DH Review: ATI X1950XTX

Callandor

Lovely. I think I'm a buy one. My mouth waters just reading about it....but I have to wait must wait for the next generation great things to come...must wait.....must wait.....must wait.

azrael13302473

So im not sure if I read this correctly but, if say I have an x1900xtx already, can I pair it up with a crossfire edition x1950 ?

Veridian3

As it works with a X1900 master and a X1950 slave there is no reason why it shouldnt work the other way round. I'll take a look at that in the crossfire review to be sure.

ronnn

Nice review! Very nice card, improved cooler and does not use more power. Likely will see some driver improvements to take advantage of the faster memory. Only card to buy on the high end in my opinion. Runs quiet with superior iq and xfire seems to be working much better. G80 best come quick or nv will soon be for sale.

IvanV

A very good and thorough review! Good cooler, a small GPU frequency bump with some more OC headroom and kick-ass memory make this a nice improvement over 1900XTX (at least, not smaller than what I expected from a card with the same chip and product number increased by 50). If I had a, say, 1900XT, I'd never be tempted, but from my 9800Pro point of view, !

BWX

Something weird...


Minimum framerate--
--------------2048 x 1536 4AA 16AF------1600 x 1200 4AA 16AF
[COLOR=DarkGreen]7950gx2------------26-------------------------35[/COLOR]
[COLOR=Lime]7900gtx------------25-------------------------23[/COLOR]
[COLOR=Red]x1900xt------------21-------------------------23[/COLOR]
[COLOR=DarkRed]x1950xtx-----------21-------------------------24[/COLOR]


Strange the 7900gtx got higher minimum frames at the much higher resolution.. even though it is only a couple FPS.






edit..
Reading on...

Just an idea, I have played the GTR2 demo extensively.. a really good test of any video card would be to start a race at the back of the pack with 15 cars (or more to really tax a fast system when final game comes out, limited to 15 AI in demo), all detail on full- maxed out in GFX settings in-game, and then set the race for night time, in heavy rain. Selecting in-car view of course.

It will bring almost any system to it's knees at higher resolutions. It would be a really nice test for minimum framerate especially.

Maybe for a future benchmark or something.. you'll see what I mean if you try it. It looks stunning in action. I see the ATI cards are doing really well with that game too.



-heres a screen of what it looks like when GTR2 demo is at it's most demanding-

My 7900GTX was OC'd to about 675/850 at the time, and it was only at 1280 x 960, 4xAA, and I think 8xAF (maybe 16AF), and the little 15 in the upper right is the framerate via fraps- edit- nope it wasn't- it was using the "Ctrl+F" to display FPS in game.. . Also I have all optimizations off in NV control panel- and using supersampling AA, forced trilinear, etc..

Of course the framerate improves when the field spreads out, but it's still a very demanding game at night in the rain with cars shooting out smoke and mist at night, adding to that the reflections on the track. The physics calculations taxes the CPU quite a bit too.

Another hint about benching GTR2 demo- enabling the MOTEC display with basically cut framerate in half.. That might be a bug, it might not be.
I think the default button for the MOTEC toggle is "m".. Without it you lose the in-car dash and MOTEC readout.. The overlay info still works I think.







edit- to a too long post..

After reading the review, and owning a 7900GTX that OC's quite well, all things considered if I were buying a new card I would get the X1950XTX over the 7900GTX if I didn't already have one.

I have seen the difference in IQ first hand between ATI and NV- in some games it is hard to spot the differences, in other games ATI is just head and shoulders above NV, even on max IQ settings for both. For someone buying their last high end DX9 video card, it would be a nice one.

merlinxi

I have a serious question, how is it that the GT7900 is getting a better framerate then the Geforce 7950GTX2?? Is that a driver issue?

And of course always a very detailed review by the way

BWX

My guess is because the 7900GTX has much higher memory bandwidth than the GTX2 ... When memory bandwidth of the video card is the limiting factor in FPS, the 7900GTX, especially and OC'd one, will be faster.

merlinxi

Hmm. Well i hope drivers mange it better

merlinxi

I am just stunned that a far superior card then the other one would have slower FPS when the bandwidth of the GPU is expanded because it's duel.

BWX

Yeah but when memory bandwidth is lower, in some situations the card with faster memory will be faster.. no way of getting around that.

Sometimes the GX2 will be twice as fast though.. Overall GX2 is much faster, but not always.

Veridian3

I think we can put that down to a random blip, not a mistake as such becasue the results are what they are. When i get the intel board back in my test pc i'll retest the GTX just to be sure on that one test.

BWX

yeah it's only a couple FPS..

CDsDontBurn

IMO, the 7900GTX is a better overall card ATM; the GX2 is a better card no doubt, but for the price, GTX all the way . According to the benchmarks provided, the GTX had better average and maximum FPS. Albeit, i do give the XTX props on having a higher minimum FPS than the nVidia cards. So long as the cards maintain their FPS in the average to maximum range more often than minimum, it's a better to have than the XTX

BWX

They are all great cards really.. just with different strengths and weaknesses I guess.

Veridian3

Agree with some of that. There are a few things that would sway me in favour of the XTX though and those are superior image quality when particluar image settings are enabled on ATI (AA+HDR for example).

merlinxi

I think it's about power mangement and drivers.

ATI and nvidia should just merge and create the ultimate card.

CDsDontBurn

yea....AA+HDR is the only thing ATI has going for it i think.

so far though, i know that my next gfx card will be another nVidia card.

Zardon

im going to say something massively unpopular here, but until this is supported more widely its really not as massive a deal as perhaps ati are stating it is right now. What happens if you dont play oblivion?

companies like valve are clever, they have used their own engine to allow Nvidia to use AA @ HDR, granted its not the "full monty" but its still very attractive.

CDsDontBurn

well, yea....i know what you mean (now, lol). but i guess the point i was trying to get across earlier was that the ATI card overall isn't as good as the nVidia card. I mean, i like IQ in my games (which is had by ATI i think), but i also like my games to have a playable frame rate (which is is had by nVidia i think as well), and from the review you guys put up, it's nVidia all the way for me .