I got a few video card reviews in my mail box this morning, and here they are in no particular order:

  • Digit Life looks at the MSI based X800 XL PCI Express graphics card
  • The guys at HotHardware are reviewing the Asus X800 XL card, also in PCI Express form
  • As if it isn’t enough X800 XL to go around, HardCoreWare has a look-see at the Gigabyte X800 and X800 XL cards
  • Finally, HardwareZone is taking a look at the X850 XT Platinum Edition card from Gigabyte in a PCI Express format too
The Gigabyte GV-RX85X256V-B is a faithful reproduction of ATI’s reference design. Not that there is anything wrong with that. Innovation may be the key to long-term survival in this or any other business; yet there are times when we wish for something simple and unpretentious rather than the trivial, gimmicky tricks vendors do in order to have something juicy for their marketing departments. In this case, what we would get is the Gigabyte GV-RX85X256V-B. This is a competent RADEON X850 XT P.E. card that performs within its specifications and improves on those bare ATI bundled offerings by adding a couple of decent software titles, cables accessories and a V-Tuner monitoring/overclocking tool.