Verdict: More pipes than Sherlock Holmes, but you pay extra for them

The vanilla X800 was introduced to replace the X700XT, which barely saw the light of day. It looks very similar to X700 cards and uses the same reference ATi HSF. However, unlike the high-end X800 Pro and XT cards, the X800 is based on an 110nm fabrication process. This means that, clock for clock, it requires less power and generates less heat. The smaller production process also means that ATi can squeeze more chips on a silicon wafer, which reduces manufacturing costs - a saving that's (partly) passed on to you.

The reason why this card merits an X800-series moniker, rather than an X700-series name, is that it's a 12-pixel pipeline GPU with a 256-bit memory interface. The extra bandwidth, in particular, means that it should cope a lot better at high resolutions in shader-intensive games such as Half-Life 2.

At 1,280 x 1,024 with 2x AA and 2x AF, the X700 cards struggle to render a smooth frame rate (see graphs on p89). However, the X800's extra horsepower makes the games far more playable. In fact, in Half-Life 2 at 1,600 x 1,200 with 4x AA and 8x AF it was the fastest PCI-E graphics on test. However, if you compare the X800's results to those of a 6600 GT across the full spread of game tests, you'll see that, on balance, there's very little to separate them.

The X800 does have an ace up its sleeve, though, because it's an amazing overclocker. We managed to push the RAM from 350MHz to 550MHz (1.1GHz effective) and the GPU from 390MHz to 420MHz. This massive overclock increased the average frame rate in Far Cry at 1,600 x 1,200 with 4x AA and 8x AF by an astonishing 38 per cent. Considering that our card was an early production model, there's a good chance the retail cards will overclock even further.

In many ways, the vanilla X800 is superior to the 6600 GT, but it's also more expensive, and there's no guarantee that every card will overclock as well as our card did. If you're willing to pay the extra then it's an excellent card and a positive move in the right direction for ATi. However, unless the price comes down significantly, a GeForce 6600 GT card offers much better value for money.

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