Radeon X1600 Pro Video Card (512MB, PCI Express x16, Dual DVI)

cyclops4 · Mar 11, 2006, 07:14 PM

I have yet to find an article reviewing this video card, which I bought compulsively at Best Buy. I'm not dissatisfied, but I would like to see some benchmarking and thorough reviews. I've searched around magazines and some review sites, but I can't seem to find an article about this EXACT ATI model.

Any help ?

(Radeon X1600 Pro Video Card (512MB, PCI Express x16, Dual DVI)

Yousaif · Mar 12, 2006, 12:56 AM

Looked for benchmarks out there too. There really isn't much, if anything at all. Oh well, I like it and that's all that matters to me.

cyclops4 · Mar 12, 2006, 12:44 PM

Yes, I agree it's definitely a good to great card, but it seems to have been forgotten between new releases. It's like you can find thousands of reviews regarding the 256MB version and then all the reviews skip to the X1800 or X1900 and never cover this card. I just always like to know the specs and benchmarking for all my gear and this is one case when I just went nuts and bought it without thoroughly reviewing or investigating.....based on the information on the box at the store, I made the educated guess that this card was an excellent purchase especially for the price ($259). I have searched Google for hours looking for a review and found no reviews or tests for this exact card. (btw, I do know what I'm doing, I'm not a novice who has the Google filter set to "moderate" or who doesn't know what key words to use).

monsunami · Mar 12, 2006, 04:48 PM

http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/X16_GS/index.htm

closest I can find for it. Not quite the same card but should have pretty close benchmarks.

cyclops4 · Mar 12, 2006, 05:08 PM

See what I mean ? It's like the mystery card. It's become a personal crusade for me to find a normal PC article, review or testing benchmark document for this card. It's driving me crazy not to know the exact data.

Thanks for the post, I appreciate you giving it a shot.

The_Neon_Cowboy · Mar 12, 2006, 05:22 PM

um guys they reviews the X1800, X1600, X1300 @ the same time why would they do seprate reviews later? So you need to look for the massive slew of reviews that come out when X1K was unvield there you will find results fot X1600 in both single and crosfire mode. AS for 512MB just figure in up to 1% over 256MB.

cyclops4 · Mar 12, 2006, 06:03 PM

That little of an increase with double the memory ? 1% ? Seems a bit low of an estimate, wouldn't you say ?

Oh, I've found tons of reviews for the series, but NONE for this exact card. I wouldn't have posted the question without having done an extreme amount of searching.

Perhaps I'm being obtuse, but wouldn't you think there would be at least ONE review or ONE benchmarking test article for this particular card at 512MB. Maybe you can explain the subtleties of the performance increase when doubling the memory ? It seems that it would hardly be worth it for a company like ATI to produce a card with double the memory as another version for a 1% difference in performance ? Wouldn't you say ?

That's like having a car company come out with a vehicle that has a 4.0L engine and 260 horsepower and then coming out with the same model with a 4.1L engine and 266 horsepower. It doesn't seem to make sense. The comparison is extreme, but even in the video card industry it seems a bit absurd to release two cards with identical specs.

It could be that you're correct - there aren't any reviews of the 512MB version because it's redundant when the 256MB version has been reviewed completely.....I guess that may be the answer...I'm willing to consider it. When you can't find something on the web after a great deal of searching, there's usually some reason for it....maybe you're right.

Yousaif · Mar 12, 2006, 10:21 PM

Sorry Neon, don't believe you. Links please?

Lowfat · Mar 16, 2006, 12:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yousaif

Sorry Neon, don't believe you. Links please?

sorry but 512MB has no increase in performance over 256mb cards unless it can handle very high resolutions which the X1600 can't really.

SSXeon · Mar 16, 2006, 12:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lowfat

sorry but 512MB has no increase in performance over 256mb cards unless it can handle very high resolutions which the X1600 can't really.

Fear it does, same with BF2, as it doesnt "studder" as much. The gain is in min frames, the ones that count the most IMHO.

swimtech · Mar 18, 2006, 12:18 AM

Games heavy in textures at high resolution will see a difference, but that is because of a lack of swapping info to slower system ram or the hard drive - not the inherent speed of the card. For the highest end games (again, lots of texture information at high resolution...) you might see 10-20% better, but only at high res. At lower resolutions (1280x1024 and lower, or so), the difference in game speed is negligible.

You can look at reviews of other versions of cards of the past two years or so and apply the difference in those cards (256M vs. 512M on, say, an X800) to your case. The percentage difference between the two cards in that review should be very close to the percentage difference between a X1600 256Mb card and a X1600 512Mb card...

H3X4D3C1M4L · Mar 21, 2006, 04:28 PM

The 512MB frame buffer cards don't really do much for the extra cash... I'm not noticing any texture limitations and BF2 runs just fine on my system, and that's a texture heavy game