Gigabyte X700 Video Card Review :: Features

• 8 Pixel Pipelines
• 6 Vertex Shaders
• DirectX 9.0
• Pixel Shader 2.0
• Vertex Shader 2.0
• OpenGL 1.5
• 3Dc
• 256-bit memory bus
• .13um low-k dielectric process

The X700 Pro shares its feature set with the X800 series of cards and the X850 series of cards ATI recently released for their Spring lineup. Fundamentally, the architecture is the same as that introduced in 2002 with the release of the RADEON 9700 Pro. In fact, if you compare the features of the X700 Pro and the 9800XT (which was the highest performing card of 2003) you can see many similarities. Both have eight pixel pipelines, both have a clock speed of around 420MHz for the core. Both support Pixel Shader 2.0 and Vertex Shader 2.0.

PCI Express

One difference between the X700 Pro and the X600 that it replaces is the fact that it has 6 vertex shader pipelines versus four on the x600 series. Many games today are vertex shader bound and the additional vertex shaders should allow for more geometry intensive operations. ATI chose to make all of their PCI Express cards native to the new interface. This required them to tape out many more SKUs to provide the cards needed. PCI Express allows up to 8GB of memory bandwidth, compared to AGP8X, which provides up to 2.1GB of bandwidth.

Bundle

• Driver CD
• Joint Operations Typhoon Rising
• Thief Deadly Shadows
• PowerDVD
• Breakout Box
• DVI to D-Sub adapter
• Manual

The Gigabyte X700 Pro comes with an awesome bundle, especially if you have never played the two games included. Thief: Deadly Shadows was released early last year by Eidos. You take the role of a Thief trying to complete a series of increasingly more difficult missions. The game uses pixel and vertex shaders, but is not as visually appealing as later games like Half Life 2 or the Chronicles of Riddick. Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising is a game akin to Battlefield Vietnam. You take the role of an infantryman to try and complete a series of missions by land or air. The X700 Pro plays both of the included bundled games with little difficulty. The DVD player Gigabyte includes with the card is PowerDVD 5.0, the latest version of Cyberlink's DVD software.

Hardware wise the Gigabyte RX70256V card comes with a DVI to D-sub adapter allowing for dual CRT monitors or one LCD monitor with a DVI-I connector and a CRT to be used simultaneously. Honestly, I hope all cards released from here on out have dual DVI-I connectors to allow 2 LCDs with the connectors to be used, or alternatively, to use one or two CRTs via DVI-I to D-Sub adapters.

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