Performance conclusions
The most controversial product is the ATI RADEON X1600 XT. I've ambivalent impressions. On the one hand, it obviously fairs on the level with the GeForce 6600GT (sometimes a tad better), but that card is below $200 already, reaching the $150 mark. And the X1600 XT is offered at $200 or even $250 for a 256 MB modification. Too expensive. On the other hand, it's equipped with very expensive memory, operating at huge frequencies for a middle-end card - 1380 MHz. Besides, the 590 MHz core is not a cheap die. Is there a price reduction reserve for such cards? I doubt it. The product is too "tight" (the frequencies are squeezed to maximum). Besides, the architecture is misbalanced. We already wrote about it before. 12 shader pipelines and just 4 texture units. If the Canadian company hopes that all games will be similar to TR:AoD, which uses shaders and a couple of simple textures, where its products will be up to the mark, they are mistaken. Texture units have plenty of work to do! They shouldn't be slimmed down like this.
ATI RADEON X1800XT is a new flagship. Can we call it the king of 3D graphics? - No, we can't, I guess. You can clearly see that it shares the first place with the 7800GTX, considering the market is full with overclocked cards based on this model. But it's surely one of the leaders. The situation with the NV40/R420 repeats itself. Again we have two leaders and the choice comes down to your religion. Considering that both products, from ATI and from NVIDIA, fully support all new DirectX 9.0c features (somebody will definitely dislike the word "fully", being of the opinion that it's not quite the case with the Canadians, but according to Microsoft, they offer sterling support). NVIDIA is not doing perfectly either - as these two chips have different FP16 capacities, the chances are high that game developers should be careful with both of them). I hope the prices will not be initially raised too high, considering that the 7800GTX prices have already dropped significantly.
The ATI RADEON X1800XL is the younger brother of the flagship, which closes the High-End sector at the bottom. It obviously competes with the GeForce 7800GT in price, but its performance issues are controversial. So the choice will again come down to your sympathies (religion), under condition that the prices for the new product are not raised too high.
The ATI RADEON X1300 PRO is approximately on the level with the GeForce 6600, sometimes higher, sometimes lower... But again its characteristics are "tight": it is equipped with expensive DDR2 memory (have you ever seen 2.5ns memory on a video card for $100?). However, this product obviously doesn't qualify for $150, hence the controversial impressions.
On the whole I can say the following: though with problems, though not that brilliant, the new line has been finally launched and will soon hit the stores. Thus, we'll learn the real market prices, which will rate the products and determine popularity of the new cards. At least, there is hope.
