ATI Radeon X800

The ATI Radeon X800 occupies a unique position in the hardware landscape of its era, defined by its R430 chip built on a 110 nm process at TSMC. This is a card that bridges the gap between the tail end of the DirectX 9 generation and the dawn of PCIe adoption, offering a specific set of capabilities that are best understood through its architectural parameters and raw throughput metrics. As an end-of-life product, its data provides a snapshot of a transitional period in GPU design.

Benchmark Performance

The benchmark data for the ATI Radeon X800 is stark in its absence of quantitative scores; the average benchmark score is recorded as zero, and there are no nearest rivals or percentile deltas provided. This lack of comparative data means the performance profile must be derived entirely from the card's internal specifications. The X800 delivers a pixel rate of 4.800 GPixel/s and a texture rate of 4.800 GTexel/s, figures that are perfectly balanced between its 12 ROPs and 12 TMUs. This equilibrium suggests that in titles of its generation, the card would maintain consistent throughput without a bottleneck in either pixel shading or texture filtering.

The 50th percentile ranking against all GPUs is a purely positional indicator, suggesting that this card sits exactly in the middle of the database's historical spectrum. However, without a benchmark score to anchor this percentile, it remains a relative placeholder. The memory clock is specified at 350 MHz, running at 700 Mbps effective due to DDR technology. This feeds a 256-bit bus, producing a memory bandwidth of 22.40 GB/s. In practice, this bandwidth is the limiting factor for the card's performance at higher resolutions, as the shading and texturing capabilities are paired with a memory subsystem that is modest by later standards.

The architecture is DirectX 9.0b (9_2) compliant, not the later 9_3 revision. This is a critical distinction; it means the X800 lacks certain feature-level optimizations found in subsequent parts. The OpenGL support is rated at 2.1. With 160 million transistors on a 240 mm² die, the transistor density is 666.7K / mm², a figure that reflects the 110 nm process maturity. The power envelope is remarkably low at 30 W TDP, which requires no auxiliary power connectors and only a 200 W suggested PSU, freeing it from the power delivery constraints of more demanding cards.

Who Should Consider It

Given the absence of empirical benchmark scores, the X800's suitability must be inferred from its architectural balance and memory configuration. The 256 MB of DDR memory on a 256-bit bus is the defining constraint. For users targeting resolutions of 1024x768 or 1280x1024 in titles from the 2004-2005 era, this card provides a coherent experience. The 22.40 GB/s bandwidth is sufficient for 32-bit color at those resolutions, where the 4.800 GPixel/s fill rate can be effectively utilized. Users operating at lower detail settings in DirectX 9.0b titles would find the card responsive.

However, for higher resolutions such as 1600x1200, the memory bandwidth becomes a severe bottleneck. The 256 MB frame buffer is also a limitation for texture-heavy applications that exceed this capacity, forcing swapping and reducing effective performance. The card is not suited for enabling high levels of antialiasing or anisotropic filtering at those higher resolutions, as the bandwidth and fill rate would be overwhelmed. The X800 is best considered by users with older displays or those running legacy applications that do not demand more than 256 MB of video memory. It is a card for a specific, narrow use case: running early-to-mid-2000s games at standard resolutions with moderate settings. It is not a card for high-refresh-rate gaming or for any modern workload requiring shader model 3.0, given its DirectX 9.0b limitation.

How It Compares

The FACT PACK provides no nearest rival data for the ATI Radeon X800, so a direct comparison against specific competitors is impossible. The database lists the predecessor as the Radeon R300 and the successor as the Radeon R500 PCIe, but no performance deltas or scores are attached to these transitions. Without rival names, scores, or deltaPct values, any positional analysis must be purely speculative and is therefore omitted. The card's position in the market is defined solely by its own parameters: a 30 W TDP, a 256-bit memory interface, and a 4.800 GTexel/s texture rate. Its 50th percentile ranking implies it is neither at the bottom nor the top of the historical performance curve, but the lack of corroborating data prevents any meaningful comparative conclusion.

FAQ

Q: What is the memory bandwidth of the ATI Radeon X800?

A: The memory bandwidth is 22.40 GB/s, derived from a 350 MHz memory clock (700 Mbps effective) on a 256-bit bus using DDR memory.

Q: What is the DirectX feature level supported by this card?

A: The card supports DirectX 9.0b (9_2). It does not support the later 9_3 feature level, which limits its compatibility with certain shader effects in later titles.

Q: How much power does the ATI Radeon X800 require?

A: The card has a TDP of 30 W and does not require any power connectors. The suggested PSU rating is 200 W.

Q: What is the pixel and texture fill rate?

A: The pixel rate is 4.800 GPixel/s and the texture rate is 4.800 GTexel/s, both driven by 12 ROPs and 12 TMUs respectively.

Q: What is the transistor count and die size?

A: The R430 chip contains 160 million transistors on a die size of 240 mm², manufactured on a 110 nm process at TSMC.

Q: When was this card released and what is its production status?

A: The release date is 2004-11-30 and the production status is listed as end-of-life.

Memory Subsystem

The memory subsystem is the most critical component of the ATI Radeon X800, defining its performance ceiling. It is equipped with 256 MB of DDR memory, which is a standard capacity for its generation but is now a limiting factor for modern texture sets. The memory operates at 350 MHz, translating to 700 Mbps effective data rate due to the double data rate nature of DDR. The interface is a full 256-bit bus, which is the key architectural decision; this wide bus is designed to maximize bandwidth from the relatively slow memory clock.

The resulting bandwidth of 22.40 GB/s is the single most important number for understanding this card's behavior. While the pixel and texture rates are capable of sustaining 4.800 units per second, the memory subsystem can only feed them at a rate determined by this bandwidth. At lower resolutions, this balance is sufficient. At higher resolutions, the demand for pixel data exceeds what the memory can supply, leading to a performance plateau. The 256 MB capacity also means that any scene exceeding this memory footprint will incur performance penalties as the GPU struggles to manage textures. The 256-bit bus width is a testament to the design philosophy of the time, prioritizing a wide interface to compensate for lower clock speeds, but the 22.40 GB/s figure remains a hard cap on the card's high-resolution potential.