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ATI Radeon VE Dual Display Edition
by Dr. Mengele
I have used this graphic card for a long time and what i can say from the very start is that it never failed to amaze me with the image quality both in 3D games and while viewing movies through it's TV-out. This is a great trait we've come to expect from all ATI graphic cards.
To be more specific, these are the main advantages ... of this video card:
1. It offers a brilliant image quality in games, provided the games themselves have a nice graphic to display. As most ATI video cards, the Radeon VE has built in texture filters, antialiasing features, directX 8.0 support, environment mapping, and many many others.
2. The possibility to extend the desktop on 2 monitors is amazing and gives you a great deal more workspace. When i was using this card, most of the time i would leave Winamp on one monitor and the application i was working with on the main one.
3. It is equipped (mine was at least) with both types of TV-out connectors: s-video and composite. It is also possible to connect 2 TVs at the same time, although i can't imagine why you would want that. All possible TV standards are covered: NTSC, 2 main types of PAL, 2 main types of SECAM. It is pointless to comment on the image quality on the TV since it's a known fact that ATI video cards have excellent TV-out features.
4. A plus are also the nice, user friendly controls for various features, available in the "display properties" menu. These not only look nice, but are also comprehensive, offering you control over all of Radeon's important functions.
5. ATI graphic cards generally do not get hot, and the Radeon VE stays particularly cold at all times, so it is shipped without an active cooling system. That's a plus since most modern graphic cards have noisy coolers, which add up to the already existing noise of the PC. Also, if you decide to replace it's small heat sync with an active cooler, you get a "ready-for-overclock" video card. You'll want to do this if you're a gamer. I'll explain later on.
Cheap video cards always have some inconvenients, and are never perfectly suited for all applications, or are equally but poorly suited for all applications. This card from ATI is in no way an exception, it too having some inconvenients, which i will enumerate below(only the ones i know for sure of course):
1. The Radeon VE is well known among IT profesionals as one of the few 3D video cards that actually does NOT have a geometric processing unit... That's a little strange and also sad, since it means the geometric calculations as well as rendering and various texture filtering procedures are done by the same graphic engine, which by far can't handle all of these tasks. Thus, don't expect fantastic performance in games, unless they're not the latest apparitions. So it's frustrating that the image quality is rather in vain as far as gaming is concerned. Being an ATI graphic card, all games including the latest will launch but some won't be playable, and that also because there's no geometric processor. If you can stand playing a game that runs only slightly slow, you may not be able to stand some areas with missing textures that appear because the graphic processor is simply overloaded with tasks and cannot render everything if the scene's textures are too variated. Here's a short list of games you should avoid if using this graphic card:
- Homeworld 2 - appears acceptable at first but some ships appear without textures; when there's a battle you loose because of slowdown
- Area 51 - runs too slow, no textures at all
- Punnisher - runs too slow
- Farcry - runs slow and there's missing textures, lots
- Need For Speed-anything later than the 4th is not playable
- Unreal Tournament-none of the versions are playable
There may be others but i haven't tried many games.
2. There's also a slight slowdown in 2D performance compared to single display cards, but not too noticeable. Strangely, this slowdown occurs even if all displays but the primary are disabled.
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Radeon x800 Pro
by ff2k
I purchased a Sapphire ATi Radeon x800 Pro Graphics card about 11 months ago from eBuyer for about £270, although it is a lot cheaper now. Compared to my previous card, the Radeon 9700 Pro, this card provided amazing 3D quality, life-like water reflections, and the ability to run 3D applications and games at full resolution without a ... visible compromise of speed. You can get the Sapphire x800 Pro version for about £220-250 depending on where you buy it, there is also a 'VIVO' version, which means 'Video In, Video Out' and comes with a Video-in port which enables the user to connect up a digital camcorder or other video source for capture by the x800. The VIVO version is about £10-20 more expensive than the standard version.
[SPECIFICATIONS]
I will list some basic specifications, and an explanation of each specification as some readers do not understand the meaning of the jargon:
[Interface]: AGP 8x
The Sapphire Radeon x800 Pro connects by AGP interface at a speed of 8x, with 4x supported. AGP is the common interface for most graphics cards, and the AGP slot on your motherboard is where the graphics card will be seated. Newer graphics cards and motherboards are moving to the PCI-express standard, providing an interface speed of 16x. If you want to buy a PCI-express graphics card, ensure your motherboard supports PCI-express. However, the x800 Pro does not use PCI-express but rather uses AGP, which is supported by the majority of motherboards today, so there is no worry about that.
