Abit Fatal1ty Radeon X800 XL

Performance Summary: The Abit Fatal1ty X800 XL 512MB performed well throughout our entire battery of benchmarks. More often than not, it fell short of the performance offered by a Radeon X850 XT or GeForce 7800 GT, but it hung alongside or outpaced a GeForce 6800 Ultra in many tests, like FarCry and Half Life 2. When running the Fatal1ty X800 XL 512MB in its xTurbo mode, it was about 10% faster than stock, which would also make it about 10% faster than any other stock Radeon X800 XL.

Abit should be commended for producing the Fatal1ty X800 XL 512MB. This may not be the most powerful video card on the market, but it does offer many things not available anywhere else. Instead of producing a cookie-cutter, reference Radeon X800 XL, the folks at Abit went to work and designed a custom video card with features targeted squarely at enthusiasts. The xTurbo "one-button" overclocking feature is something we really like, and we hope Abit has plans to incorporate it into future products. We also liked the fact that Abit gives users the ability to tweak the Fatal1ty X800 XL's fan speed, and GPU core / memory voltages and clock speeds through the included vGuru application. Our only gripe with this product is the fast that it doesn't ship with any games that'll showcase its performance and capabilities. Yes, there are faster cards available; the Radeon X800 XL was never a world beater. But few cards, if any, can match the Fatal1ty X800 XL 512MB in terms of tweakability. We wouldn't recommend this card to everyone because it lacks SM 3.0 support and is pricier than similarly performing cards, but those with smaller monitors or 17" - 19" LCDs, that don't run at resolutions above 1280x1024 would be well served by the Fatal1ty X800 XL. And its 512MB frame buffer helps make it a bit more "future proof" than some other video cards with 256MB or smaller frame buffers. The Fatal1ty X800 XL 512MB is available on-line for about $390, but that price will obviously drop over time. At $390 it's a tough-sell in a world where the GeForce 7800 GT is available for roughly $340, but we like what Abit has done with this card and give them extra points for innovation and originality. We're giving the Fatal1ty X800 XL a strong 7.5 on the Heat Meter, and hope that Abit plans to offer similar features on their future high-end products.

	•_Not A Reference Card! •_"One Touch" Overclocking •_High-Quality Copper Cooler •_Innovative Features •_Unsurpassed Tweakability	•_Relatively Expensive •_No SM 3.0 support •_Price / Performance Ratio

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