A Tale of Two GTs: Radeon X1900GT by Sapphire and Powercolor

Introduction

GT has always stood for Gran Turismo, which is a high-performance car that is also designed for smoother, long range driving. The term GT has become something different in the graphics world. The graphics industry has turned the high performance smooth image from the auto industry into something that means "only one step below the top performer."

Nvidia first used this marking in conjunction with its GeForce 6600 GT. It continued to use the GT moniker with subsequent generations (GeForce 6800 GT, 7300 GT, 7600 GT, 7800 GT and 7900 GT). On the other hand, ATI has kept a different naming convention with Pro, XT, XT Platinum Edition (PE), XTX and even GTO for Gran Turismo Omolagato. However, ATI has never used the same naming scheme Nvidia has used until now. Like the cards predating it, the GT is a scaled back version of the flagship Radeon X1900 XTX and X1900 XT cards.

GT cards were designed to offer powerful graphics performance that was more affordable for the masses. There are four fewer full pixel pipelines functioning in four pixel quads, equaling 16 fewer pixel shader units. We sought out to see if the Radeon X1900 GT holds up to its grand name. From what we can see, it is a very good performer for a slightly less-expensive price than that of the Nvidia GeForce 7900 GT.

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