ATi R420 Revealed - X800 XT Platinum Edition and X800 Pro Preview - PAGE 11

Image Quality

Image quality is pretty impeccable as usual. We took a few screenshots of a couple scenes in Far Cry to show off the different AA levels. Temporal AA made the biggest difference in 2x AA mode with temporal AA on. It was markedly better than regular 2x AA. The effect was more subtle at the 4x and 6x levels. Unfortunately, regular screen captures do not work in capturing this but we are working on something to show the effects of Temporal AA.

AF Quality Differences

Video Acceleration - MPEG2 / WMV Decoding

Hardware accelerated MPEG-2 decoding has been a feature for several hardware generations. Playing back a regular DVD, we did not see much of a variation on processor usage between a 9600XT or a X800 XT. Both had CPU Utilization rates of about 7% on average with the DVD overlay window maximized.

Playing back a T2 HD-WMV clip did not seem to affect processor usage with both the 9600XT and X8000 XT using between 50-60% of the processing power. According to ATi, video acceleration of WMV decoding has not been enabled in the current driver set. We will keep an eye out on this and see how it develops.

Conclusions

ATi dropped quite the bomb on the industry with the X800; their strategy is decidedly different than that of Nvidia's. The focus was one of refinement instead of ripping up the previous design and heading back to the drawing board. Refinement may be a bit of an understatement when looking at the performance of their new cards, especially the X800 XT. In many situations, performance is up nearly 100% over that of the 9800XT. This is a great boon to games like Halo and Far Cry that were desperately begging for more horsepower especially at higher resolutions and with must have on features such as AA and AF.

To be frank, the X800 does not bring a whole lot to the table as far as whiz bang features go. No, the X800s do not support Shader Model 3. The biggest feature for the X800 series is 3Dc and that is nothing to sneeze at by any means. Normal maps are here to stay and any technique to reduce the size of those textures will be important. Developer support for 3Dc seems to be fairly widespread judging by the quick implementation from the guys over at Croteam and Valve. From an end user perspective the difference in detail was dramatic to say the least.

Temporal AA is a nice bonus as well as the image is noticeably better with Temporal AA on. While it will work on the R3xx series of cards, it may not get a lot of use as it is dependent on a high framerate to achieve the effect and the 9800XT can have trouble pulling 60+ fps with any sort of AA on, especially in newer games.

ATI has shown the industry that it is not about to keel over and relinquish the performance lead without a huge scrap and has met Nvidia's NV40 charge head on. The X800 is an extremely attractive part that will pay dividends immediately as the focus is on now. It is clear even with the current crop of games that more computing horsepower is needed and ATI's focus is to deliver performance instead of spending silicon on features that will not be used as readily. The minimal amount of new features on the R420 is a testament to the foresight and planning that went on for the R3xx series. Gamers should be estatic by the improvements in speed from the X800. The last trick up ATi's sleeves is that the X800 Pro should be available almost immediately as it is shipping today. Look for it on shelves by late this week or early next week with a MSRP of 399$. The X800 XT Platinum Edition should be available in late May, the last date given to us was the 21st so it can conceivably beat out the 6800 to shelves. Start marking down the days till then and start saving the pennies because the XT will be going for 499$ and will be an item that every enthusiast will want.