Posted:2006-09-04 By video card review Number of View:27276
X1950 XTX REVIEW X1950XTX VS
X1900XTX CROSSFIRE SLI 7900GTX
AND 7950GX2 PERFORMANCE BENCHMARK
By :video card review
Posted:2006-09-04
xtreview is your : Video card - cpu - memory - Hard drive - power supply unit source
the unexpected repurchase of ATI by AMD have made great noise.; the Canadian firm renews today its offer of high-end graphics chips launching the Radeon X1950 XTX.;this not the only news from ATI , since few
weeks later this firm should also update its medium range with the arrival of Radeon X1300 XT and Radeon X1650.;
While waiting for the arrival of the new references from the medium range , we are interested today in Radeon X1950 XTX. logically Succeeding the Radeon X1900 launched January ,
x1900 xtx to x1950xtx from is R580 to R580+
In the heart of this new Radeon X1950 XTX, there is the R580+ chip, which are strictly identical to R580 animating the current Radeon X1900. ATI did not bring any change to the specifications of the graphics chip.This one preserves a "burst" architecture where the concept of pixel pipeline does not have the same clock with the chip as in the case of GeForce .Without returning in details, let us recall , that
R580+ chip of Radeon X1950 has 48 pipelines pixels shader, it only on 16 texture units .
The Vertexes units are 8 whereas the ROP, these units in end of pipeline charged to carry out right before posting certain operations like antialiasing, or the blending (mixture), are 16.Technically, the R580+ chip counts about 384 million transistors and made in 90 Nm.Its operating frequency remains the same just like the Radeon X1950 XTX 650 MHz in the gpu , the only exception is the memory where the new Radeon X1950 XTX use gddr 4 memory type. this table
enable to compare the characteristics
of the last high end range of video cards:
GeForce 7900 GTX
GeForce 7950 GX2
Radeon X1900 XTX
Radeon X1950 XTX
Interface
PCI-Express 16x
PCI-Express 16x
PCI-Express 16x
PCI-Express 16x
process
0,09 µ
0,09 µ
0,09 µ
0,09 µ
Transistors
~278 Millions
~278 Millions
~380 Millions
~380 Millions
Ramdac
2 x 400 MHz
2 x 400 MHz
2 x 400 MHz
2 x 400 MHz
T & L
DirectX 9.0c
DirectX 9.0c
DirectX 9.0c
DirectX 9.0c
Pixel Pipelines
24
24
48
48
Vertex Pipelines
8
8
8
8
onboard memory
512 Mo
512 Mo
512 Mo
512 Mo
memory
Interface
256 bits
256 bits
256 bits
256 bits
memory brand-widh
51,2 Go/s
38,4 Go/s
49,6 Go/s
64 Go/s
GPU frequency
650 MHz
500 MHz
650 MHz
650 MHz
Memory frequency
800 MHz
600 MHz
775 MHz
1000 MHz
Radeon X1950XTX on the GDDR4
When ATI presented last October the awaited R520, the firm mentioned already that its controller support 256 bits bus widh and it was able to function not only with GDDR3, but also with GDDR4. Several months after, the GDDR4 leaves finally the laboratories and ATI is the first to integrate it on video cards.The principal advantage of this news memory comes from the high frequencies which can reach give higher band-width from the the memory and increases
consequently their processing capacity.To reach higher frequencies, chips GDDR4 are able to exchange 8 bits of data by cycle clock when chips GDDR3 exchange only the maximum of 4 .Result, the chips memories of Radeon X1950 XTX turn to 1 GHz, that is 225 MHz higher than the Radeon X1900 XTX. chips GDDR3 of GeForce 7950 GX2 operate at 600 MHz… ATI posts with its new Radeon X1950 XTX a band-width impressive theoretical memory of 64 Gig/s against
51Gig/s for GeForce 7900 GTX from NVIDIA and 38,4 Gig/s for each GPU of GeForce 7950 GX2.;
Chips GDDR4 have another advantage:the lower power consumption.Their default voltage is fixed at 1,5 Volt and saving about 30 % compared to the GDDR3.
