Product Reviews

This month, ATI released its new X1000 range of graphics cards - the X1300, X1600 and X1800. These have higher clock speeds than their predecessors, can move data around at higher speeds and support Shader Model 3.0 - the latest graphics standard from Microsoft.

These cards should cut through the latest games like a hot knife through the butter, so we've pitted the Sapphire Radeon X1300, the GeCube Radeon X1600XT and the super high-end MSI Radeon X1800XT against our current Best Buy card, the XFX GeForce 6600GT

We ran a combination of Doom 3 and Half-Life 2 tests at 1280x1024 resolution. If a card scores 30 frames per second (fps) or more it's doing well.

Sapphire X1300

As it utilises ATI's budget X1300 chipset, Sapphire's card is by far the cheapest of the bunch. It's also much quieter than its more expensive siblings as it doesn't need a fan. If you're building a Media Center PC, or would rather sacrifice 3D power for silence, this is a real boon.

Performance was good for such a reasonably priced card. Our harder tests were too much for the budget Sapphire, but the easier going Half-Life 2 test gave a passable result of 29fps. Doom 3 was a struggle for the

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X1300, but lowering the resolution from 1280x1024 to a more reasonable 1024x768 helped up the frame rate to a playable level.

GeCube Radeon X1600XT

In our Half-Life 2 test the GeCube managed a smooth 58fps - 16fps quicker than our Best Buy XFX card. Once we turned on anti-aliasing though, the GeCube's performance plummeted, although it still managed to stay just a whisker ahead of the XFX.

The X1600XT struggled with the first Doom 3 test. Despite a respectable 42fps, it was still 18fps slower than the XFX. Adding 4x anti-aliasing saw it redress the balance marginally, nudging a single frame in front.

MSI X1800XT

The hulking MSI takes up a PCI-Express 16x slot and obstructs the slot below, which is a bit of a pain. As you'd expect from a £400 graphics card its performance is fantastic. A silky smooth result of 78fps in our most demanding Doom 3 test paid testament to its 3D power. Even the incredibly demanding graphical trickery of Half-Life 2 was no match for the X1800XT's muscle. With 4x anti-aliasing and 8x anisotropic filtering enabled it still trounced the lesser cards. A very impressive card for hard-core gamers, but you pay a high price for the extra performance.

BUYING DECISIONS

We were impressed by ATI's new range of graphics cards. Sapphire's X1300 is no speed demon, but with a price tag of £66 its well worthy of a recommendation, and will offer playable frame rates if you don't mind gaming at lower resolutions like 1024x768. The GeCube X1600XT is tempting too, but costs over £10 more than our Best Buy XFX card. As for the MSI X1800XT, well unless you have a gorgeous TFT or CRT monitor capable of high resolutions like 1600x1200, its stupendous 3D performance is overkill. But if you can afford it, it's an absolute stunner.