Return of the king: ATI X800XL AIW tested

CLUBIC.COM has put together six ATI PCI-Express cards, XT700Pro, X850XT and the PE version, X800 and X800XL. After, many benchmarks and bucketloads of details, the X800XL comes out at the best ATI card out there but beware what brand you should bet your money on. As for the fastest one better go for the HIS X850XT IceQ II Turbo, cheaper than the X850 XT PE but still capable of matching its speed.

Beyond3D has a review of a ATI All in Wonder X800XT, which is almost as rare as flying cows. The board combines the best of breed as it bundles a very fine TV Tuner, one of the best Graphic GPU available - the X800XT while being able to keep everything on a single slot solution. Add PVR, FM and loads of AV outputs and you surely have a winner.

The guys at Waiwan OC have been able to unlock a Leadtek Geforce 6200 to a Geforce 6600 using a simple flash BIOS. Chinese translator needed.

Bjorn3D tests the Sapphire Radeon X850XT. The X800XT and X800XL differ from it only in terms of core and memory speed. Bjorn3D says that the X850XT might provide the best performance available but the level of value is low thanks to a high price and to the fact that it is a two slot solution.

Pentarsys reviews the Albatron Geforce 6200TC Q graphics card, which is based on the NV44 core clocked at 350MHz. The card comes with DVI, Svideo and VGA ports. Benchmarks shows that the card runs as fast or as slow as a Geforce FX 5700 Ultra or a Ti4200. A good, noiseless, highly overclockable card. They also have an official response from nVidia on the MSI and the 6800GT affair which made the news last month plus a State of 3D article for the first half of 2005.

GamePC tests the first 1GB Video card rig I've seen. They take two PNY nVidia QuadroFX 4400 512MB and SLIed them together. The result is absolutely flabbergasting. Both cards use 368W under full load for an indication. While the cards are absolutely ideal for gaming - at a price though - you'd better use them for professional software like 3D Max where they rule everything else.

Finally, Anandtech reviews some compatible MCE TV Tuner which include ATI's Theater 550 and Nvidia's NVTV - all in all, six TV tuners. The ones getting the top accolade are the PVR250 and the TV Wonder Elite which comes with the 550. But at the end of the day, it depends how much you want to pay and the quality of your line. µ