Guru3D.com
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • Channels
    • Archive
  • DOWNLOADS
    • New Downloads
    • Categories
    • Archive
  • GAME REVIEWS
  • ARTICLES
    • Rig of the Month
    • Join ROTM
    • PC Buyers Guide
    • Guru3D VGA Charts
    • Editorials
    • Dated content
  • HARDWARE REVIEWS
    • Videocards
    • Processors
    • Audio
    • Motherboards
    • Memory and Flash
    • SSD Storage
    • Chassis
    • Media Players
    • Power Supply
    • Laptop and Mobile
    • Smartphone
    • Networking
    • Keyboard Mouse
    • Cooling
    • Search articles
    • Knowledgebase
    • More Categories
  • FORUMS
  • NEWSLETTER
  • CONTACT

New Reviews
Hitman III: PC graphics perf benchmark review
TeamGroup CX2 1TB SATA3 SSD review
EVGA GeForce RTX 3070 FTW3 Ultra review
Corsair 5000D PC Chassis Review
NZXT Kraken X63 RGB Review
ASUS Radeon RX 6900 XT STRIX OC LC Review
TerraMaster F5-221 NAS Review
MSI Radeon RX 6800 XT Gaming X TRIO Review
Sapphire Radeon RX 6800 NITRO+ review
Corsair HS70 Bluetooth Headset Review

New Downloads
Prime95 download version 30.4 build 8
CrystalDiskInfo 8.10.0 Download
SiSoft Sandra 20/20 download v30.92
AMD Radeon Adrenalin Edition 21.1.1 driver download
CPU-Z download v1.95
Intel HD graphics Driver Download Version: DCH 27.20.100.9168
HWiNFO Download v6.41 (4355 Beta)
GeForce 461.33 hotfix driver download
AIDA64 Download Version 6.32.5620 beta
3DMark Download v2.16.7117 + Time Spy


New Forum Topics
GALAX GeForce RTX 3090 Hall Of Fame (HOF) PCB photos Gabe Newell talks about Cyberpunk 2077 and sympathizes with CD Projekt NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 available at the end of February Intel Rocket Lake-S prices Surface at European etailers : i9-11900K to cost € 600 Core i9-11900K CPU-Z benchmark result leaks? 1080TI Performance - Drivers making it worse or better regarding FPS? RTSS 6.7.0 beta 1 Trying to flash another bios for my MSI 6800XT card GeForce Hotfix Driver Version 461.33 JONSBO adds flagship tower type PC case "UMAX 6" in an all Black design




Guru3D.com » Review » PowerColor Radeon X1900 GT 256MB » Page 16

PowerColor Radeon X1900 GT 256MB - Page 16

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 06/14/2006 06:00 AM [ ] 0 comment(s)

Tweet

The Verdict

The X1900 GT is a really fun product to own and for the money it's offering really good performance. It's a weird product though as for some reason it does not feel well balanced from a certain perspective. So in your more regular games where there's not a lot of pixel shading going on the card will perform good, yet in the higher segment of mid-range. Once a game starts utilizing pixel shaders .. that's where the 36 pixel processors kick in and boost performance. So that's just a bit hard to describe.

None the less the quality and performance of the product is awesome and suffice to say is that you'll receive very decent features and options for this kind of money.  Like most of the cards we test these days we had no stability issues whatsoever, the one thing that alarms me a little is the core temperature of the graphics processor when it is at 100% load .. it was pushing an 85 Degrees C temperature which is just too high in my humble opinion. This might be something isolated to this test sample though.

The million dollar question then. 7900 GT or X1900 GT ? We'll I'd choose the 7900 GT as in most cases the X1900 GT was performing a tad slower. Looking at the other side, HDR+AA implementation on the X1900 GT is far better than NVIDIA's then there's always the topic of image quality which just seems to be a notch better on ATI products.

