ATI RADEON X1950 PRO REVIEW BENCHMARK AND OVERCLOCKING

ATI RADEON X1950 PRO REVIEW BENCHMARK AND OVERCLOCKING
Posted:2006-10-17 By video card review Number of View:62192
ATI RADEON X1950 PRO REVIEW BENCHMARK AND OVERCLOCKING By :video card review Posted:2006-10-17 xtreview is your : Video card - cpu - memory - Hard drive - power supply unit source  After having updated its  high-end-range offer at the end of the summer with the launch of Radeon X1950 XTX, ATI proceeded at the beginning of September with the update of its low end range with the arrival of Radeon X1300 XT and Radeon X1650 Pro  which we has  recently reviewed. At this beginning of autumn, ATI  proposes a new chip now to us,  between the medium  range and the top-end-range on name  Radeon X1950 Pro. Radeon X1950 Pro hide place a true news graphics chip, code name RV570.With Radeon X1950 Pro, ATI prepared such card  as its rival NVIDIA with recent GeForce 7900 GS and 7950 gt   Radeon X1950 Pro introduces moreover what we will describe as CrossFire 2.0: a true evolution of ATI technology multi-VPU  . Ahead thus for the test of this new card DirectX 9.0c proposed in the 200 euros. With Radeon X1950 Pro, ATI New Year\'s gift a very new graphics chip answering the soft name of RV570. Behind this number a processor hides which was always lower than the R5xx line, profits for the first time from a smoothness of 80 Nm  engraving  against 90 Nm for X1950 XTX . Of course, lower manufactoring process will give those new video card a nice boost in the clock frequency in addition to the lower power consumption and even lower production cost ATI Radeon X1950 Pro power requirement   Power consumption Radeon X1900 GT 245 Watts Radeon X1950 Pro 228 Watts CrossFire X1950 Pro 280 Watts With regard to architecture, the RV570 is definitely require less power  since we are in the presence of  chip DirectX 9.0c with 36 shaders processors  and 8 vertex units  . Note that the ROP are, like the texture units  12. Identical on paper to Radeon X1900 GT, the RV570 has a bus  on 256 bits and uses memory GDDR3. Level frequencies of operation, ATI gives the chip  575 MHz whereas the memory operates to 690 MHz. Since we compare with the moment Radeon X1950 Pro in X1900 gt, it should be known that side  frequencies, the two VPU function at the same speed. On the other hand, the memory work a little faster on our new X1950 Pro. Radeon X1950 Pro seen CATALYST driver ATI Radeon X1950 Pro full specification Side of  other characteristics, the chip Radeon X1950 Pro always has engine AVIVO ,  it manages two outputs DVI into Dual-Link. Standard HDCP ,the keys HDCP which is directly integrated into the graphics chip.   ATI X1800 XL ATI X1900 GT ATI X1950 Pro NVIDIA 7900 GS NVIDIA 7900 GT NVIDIA 7900 GTX Interface PCI-E 16x PCI-E 16x PCI-E 16x PCI-E 16x PCI-E 16x PCI-E 16x Engraving 0,09 µ 0,09 µ 0,08 µ 0,09 µ 0,09 µ 0,09 µ Transistors ~320 million ~380 million ~320 million ~278 million ~278 million ~278 million RAMDAC 2 X.400 MHz 2 X.400 MHz 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 DirectX 9.0c DirectX 9.0c Pixels Pipelines 16 36 36 20 24 24 Vertex Pipelines 8 8 8 7 8 8 Embarked memory 256 Mo 256 Mo 256 Mo 256 Mo 256 Mo 512 Mo Interface memory 256 bits 256 bits 256 bits 256 bits 256 bits 256 bits Band-width 32 Go/S 35,8 Go/S 44,1 Go/S 42,2 Go/S 42,2 Go/S 51,2 Go/S Frequency GPU 500 MHz 575 MHz 575 MHz 450 MHz 450 MHz 650 MHz Frequency memory 500 MHz 600 MHz 690 MHz 660 MHz 660 MHz 800 MHz   from an architectural view, the RV570 herits its predecessors, it is characterized however by its CrossFire logic integrated. Remember, until now the technology  multi-VPU of ATI required, for the high-end-range models the purchase of a qualified graphics card or master card. This one was distinguished from the traditional cards by the presence of a whole set of additional electronic components aiming to recover the image calculated by the second card and to mix it with that generated by the first card. The recovery operations   and assembly of  image were thus done out of the graphics chip what had the advantage of not overloading the latter by wasting clock cycles  to reassemble  images. in the other hand, the system required the famous