 256-bit memory interface are eye-opening specs for the X800.

Back in late December, I reviewed Gigabyte's passively-cooled GeForce 6800. It was the first such video card that I had seen, and I was impressed with its performance and stability, especially considering the zero-noise-output. I suggested that it would make a fine choice for the silent-PC crowd, as it was still quite a performer, but without the annoying whir. Gigabyte has now taken things a step further, and implemented a very similar cooling solution on a new PCI-Express ATI X800 part.

As we mentioned before the X800 is a 12-pipe X800 chip putting it more in the realm of the 6800 rather than the 6600GT. Gigabyte has chosen to pair the X800 with 256 MB of GDDR3 memory which sits on a 256-bit memory interface. The clock speeds are a healthy 400 MHz core and impressive 980 MHz DDR. This is a far cry from the reference ATI design which has the memory clock specified at 700 Mhz DDR and the memory configuration pegged at 128MB. Based on our experiences with the passive GeForce 6800, I have doubts about the overclocking abilities as the passive 6800 seemed stretched to the limit. As with the Sapphire X800 XL, it does not look like Gigabyte will hit the 199$ SRP set by ATI but Gigabyte has beefed up the memory and the cooling solution.

Specifications

Gigabyte has very much deviated from the reference specifications when it comes to the memory clock. The reference calls for 700 MHz, Gigabyte has opted to go with 980 MHz. This is only 20 MHz short of XL/XT speeds.