The next million dollar question .. would I buy a X1900 GT over a X1800 XT ? Short answer no .. it's a win-win situation though yet the 512MB memory on the XT and the 4 extra pipes make this the better product in the long run, obviously it is slightly more expensive also but the two are close for sure. The X1800 XT however uses a dual-slot and most of all rather noisy cooler. So at the end of the tunnel it boils down to very simple questions. Do you want a dual-slot cooler, do you opt for a less audible product. On the other side Pixel shading is becoming more important with newer titles, until we hit DX10 that is. These are more practical than pragmatic choices ...

It is suffice to say that Powercolor has an an excellent lower high-range performer in the market that offers seriously good performance for your bucks. Pretty much all games can be played at really good resolutions, you are no longer bound to a 1024x768 resolution in this mid-range segment of products. Some examples have to be F.e.a.r which at 1280x1024 was still pushing an average framerate of 47 FPS with 4xAA and 8xAF. And for that title that's exceptionally good performance. What about Splinter Cell 3 Chaos Theory ... 1920x1200 with 16 levels of anisotropic filtering enabled and HDR active pushed an average framerate of 37 FPS, again that's just really excellent. Evidently this is one Pixel shader bound games and that's where the money shot is with this product.

Please do bare in mind that it's not all about gaming anymore with today's graphics cards. With the X1900 GT comes the full Radeon X1000 family features. Among it AVIVO, and I just have to state that ever since ATi released the Catalyst 5.13 driver in late 2005 the output/decoding quality of graphics card decoded media files (and especially SD content) was taken to extremely nice quality. The HQV benchmark proofs it very well, that remains to be a subjective test though but yeah .. image quality is just exceptionally good. For what is matters, Image quality as always is extremely good with ATI product. They just do not compromise at it and next to that I just have to mention that even with the Beta driver we had to all games just where looking marvelous. In our conclusion we always say a thing or two about stability as ATI has come a long way with driver development. Their driver reputation is still haunting them and therefore I'm glad to report that we did not have one driver issue or a crash whatsoever.

Okay .. so I'm still not a fan of the memory hog that is called the Catalyst Control panel but I'll just have to life with it.

Personally I can really appreciate the X1900 GT as it offers a stack load of fun for the money you have to pay. Products like these you can pickup for roughly 299 USD and they guarantee you very decent gameplay and framerates at the best quality in resolution up-to 12x10 and even 19x12 in several situations if you enable eye-candy. Now that's not bad at all huh ?

The PowerColor Radeon X1900 GT is 100% reference based up-to the MHz precisely, it does offer really nice overclockability to squeeze even more performance out of it, yet it does get really hot under that hood. Whether you choose the X1800 XT or this product is a bit of a trade off. Now if this GT would be available in a 512MB edition .. now that would be really interesting. Look at the simply things like dual-slot cooling or even the best bargain you can find. Perhaps that'll make the choice easier for you.

Thanks to PowerColor for submitting this sample.

 

Copyright 2006 - Guru3D.com




16 pages « < 13 14 15 16



Related Articles
PowerColor Radeon RX 5600 XT Red Dragon review
We test and review the new PowerColor Radeon RX 5600 XT Red Dragon. The Radeon RX 5600 XT is basically an RX 5700 however with 6GB of GDDR6, lower clock frequencies and a price tag of 279 USD. Power...

PowerColor Radeon RX 5500 XT Red Dragon 8GB review
For our next Radeon RX 5500 XT review we move towards PowerColor who is releasing their Red Dragon edition, they submitted the 8GB model of the Radeon 5500 XT this version follows a dual-fan design fr...

PowerColor 5700 RED DEVIL review
Check the beast, the PowerColor 5700 RED DEVIL that we review today. It has increased clocks, increased looks and well is just customized all the way. Not just that, it is marketed at a retail price...

Radeon RX 590 (PowerColor Red Devil) review
It is time to tackle that new graphics card that AMD is releasing, the Radeon RX 590 is here and we'll be reviewing the Power Color Red Devil edition. What GPU will sit underneath that hood, Polaris?...

© 2021