| Specifications, Packaging & First Impression |
Specifications for the Gigabyte Radeon X800XL GV-RX80L256V are not as easy to find as you might expect. For some reason many of the specifications & drivers are listed as “coming soon” on the Gigabyte website. I had to search many websites and copy the majority of the specs straight from the box. |
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Specifications |
Core clock |
400MHz |
Pixel Pipelines |
16 |
Memory Clock |
980MHz |
Memory Size |
256MB |
Memory Interface |
256-bit |
Memory Type |
GDDR3 |
Interface |
PCI-Express x16 |
Ports |
D- Sub, DVI & HDTV/S-Video/Composite Out |
Accessories |
DVI to VGA Adapter
HDTV Cable
Manual
Driver CD |
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Some features listed on the box:
- 16 parallel pixel pipelines
- 6 parallel vertex processing engines
- SMARTSHADER HD increased maximum shader instruction count to 1,536 from
- 160, new high-performance shader compiler
- SMOOTHVISION HD improved AA and AF performance for HD resolutions, 12X effective Temporal MSAA generates the sharpest and clearest images
- VIDEOSHADER HD integrated shader features to provide unprecedented support for digital and high definition video
- HYPER Z HD enhanced Hi-Z buffer for improved performance at HD resolutions
3Dc provided image enhancement, acceleration technology resulting in high polygon characters and scenes
- 128-bit, 64-bit, 32-bit per pixel floating point color formats
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| Gigabyte did not slack on the packaging. Once again, they introduce an awesome card contained in a graphics-intensive box. There are detailed specifications, features and minimum system requirements plastered on each side of the box to help you choose the right card. The box is nothing small, and has a large handle at the top so you can look cool as you carry it out of the store. Well, I guess most of us buy online, so maybe you can just carry it around the house instead. |
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The card is nestled safely in the box-within-a-box. Included with the card:
- VIVO dongle ( S-Video in- & output, composite video input, and HDTV output)
- DVI connector
- Software CD's
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| Software Bundle |
PowerDVD 5 |
Power Director 3 |
Joint Operations |
Thief III |
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| The card is quite impressive at first glance. It is the familiar gigabyte blue that we have come to know. The heat sink is impossible to miss. Large, gold and strange looking. Completely fanless. Was I excited? I think leery is an appropriate term. This is Texas and we can't live comfortably in our home without an AC and fan, so what makes me think this card can live without a fan or some form of cooling. With that aside, it is quite the heatsink. A heatpipe design to be exact. Gigabyte proudly boasts its logo across the design. If you are an avid video card lover, you may notice that the PCI express layout is slightly different than the AGP we are most familiar with. The card is heavy, but nothing more than some heatsink fans I have reviewed in the past. |
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The installation went well, with no Significant issues to be noted. One nice thing about this card is the lack of a power source; No extra molex is needed to run this particular card. This minimizes messy wires for that neat freak. Now some may think this card is large, and depending on your motherboard layout you may have space issues. The card comes very close to the heat-sink fan on my Asus P5WD2-Premium. It may be close, but it did not pose a problem. It is possible with the larger heat-sink fans that the combination could be an impossible match. Again, this is just something to keep in mind when purchasing that goliath HSF. |
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The card is visually appealing. The heatpipes are the primary view you get when looking at the installed card. Now, this view may be different depending on which case you have. I am still using the Lian-Li V-1100 and the motherboard mounts “upside down”. I would say that this is a prime location for a fanless card. The CPU heatsink fan provides a little airflow and so does the rear exhaust fan.
Using the included dongle, I was able to connect a second screen using S-video. It worked with minimal difficulty on setup, and appeared in Display properties as a second monitor. |
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