ATI Radeon X1950 XTX the card
Design question, the Radeon X1950 take again the red PCB of current Radeon X1900.With connector PCI-Express 16x, the card have a small difference on the level of their power cicuit .This one does not include any more six MOSFETs against seven for the Radeon X1900. But this is only one detail vs the large
news introduced by Radeon the X1950 on the level of the cooling system . ATI had the intelligent idea to equip its new card with a system of cooling signed Arctic Cooling, in fact an ATI Silencer.;And miracle, it goes!Radeon X1950 XTX does not make any more noise , Naturally, the fan speed is variable
.If the X1950 XTX is noisier in 3d than the GeForce 7900 GTX it remains quiet compared to the old X1900 XTX!;Question heating, the graphics chip easily reaches 75 C in full load.
the graphics chip being covered with a heavy block of copper connected by heat-pipe to a second radiator covering at the same time the memories chips .;Disadvantage
of the system:;the card is heavy, very heavy, with a weight of about 800 grm.
On the technical level, the card Radeon X1950 XTX has a graphics chip operating at 650 MHz and 512 MB of memory GDDR4 working at 1 GHz.;They are Samsung chips with access time of 0,9 NS.Its power supply always depends on a connector PCI-Express and compared to Radeon X1900 XTX, the new arrival consumes about the same power with 280 Watts in full load. it should be known that the card Radeon X1950 XTX have two
Dual-DVI, chip Rage Theater and the first time support HDCP! finally the presence of a connector miniDIN for the analogical video inputs/outputs .;
for power consumption, we checked the peak of overall power consumption of our machines s under 3DMark 06 in 2560x1600. As u can note in the table below the Radeon X1950 XTX consumes slightly less than its predecessor but as much as GeForce 7950 GX2 which have two nvidia graphics chips.;
x1950 xtx crossfire capability
Just like NVIDIA, which opened sli technologie, ATI develop multi-VPU solutions.The goal being always the same :to combine the power of two video card to reach higher performances level.At NVIDIA its called SLI, whereas at ATI we speaks about CrossFire.After a false start with Radeon X850, CrossFire was improved on the driver level.ATI declined
medium range video card, Radeon X1300 and X1600 and depreved them from crossfire support.Just like the SLI, CrossFire require a compatible motherboard and in addition to the models equipped with chipset ATI CrossFire, motherboards containing chipsets INTEL i955x and i975x also take avantage from this technology .
With the arrival of Radeon X1950 XTX, it should be noted that ATI standardizes the specifications of its CrossFire .Thus, the CrossFire edition of our X1950 XTX posts the same characteristics as the card alone with identical frequencies . ATI should soon integrate power requirement necessary to CrossFire operation in its graphics chips, the CrossFire version of Radeon X1950 XTX does not benefit yet from this refinement.
image Quality x1950 xtx vs 7900gtx
With its news Radeon X1950 XTX, ATI preserves goof image quality.That is with the modes of antialiasing Super AA 8x and 14x available in CrossFire , ATI recall that it offers the best visual quality.Remember, when NVIDIA launched its GeForce 7800 GT various problems with textures were updated in particular with Battlefield 2 and Half-Life 2.;One year after, the driver from NVIDIA
always has defect in the adjustment "Quality" to the textures filtering , adjustment which certainly makes possible to gain in performances, but which degraded visual quality .
By using the adjustment "higher Quality", the problem was fixed.The good news is that at ATI this kind of problem does not exist …
the few captures showin above, show the difference between is texture returned with antialiasing 4x, we cannot say that the modes Super AA 8x and 16x which quite simply seems to be not palyable under Half-Life 2, the image being identical a that 4x mode.