[Memory]: 256mb GDDR3
Video-Memory is used by graphics cards to store textures and the like that are in use, so the graphics processor can access these textures quickly. The higher the video-memory in the graphics card, the less you will notice 'texture thrashing', which is the significant slow-down you will experience when entering a new area on a game. 256mb is one of the highest that is used on video-cards currently, with 512mb cards in development. The memory on the x800 Pro is large enough to accomodate the latest games released.
[Clock Speeds]: Core - 900, Mem - 475 MHz
Higher clock speeds enable better performance, it is as simple as that. The clock speeds can be changed with the use of software, some of which is provided with the Sapphire version of the x800 Pro. This is called overclocking, and causes the device to produce more heat, which can cause it to become unstable, and possibly crash. The higher you deviate from the factory-set clock speeds, the more unstable the card becomes. There are attachments that you can buy such as the ATi Silencer, which is a quiet fan that cools the graphics card down more, enabling further overclocking. The clock speeds of the Radeon x800 are high, enabling games to be run at high resolution without a noticeable drop in frame rate [a low frame rate causes the game to become stuttery and laggy. A high frame rate will make the game smooth]. Also, this enables settings such as AntiAliasing [removal of jagged edges from 3D objects] and Anisotropic Filtering [improving of quality and clarity of objects, especially at a distance] to be enabled without sacrificing too much frame rate.
[Ports]: Analog-out, Digital-out, TV-out
The ports are the plugs on the back of the graphics card, that you plug your monitor or TV into. The Analog-out uses the standard VGA socket that most monitors use, and the digital-out uses a DVI socket that some monitors and some TFT monitors use. The TV-Out uses a S-video-like connection that is compatible with many TV's.
[Software] ATi Drivers and Control Panel, Sapphire Redline, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
The Sapphire version of the x800 Pro comes with the software listed above. The two games show off the capabilities of the graphics card, and Sapphire Redline is an overclocking and tweaking utility that can be used to change many aspects of the card. The ATi drivers and control panels are situated in the "Display Options" advanced tab, and can be used to control many features, from basics such as the resolution and refresh rate, to advanced such as AGP speed and fast writes.
[SIZE]
The x800 Pro is smaller than I expected. Many high-end cards such as some nVidia ones have huge fans or heatsinks that accomodate 2 expansion slots of the case, taking up a lot of room. This is not a problem with the x800 pro, as it is small, but powerful.
[INSTALLATION]
Installation is very easy, and requires the user to have a spare 4-pin large molex-style connector to provide the x800 Pro with additional power. To make this easier, a cable splitter is provided, that splits 1 molex connector into two, incase you do not have any spare connectors. Apart from that, all that is required of the user is that they plug the card into the AGP socket, press down the locking latch, and screw the card into place.
[VIDEO QUALITY]
Watching DVD's and movies with the x800 Pro is enhanced with use of hardware acceleration. DVD's and movies can make use of the video card to enhance quality and smoothness of the image to the screen.
[PERSONAL EXPERIENCE]
My personal experience with the x800 pro is that it performs well on every and any game that is currently out, and you will be able to run them at high settings with no compromise on speed. For games that are a couple of years old, you will be able to run them at perhaps maximum settings with no speed compromise. Many people also recommend the 'Omega Drivers' - a modified ATi driver set for Radeon Cards which supposedly improves performance and enables a better control over the graphics card, with inbuilt features such as overclocking.
Another program I would recommend is ATiTool, which enables you to control the fan speed of the x800, monitor temperatures and overclock the card to its potential while keeping an eye on the temperatures.
I have also noticed an increase in render times within 3D applications, such as Bryce or Poser, which would benefit from the increased graphics hardware acceleration.
[CONCLUSION]
Overall, the x800 pro provides superb quality at a price that, for a high-end card, will not drain your pocket. I would highly recommend this card to a potential buyer of high-end graphics cards. There is also an x800 XT with AGP support, which is more expensive, but provides even more quality. Most other high-end cards are now of the PCI-express interface, which is a problem for people that do not have brand-new motherboards. For this reason, I would highly recommend the x800 Pro, which is a high-end superb card which uses the common AGP interface.
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