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Gigabyte GV-RX18L256V-B X1800 XL Videocard Review
Gigabyte GV-RX18L256V-B X1800 XL Videocard Review - PCSTATS
The Radeon X1800 XL GPU is clocked at 500 MHz, and backed by 256MB of Samsung GDDR3 memory that hums away at 1 GHz.
 80% Rating:   
Filed under: Video Cards Published:  Author: 
External Mfg. Website: Gigabyte Dec 08 2005   C. Sun  
Home > Reviews > Video Cards > Gigabyte GV-RX18L256V-B

ATI AVIVO High Definition Content Accelerator

High Definition video content is right around the corner, and reminiscent of the time when DVD's were first released. HD videos are promising to be very taxing on system recourses too. In order to meet the High Definition processing task, ATi has built into every X1000 series core what it calls 'AVIVO technology.' With the computer industry heavily pushing the digital home, it makes sense for ATi and nVIDIA to integrate some form of High Definition accelerators into each companies respective products. We just wish the silly names wouldn't always have to follow suit.

Despite an interesting name, AVIVO does not stand for anything specific. It is a collection of different video technologies that share a common name. First and foremost, AVIVO includes a hardware accelerator for MPEG-2/DVD Microsoft Windows Media HD video standards (WMV HD) and H.264 standards. As mentioned earlier, since AVIVO is built into all X1000 series videocards, even entry level PC's can be used as Home Theatre PCs (HTPC) or Personal Video Recorders (PVR). AVIVO can automatically adjust gamma and colour correction, and that should enhance picture quality.

High Fidelity Colour allows for 10 bits per colour channel, which translated basically means a more vibrant picture. There is also a high quality 12 bit analog to digital converter to reduce picture noise.

To test AVIVO's HD accelerating capabilities, we play a HD video through Windows Media Player 10 (the movie can be downloaded from Microsoft's WMV HD Content Showcase). The Discoverers (IMAX) video is available in both 720P and 1080P formats, and CPU utilization was monitored during playback through Task Manager to give a general indication of system load.

ATi's AVIVO High Definition accelerator is less taxing on the system than nVIDIA's PureVideo. In fact when running the Discoverers 720P video, CPU usage stayed between 15-27%.

ATi's AVIVO really excels when running the 1080P version of the Discoverers video. In this case, CPU usage remained between 17-38%. This is about half of what nVidia's PureVideo chews up.

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Contents of Article: Gigabyte GV-RX18L256V-B
 Pg 1.  Gigabyte GV-RX18L256V-B X1800 XL Videocard Review
 Pg 2.  Radeon X1800 XL specifications
 Pg 3.  — ATI AVIVO High Definition Content Accelerator
 Pg 4.  Overclocking the Gigabyte GV-RX18L256V-B
 Pg 5.  Benchmarks: 3DMark03, 3DMark05
 Pg 6.  Benchmarks: AquaMark3, Halo
 Pg 7.  Benchmarks: Halo
 Pg 8.  Benchmarks: FarCry
 Pg 9.  Benchmarks: Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
 Pg 10.  Benchmarks: Doom 3
 Pg 11.  Benchmarks: Quake 4
 Pg 12.  Benchmarks: FEAR
 Pg 13.  Advanced Benchmarks: FarCry, Doom 3
 Pg 14.  Advanced Benchmarks: FEAR, Conclusions

 
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