To test the performances of Radeon X1950 XTX and CrossFire Radeon X1950 XTX we used the configuration witch detail appears below:
;* Motherboard Asus P5w-dh Deluxe,
;* Processor INTEL Core 2 Extreme X6800,
;* 2x1 Go Corsair Twin2X 6400C3,
;* Hard disk Western DIGITAL Raptor 150 GIG
Provided with Windows XP Professionnel Service Pack 2 and with the last drivers and BIOS available to the date of the test, this configuration enabled us to test not only new video card from ATI but also the CrossFire Radeon X1900 XT.We will oppose all those card to other from NVIDIA in the following configuration:
;* Motherboard Asus P5N32 SLI SE Deluxe,
;* Processor INTEL Core 2 Extreme X6800,
;* 2x1 G Corsair Twin2X 6400C3,
;* Hard disk Western DIGITAL Raptor 150 GIG
On this platform we tested GeForce 7900 GTX, and the SLI of GeForce 7900 GTX and GeForce 7950 GX2 from Sparkle.for the graphic driver we use the CATALYST 6.8 Beta as well as ForceWare 91.33 Beta.;At ATI we activate filtering AF quality and at NVIDIA we use the mode filtering "Better Quality".The test was by mesurin the frame rate using fraps
3DMark 06
we start with 3DMark 06.Here the CrossFire configurations hold the top , in front of the SLI GeForce 7900 GTX and GeForce 7950 GX2.Our new Radeon X1950 XTX is posted like 4% faster than its predecessor and it just loose over the GeForce 7950 GX2.
Half-Life 2 Lost Coast - HDR
Splinter Cell Chaos Theory - v1.05
Half-Life 2 and Splinter Cell make both the beautiful benifit with the solutions multiVPU which signed ATI or NVIDIA.With Half-Life the 2 SLI GeForce 7900 GTX are leading, whereas with Splinter Cell the first place take the CrossFire Radeon X1950 XTX. In these two tests, GeForce 7950 GX2 does better than Radeon X1950 XTX.This last shows 2% better performance than the Radeon X1900 XTX, and equal performance with GeForce 7900 GTX under Half-Life 2.With
Splinter
Cell, Radeon X1950 XTX show a small advantage on its NVIDIA competitor .
Quake 4 - v1.2
Call Of Duty 2 - v1.3
Quake 4 and Call Of Duty 2 show the victory of the SLI GeForce 7900 GTX. . under Quake 4 the graphics chips are limited by the CPU Under these two titles Radeon X1950 XTX show more some significant advantage on its predecessor with a profit of 3% and 9% in Quake 4 .the GeForce 7950 GX2 vs Radeon X1950 XTX is unsignificant under Quake 4 but show some nice score under Call Of Duty 2.On other hand the Radeon X1950 XTX beats the GeForce
7900 GTX by 19% under Quake 4 and 34% in Call Of Duty 2 in 2048x1536. in Call Of Duty 2 the Radeon X1950 XTX show higher performances than CrossFire Radeon X1900 XTX.;
CrossFire is not used under Call Of Duty 2 , performances obtained with two card is equal to those oon card!when we put two X1950 XTX there was increases in the results by 3% in 2048x1536 over the X1950 XTX alone…Under Quake 4 on the other hand CrossFire has more interest, passing from a card to two, we gains some 11% in 2048x1536 whereas solution SLI from NVIDIA show more significant profit of 45%.;
F.E.A.R. 1.06
Under F.E.A.R.the SLI GeForce 7900 GTX and GeForce 7950 GX2 have the lead.The congifurations CrossFire finish in third and fourth position .The advantage of Radeon X1950 XTX reaches 8% vs X1900 XTX in 2048x1536 but that still not enough to make the game playable with such resolution setting . return in CrossFire, while passing from X1950 XTX to two we gains 61% of performances.;There is a considerable profit but the SLI GeForce 7900 GTX show improvement by 93% witch near the 100%
for ideal operation.
