Things are getting interesting in the video card market once again, mainly because of the ATIs new 'Crossfire' dual-videocard feature. It's hoped that Crossfire will give the Canadian company the means to better compete against nVidia on the SLI technological front, resulting in better toys for us all!

In the mean time, ATI still holds quite an edge in the (single) high-end videocard arena with its range of X800/X850 graphics cards. We've had the pleasure of testing several products based on these GPUs, and found them to be excellent performers all around..

Today, PCstats will take a look at one of MSI's latest ATI-based cards, the PCI-Express based RX800XL-VT2D256E. Catchy name.

The MSI RX800XL-VT2D256E uses the ATI Radeon X800XL core and is backed by 256MB of speedy Samsung GDDR 3 2ns memory. The most notable feature of the card is its dual-DVI connectors, but it also sports a full complement of multimedia abilities including VIVO, and HDTV-out as well as a nice software bundle.

MSI RX800XL-VT2D256E Includes: Users Manual, Driver CD, CyberLink Software CD, XIII CD, URU CD, Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow CD, one DVI to analog converter, S-Video to S-Video cable, breakout box.

Running dual monitors has gained a lot of popularity these last few years but only recently have videocard manufacturers started equipping videocards with dual DVI outputs. Sure there have been one or two videocards released that support this feature, but the vast majority of videocards come with analog only or analog/DVI outputs. This puts users with two digital LCDs in a bit of a bind since an analog image is not as sharp or crisp as digital. With two DVI connectors and two DVI-to-analog converters, the RX800XL-VT2D256E is the perfect videocard for those who want to use dual LCD monitors, or an LCD and a CRT.

Unfortunately, MSI saw fit to include only a single DVI-to-analog converter, meaning that dual-monitor fans with two CRTs need not apply. This seems to be a bone headed decision, since the company has otherwise equipped the RX800XL-VT2D256E with excellent accessories.

MSI uses a fairly typical active heatsink to cool the RX800XL-VT2D256E's core. The fan is speed throttled and was inaudible when we were running the 2D desktop, but quite audible when running benchmarks. It's not something that's going to scream at you across the room, or even be audible inside a typical computer case, but we have heard quieter coolers recently. The Samsung memory chips do not use any form of heatsink.