When ATI announced in 2001 that it would henceforth allow third-party vendors to manufacture cards based on its technology the announcement was seen as a double-edged sword that would simultaneously allow for greater proliferation of ATI products while potentially lowering the firm?s profits.  In retrospect, ATI?s decision to allow AIB manufacturers to build products based on their designs is one of the most intelligent moves the company ever made.  ATI-based solutions are now built by dozens of manufacturers, including Sapphire; a company who used the ATI shift as a catalyst to catapult themselves from relative obscurity to one of the most-known vendors of ATI product worldwide.

As Sapphire?s own brand power and influence have increased we?ve seen corresponding movement from the company to offer new products that used ATI technology but simultaneously differentiated Sapphire from ?the competition.?  Fan-less designs like the 9800 XT Ultimate and 9600 XT Ultimate were well-received, but the X800 Pro TOXIC we?re reviewing today has set itself a higher bar in terms of its uniqueness.  Since its based on ATI?s X800 design we all know its damn fast?so what else has Sapphire got to offer in this $469 wonder?  Lets take a look.

 

Bundle Up:  Putting the ?Value? in ?Value Add-In?.

In the video card industry the word ?value add-ins? almost always translates into ?low-budget crap? when translated from English to Chinese.  Either that, or video card vendors labor under the intense illusion that gamers don?t read game reviews, and hence are happy to receive copies of awful games no one in their right mind would want to play.  Even companies who avoid bundling product more properly seen at the bottom of the ocean  seem to end up bundling games that are, at best, mediocre. 

Sapphire, happily, avoids this pitfall altogether and has included full retail versions of Splinter Cell:  Pandora Tomorrow and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.  Other goodies include Cyberlink?s Power DVD and PowerDirector VE software suites; and while neither program is stunningly fabulous, both of them do their respective jobs (DVD watching and light video editing) well enough. 

Sapphire typically includes a modified version of the Rage3D tweaker that they?ve customized (called Redline), but a copy was missing from our box.  It was an accidental oversight, this hard-core tweaking utility is included standard in all shipping X800 Toxic cards.

Sapphire includes ATI?s Catalyst Driver 4.5 in its official bundle, which is the next-most-recent version.  It makes little sense to update shipping cards now since ATI is currently re-writing their OGL driver to boost performance in Doom 3, but hopefully once that driver ships Sapphire will update their software CD.  Downloads are also prominently available for the same driver set directly from Sapphire?s website, which is a nice plus as well.

next >

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• A.P.E.: Is Sapphire Monkeying Around? (1 of 13)
• Cabling, Adapters, and Documentatin (2 of 13)
• The Card: Orange, Poisonous, and Big. (3 of 13)
• Features and Shenanigans: This Doth Not a Thermal Probe Make. (4 of 13)
• Features Cont, Test Setup. (5 of 13)
• 3DMark 2001: Standard, HD, UD. (6 of 13)
• 3DMark 2003: Standard, HD, UD. (7 of 13)
• Aquamark. (8 of 13)
• CodeCreatures and X2. (9 of 13)
• Performance Analysis: Why X800 Looks the Way it Does (10 of 13)
• Pricing (11 of 13)
• Breaking it Down: Just How Much Poison Is Toxic Packing? (12 of 13)
• Conclusion, Awards. (13 of 13)