Oblivion v1.1 - HDR
Tested with FRAPS, we activate the HDR . card from ATI show the best result under this game and only the SLI of GeForce 7900 GTX makes possible to NVIDIA to equalize Radeon X1900 XTX. with heavy shaders, Oblivion does not show any significant difference in performances between X1950 and X1900 XTX. and this is Normal the two graphics card run at
the same gpu frequency and have the same architecture, the high band-width memory with the x1950xtx is not advantageous here. note that here the Radeon X1950 XTX is in 2048x1536 50% faster than the GeForce 7900 GTX!!Curiously the GeForce 7950 GX2 is on the same performance level as the GeForce 7900 GTX this sweem like bad optimization for nvidia driver…
Tomb Raider Legend v1.2 - Next Gen
For Lara Croft no hello without SLI. Our various graphics chips seem to be limited by the processors, and CrossFire does not function here .The profit of performances between Radeon X1950 XTX and X1900 XTX is here none whereas GeForce 7900 GTX makes equal performance with chips ATI Curiously again the GeForce 7950 GX2 does not do better than the GeForce 7900 GTX and we cannot determine
the reason of it.
Need For Speed Most Wanted - HDR - v1.3
Need For Speed seems to love the CrossFire configurations.with it s of Radeon X1900 XTX CrossFire or Radeon X1950 XTX, ATI takes the lead in front of the SLI GeForce 7900 GTX..On the other hand the Radeon X1950 XTX does not do better than the GeForce 7900 GTX.in this game;the GeForce 7950 GX2 show higher performances by 19%.
F. E. A. R. v1.06 - FSAA 4x & AF 8x
return to F.E.A.R. this time with active texture filtering functions .The game turns here to the advantage of ATI where the CrossFire Radeon X1950 XTX finishes first, right in front of the SLI GeForce 7900 GTX.;the Radeon X1950 XTX cannot stay against the GeForce 7950 GX2 but here it show 23% higher performances than theGeForce 7900 GTX .for R580+ vs R580, the profit is about 5% in 2048x1536.;
Call Of Duty 2 - v1.3 - Filtrage anisotrope et FSAA 4x
activing the texture filtering under Call Of Duty 2 makes possible to ATI card to catch nvidia card .Radeon X1950 XTX is largely better than the GeForce 7900 GTX and the7950 GX2, with an advantage which can reach up to 32%.;Radeon X1950 XTX vs Radeon X1900 XTX appears to be 9% more powerful.The GeForce 7900 GTX SLI preserves the advantage over the crossfire ATI solutions
Half Life 2 Lost Coast - HDR - FSAA 4x & AF 8x
antialiasing and anisotropic filtering make possible for Radeon X1950 XTX to precede the GeForce 7900 GTX, but can not reach the 7950gx2 performance level .The profit x1950xtx vs Radeon X1900 XTX is very modest with 4%.At the head appear the solutions from multiVPU and here CrossFire has truly an interest.;With two Radeon X1950 XTX we got the performances of the SLI GeForce 7900 GTX.Note that CrossFire X1950 XTX delivers 12% higher
performances than CrossFire X1900 XTX in 2048x1536.;
Conclusion
ATI Radeon X1950 XTX to get or not
Arrived at the end of this article, we would say that the Radeon X1950 XTX dont offers real profits vs its predecessor Radeon X1900 XTX.The gpu frequency is the same for borth card, the memory bandwidth is higher and offered by the GDDR4 but this is not enough to give the new radeon the required performance boost .Radeon X1950 XTX is like an evolution, more than like a revolution.;u should known that ATI announces this card with public price of 399 euros
including all taxes. it is Difficult not recommend such card the image quality from ATI still at the head .NVIDIA should fix their problems with texture filtering …
NVIDIA video card has much higher prices:count 450 euros minimum for the GeForce 7900 GTX and 530 euros for GeForce 7950 GX2. ATI soon will come in the particular Radeon X1950 Pro, or Radeon X1900 XT 256 MB, witch deponding from the price should be a must get card!;
finally I would say in the side of nvidia u will get lower power requirement and higher price.with ati u will get better image quality and lower price.for performance it realy depond on game ati win in some case and nvidia in other
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