master card, generally rather difficult to get, as well as an imposing external cable to connect the two graphics card. We will not even evoke the limitations of the first CrossFire cards containing Radeon X850 which could not exceed the 1600x1200 resolution with… 60 Hz! In short, CrossFire from view of its hardware implementation did not seem as elegant as solution SLI from NVIDIA. Activated CrossFire! ATI thus decided to integrate the logic  operation of CrossFire, i.e. Compositing Engine, directly in the graphics processor. The RV570 is the first to profit from it with for consequence the abandonment of the system from master card, the external components with the VPU and the external cable before necessary. Two graphics card Radeon X1950 Pro identical are enough now to constitute CrossFire and driver will decide which of the two cards controls the other. The two graphics chips communicate between them directly via a bridge and ATI precise that the connector way SLI will be delivered systematically with all the cards. If NVIDIA uses one connector to make dialog its chips, ATI thus has recourse to a double demanding connector two dongles. Large plan on the double connector then on once this one assembled the CrossFire system Side of the motherboards, the situation does not change either since it is always necessary to have of a motherboard containing chipset ATI CrossFire Xpress or chipsets INTEL i955, P965 and i975X. ATI Radeon X1950 Pro Physically, the reference card   provided by ATI proves rather large with a length of approximately 23 cm. Preserving the traditional red PCB of ATI, Radeon X1950 Pro reference adopts a simple stages cooling system covering about all the card. Composed of a copper radiator and red plastic , the device has in its right end a fan. This one unfortunately has the characteristic to be relatively noisy, especially with full mode. the cooling system  coover as well  the memory chips . In full load, the GPU get as high as 68°C . ATI Radeon X1950 Pro: front side and back side With frequencies of operation  575 MHz for the graphics chip and 690 MHz for the memory, the card has 256 Mb of video memory. They are in fact Samsung certified components with 1,4 NS.  Without much surprise, the connectors offered by the card are composed of two  DVI and a video out to the format miniDIN.  To evaluate the performances of the last card from ATI we had recourse to the following configuration: Motherboard Asus P5W-DH Deluxe (BIOS 1407), Processor INTEL Core 2 X6800 Extreme, 2x1 GIG Corsair Twin2X 6400C3, Hard disk Western DIGITAL Raptor 150 GIG Serial-ATA 150 Functioning under Windows XP Professionnel Service Pack 2, this configuration enabled us to test following cards ATI: Radeon X1950 Pro and also Radeon X1900 GT, Radeon X1900 XT 256 MB and Radeon X1950 XTX. It should be noted that Driver CATALYST employed do not allow to activate CrossFire in software  mode with Radeon X1950 Pro. To test graphics boards NVIDIA we had recourse to a slightly different configuration, history to be able to activate technology SLI to compare it with CrossFire: Motherboard Asus P5N32 SLI SE, Processor INTEL Core 2 X6800 Extreme, 2x1 GIG Corsair Twin2X 6400C3, Hard disk Western DIGITAL Raptor 150 GIG Serial-ATA 150 This platform allowed us to test GeForce 7900 GS, GeForce 7900 GT, GeForce 7900 GTX and other GeForce 7950 GT.Side control we used ForceWare 91.47, whereas at ATI we had recourse to the CATALYST 6.10 (Beta version). We activate  high quality AF in driver ATI and higher  quality mode in driver NVIDIA. x1950 pro 3DMark 06 we start with 3DMark 06. Here, Radeon X1950 Pro shows from the start his qualities by displaying performances higher not only than Radeon X1900 gt, its predecessor, but also than NVIDIA cards containing GeForce 7900 GS or  GeForce 7900 gt. In 1600x1200, Radeon X1950 Pro is 20% faster than GeForce 7900 GS! vs Radeon X1900 gt, Radeon X1950 Pro is 4% faster here. Side  SLI, the profit archived by the passage from one  card with two is close to the 74% whereas CrossFire  Radeon X1950 Pro  was satisfied with    70% only.  x1950 pro Quake 4 - v1.2 Game OpenGL based on the graphic engine  Doom 3, Quake 4 is always limited by the processor. Thus, the