ATI's Radeon X1950XTX: You Say You Want A RAM Revolution

Test Setup

As we mentioned before, we did not have the cards for more than a day and a half. While shipping issues hindered our efforts, we wanted to get out as much information into your hands as possible within the short timeframe available. We will have the multi-processor results shortly and in that article we will discus more about power requirements and how some of these new memory changes impact performance and power consumption.

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System Hardware
Processor(s)AMD Athlon 64 FX-602.6 GHz, 1.0 GHz HT-Link, 1 MB L2 cache
PlatformNvidia : Asus AN832-SLI PremiumNVIDIA nForce4 SLI, BIOS version 1205Nvidia : Asus A8R32-MVP PremiumATI Xpress 3200 CrossFire, BIOS version 0404
RAMCorsair CMX1024-4400Pro2x 1024 MB @ DDR400 (CL3.0-4-4-8)
Hard DriveWestern Digital Raptor, WD1500ADFD150 GB, 10,000 rpm, 16 MB cache, SATA150
NetworkingOn-Board nForce4 Gigabit EthernetOnboard Marvell Gigabit Ethernet
Graphics Cards
ATI Based CardsATI Radeon X1950XTX 512 MB GDDR4650 MHz Core1,000 MHz Memory (2.00 GHz DDR) ATI Radeon X1950 CrossFire Edition 512 MB GDDR4650 MHz Core1,000 MHz Memory (2.00 GHz DDR) ATI Radeon X1900XTX 512 MB GDDR3650 MHz Core775 MHz Memory (1.55 GHz DDR) ATI Radeon X1950XTX 256 MB GDDR3650 MHz Core775 MHz Memory (1.55 GHz DDR)
Nvidia Based CardsXFX GeForce 7950GX2 1 GB GDDR3570 MHz Core775 MHz Memory (1.55 GHz DDR) PNY GeForce 7900GTX 512 MB GDDR3675 MHz Core820 MHz Memory (1.64 GHz DDR) XFX GeForce 7900GT 256 MB GDDR3675 MHz Core815 MHz Memory (1.63 GHz DDR) PNY GeForce 7800 GTX 256 MB GDDR3430 MHz Core600 MHz Memory (1.20 GHz DDR) EVGA GeForce 7800 GT 256 MB GDDR3445 MHz Core535 MHz Memory (1.07 GHz DDR) XFX XXX GeForce 7600 GT 256 MB GDDR3590 MHz Core800 MHz Memory (1.60 GHz DDR)
Power SupplyPC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1,000W
System Software & Drivers
OSMicrosoft Windows XP Professional 5.10.2600, Service Pack 2
DirectX Version9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
Platform DrivernForce 6.70
Graphics Driver(s)ATI - Catalyst Beta (New Cards)ATI - Catalyst 6.6 WHQLNVIDIA - Forceware 91.33 Non-WHQL (7950GX2 Only)NVIDIA - Forceware 84.21 WHQL