X1950XT 256MB Review

Not the best review and not too many games compared, but it's a first review with some good info and performance comparisons.
http://www.hardwarezone.com/articl [...] cid=3&pg=1


A few brief notes that stand out to me:

The site was slow (right now) :x

Cat 6.11 drivers did not recognize the card, and they used different driver versions for ATI cards tested ranging from Cat 6.8, 6.9 modified, and 6.10. I really hate mixing driver versions like that.

Keeping that in mind, the X1900XT 512MB had a slight lead in 3dmark05 and 06 compared to the X1950XT 256MB. But in games the two cards were equal with the X1950XT sometimes ahead by 1-2 fps and at other times the X1900XT ahead by 1 fps.

I was curious about the RAM and it was good to see this card has 1.0ns Hynix GDDR3 chips good for 1.0GHz(2000MHz effective). So there should be room to OC the ram beyond the already amazing 1.8GHz GDDR3.

Overclocking, they only used overdrive. ATI tool didn't work and they didn't mention tray tools. SO no voltage adjustment on the core, but they hit 655 core/1890 mem with overdrive. Not bad as most X1800 and X1900's don't OC well without more juice.

With the X1900XT cooler, it ran pretty hot as expected. Sure would have been nice to have that XTX cooler. Oh well, maybe HIS will have a rebate on their iceQ3 version.

As we see and expected the X1950XT 256MB looks to compete well with the X1900XT 512MB (and therefore 7900GTX by comparison). And it pretty much confirms IMO that no question for $260-270 the card can't be beat right now. We will have to see in more games. Hopefully digit-life gets this one into their charts, or FiringSquad pits it against a bunch of cards with all their game tests. Anyway, I'm thankful Hardware Zone tested it.

Yup, there are adaptors available, but before buying one make sure your power supply has at least 26A on the 12v rail. If it's lower, you are going to need a new PSU. The newer ATX 2.0 power supplies include the 6 pin PCI-e 12v power connectors as well as two beefed up 12v rails.

That power supply is more than enough. it has dual 22A 12v rails and 2 PCI-e aux 12v power connectors.

In that review up top, they maxed out overdrive on the memory side and got 655 MHz without votage adjustments. I wouldn't call that bad overclocking at all. I'd like to see if Tray Tools works with it to see what it can do with a bit more juice to the core and also see just how high the mem will go. We shall see, I ordered one yesterday.

yup the x1950 xt 256mb is what I'm grabbing. Though now that the Sapphire is out of stock in newegg and I plan on ordering next week, I can grab a HIS one with their fancy cooler for 299.99, 50$ more. I wonder if it is worth it? Or should I grab a DIAMOND with their stock cooler at 270?

I went with the iceQ3. it's $280 AR:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814161048

Because of sales tax from Newegg, I bought the His IceQ somewhere else and it was only $12 more(AR) compared to the Sapphire at Newegg. The Sapphire was in stock, but I'd pay $30 for that HIS cooler, so $12 was a bargain in my eyes.