results in the lowest resolutions are  all identical . It is necessary to reach the 1600x1200 to establish a true video card power. The surprise is here  since Radeon X1950 XTX finishes on the second with equality with CrossFire  Radeon X1950 Pro. The passage of Radeon X1950 Pro to two increases the performances by 18% and vs GeForce 7900 GS, the last  ATI card is faster by 29%. In premium, Radeon X1950 Pro offers the performance level of  GeForce 7950 gt and higher.! x1950 pro Tomb Raider Legends - v1.2 For Lara Croft, the game was tested using FRAPS, CrossFire remains always also useless whereas the SLI has a certain profit of performances, about 33% in 1600x1200.  Radeon X1950 Pro confirms a light advantage over the Radeon X1900 gt whereas it exceeds GeForce 7900 GS by 12%. x1950 pro Half-Life 2 - Lost Coast The CrossFire  Radeon X1950 Pro system  allocates the second place behind the SLI  GeForce 7950 gt, Radeon X1950 Pro does not manage to outclass the GeForce 7900 gt in this test. The last card of ATI shows 7% faster performance than GeForce 7900 GS in 1600x1200 and the passage in CrossFire increases the performances by  62%! At NVIDIA, the activation of  SLI on GeForce 7950 gt booste the performances by 50%, a less performance increase than  ATI. x1950 pro Far Cry v1.4 Beta - HDR 7 While waiting for Crysis, Far Cry, tested here in its version 1.4 with the activation of HDR effects , its preference gives to NVIDIA cards , even if Radeon X1950 XTX finishes second. It should be said that in 1600x1200, the SLI  GeForce 7950 gt is in the first place, far, very far in front of CrossFire  Radeon X1950 Pro. Radeon X1950 Pro which was   better than Radeon X1900 gt by (4%) and than GeForce 7900 GS. The passage of Radeon X1950 Pro to two increases the performances by only  28% when at the same time operation at NVIDIA increases the framerate by 89%! x1950 pro Splinter Concealment Theory Chaos - v1.05 A little as with Far Cry, NVIDIA cards seem to be more efficase,  occupying the first three places .  Radeon X1950 Pro remains faster than GeForce 7900 gt and than its predecessor Radeon X1900 gt, its advantage is summarized with some frame per second. Vs GeForce 7900 GS, Radeon X1950 Pro are 11% fsater. CrossFire  Radeon X1950 Pro delivers scores 34% superiors with those of Radeon X1950 Pro, CrossFire being then on the level of Radeon X1900 XT 256 Mb only… x1950 pro F.E.A.R. - v1.07 Under F.E.A.R., as always we activate the soft shadow. CrossFire takes again some colors and finishes with equality with GeForce 7900 GTX and in front of Radeon X1950 XTX. In 1600x1200, CrossFire  Radeon X1950 Pro is 9% faster than Radeon X1950 XTX . Vs  one Radeon X1950 Pro, the profit archived by our system multi-VPU reaches the 62%.  however, Radeon X1950 Pro is  a little better than Radeon 1900 gt, GeForce 7900 gt and 7900 GS precede it. x1950 pro Need For Speed Most Wanted - v1.2   Need For Speed Most Wanted was Tested with FRAPS, the CrossFire  Radeon X1950 Pro win again over the SLI  GeForce 7950 gt in  resolutions of 1024x768 and 1280x1024. In 1600x1200, the SLI takes again the lead but here CrossFire is particularly interesting. Vs Radeon X1950 Pro the profit of performances is equal  to 83% whereas in SLI was satisfied with a progression of 44%. CrossFire  Radeon X1950 Pro is 47% faster than Radeon X1900 XT 256 Mb: x1950 pro Call Of Duty 2 - v1.3   Not very effective, the SLI  leaves in Call Duty 2 the advantage to Radeon X1950 XTX in 1600x1200 whereas CrossFire  Radeon X1950 Pro is hardly more convincing since it   equalize the performance of Radeon X1900 XT 256 Mb. the Radeon X1950 Pro does better than GeForce 7900 gt, GS and even GeForce 7950 gt in this game! x1950 pro Call Of Duty 2 - v1.3 - FSAA 4x & Aniso we return to this test but this time with the activation of anisotropic filtering and antialiasing 4x directly from the game menu. . CrossFire  Radeon X1950 Pro obtains here performances lower than Radeon X1950 Pro ! the Radeon X1950 Pro preserves a certain advantage over the GeForce 7900 gt and GS but also on GeForce 7950 gt. The last card from ATI is 4% faster than GeForce 7950 gt whereas it is 22% more powerful than GeForce 7900 GS. x1950 pro F.E.A.R. - V1.07 - FSAA 4X + AF 8X Return to F.E.A.R., where we activate from the game menu the functions of filtering (antialiasing 4x and anisotropic filtering 8x) . CrossFire  Radeon X1950 Pro is found in the third place, whereas - only - Radeon X1950 Pro outclasses Radeon X1900 gt (+ 8%) and GeForce 7900 GS (+ 15%). On the other hand, GeForce 7950 gt preserves the advantage, whereas Radeon X1900 XT is 27% all the same faster than Radeon X1950 Pro. x1950 pro Quake 4 v1.2 - FSAA 4x Under Quake 4, we activate the antialiasing 4x. Radeon X1950 Pro manages the incredible exploit here to display performances higher than CrossFire  X1950 Pro, at least in 1600x1200, proof that ATI has more work to do with regard to the driver optimization  for CrossFire.  Radeon X1950 Pro is 8% faster than Radeon X1900 gt whereas it leaves GeForce 7950 gt with higher performances about 20%!  the Radeon X1900 XT 256 Mb is faster than Radeon X1950 Pro by about 10%. x1950 pro Half-Life 2 Lost Coast - FSAA 4x + AF8x we closes again our tests series  with Half-Life 2 Lost Coast where we activate this time the functions of filtering. More effective than GeForce 7900 GS, Radeon X1950 Pro prove 3% faster than Radeon X1900 gt. the small card of ATI always exceeds GeForce 7900 GS, it leaves GeForce 7900 gt and GeForce 7950 gt to take the advantage. Radeon X1900 XT 256 Mb preserves its very good position with  31% higher performances than those of Radeon X1950 Pro. CrossFire side finally, it is the festival: the passage of X1950 Pro to two increasing the performances by 55%. the SLI has a profit of 79%, ATI still has work! ATI Radeon X1950 Pro overclocking as far as overclocking the reference card x1950 pro was pretty modest clocker.such result was preducted since the card at full load with stock clock reach even 70 c.the memory is rated at 1.4 ns mean 1400 MHz withc already close to stock value.the core in our card was overclocked to 650 MHz and the memory to  1525 MHz  or 762 ddr Conclusion Arrived at the end of this review it is time for us to draw up an assessment of the capacities of Radeon X1950 Pro, the new reference top-end-range medium/from ATI. Far from being displayed like a technological revolution, the last graphics chip from ATI  remain as the previous. A little bit faster than Radeon X1900 gt 3 to 5% on average, Radeon X1950 Pro benefits from a very new manufactoring process which enables him to consume a little less power, witch is always appreciable . But the great interest of the RV570 remains its native CrossFire technology. Thus think that CrossFire do not requires a master card any more, nor external cable: a true revolution! All is now integrated in the RV570, so that it is enough to buy two cards Radeon X1950 Pro to create your own CrossFire. Admittedly there are cases  where CrossFire just like  its equivalent at NVIDIA the SLI, but is other case there is 0 performance profit . but it generally gets a nice  performances boost. Finally Radeon X1950 Pro leaves us a good impression. The performances are good, the advantages of architecture Radeon X1000 with the possibility to get the antialiasing with  HDR effects working togther.  moreover, ATI proposes to us  a relatively good price  in the border of 200 euros including all taxes.  Radeon X1950 Pro win often over the GeForce 7900 GS, its direct rival proposed in the same price zone  . On  other hand, Radeon X1950 Pro cannot complete  vs GeForce 7950 gt which remains more powerful, but also definitely more expensive. It will be retained finally that the reference card  is rather elegant with a simple design and nice looking cooler, this last being rather noisy when the chip get hot. the Radeon X1900 XT 256 Mb remains largely faster than Radeon X1950 Pro and equalizes even sometimes the performances of CrossFire  X1950 Pro… xtreview is your : Video card - cpu - memory - Hard drive - power supply unit source we would be happy to answer for your question . if you have suggestion or comment regarding this review our support would be glad to help just join our forum and ask u will get the best answer to discuss check our forum section :-) RATE THIS REVIEW 1 2 3 4 5    / 5   View Stat

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