Radeon X1900 XT Crossfire -
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What's in the box of that ASUS EAX x1900 Crossfire ? Well it doesn't matter really as you are buying an ASUS product so you'll know for sure you'll receive anything needed to get this puppy up and running in no time, whatever your intention with the card may be. ASUS have included everything you need to setup the card and play a game.
- Software CD with ASUS Splendid software
* ASUS Video Security Online
* ASUS Game LiveShow
* ASUS Game Replay
* ASUS Game FaceMessenger
* ASUS OnScreenDisplay
So what ASUS did not do was to include a game with this bundle. They however did include a rather cool game controller. Nice value for sure. Of course there's also the X1900 XT master card ;) I have nothing much to say other then it's a 100% reference based card which is 'up-to the transistor' similar. I would have loved to see some small changes. The cooler for example is rather noisy and I'd love to have seen that replaced.
Investigating power consumption
The progressively increasing power consumption of computer hardware is really worrying me. I mean, we do have to think of mother earth a little. Next to that we will check a statement that ATI made about power consumption to us. They stated that the X1900 XT would max out at 100-120 Watts. That's similar to NVIDIA's high-end cards.
We simply look at the peak Wattage during a 3DMark05 session to verify those claims. Of course we do what we always do with new graphics cards, we monitor the overall wattage peak with the help of a wattage meter. Slight side note, you are looking at the overall consumption of the PC. The meter is placed between the power connector and the PSU. I understand it's not the most reliable method, but it's a darn good indication !
In 3DMark05 the test platform shows a maximum peak use of 415 Watts for the X1900 XT in Crossfire mode ... that's really a lot but not bad to be honest. Let's have a look at my findings:
Graphics card |
100% load |
System Idle |
X1300 XT | 193 | 133 |
X1600 XT | 211 | 140 |
X1800 XL | 229 | 155 |
X1800 XT | 273 | 160 |
X1800 XT (x2 Crossfire) | 402 | 195 |
X1900 XT CF Single | 280 | 165 |
X1900 XTX | 290 | 165 |
X1900 XT (x2 Crossfire) | 414 | 211 |
* Results in Watts
100% load is a 3DMark05 run with the results being published the highest wattage peak (not average). System idle is the PC in 2D mode, the desktop. The cards are clocked faster in 3D mode and also the minute you step from low-end to mid-end to high-end.
Today's tested product is the shaggy Radeon X1950 Pro which comes with the newer IceQ3 cooling solution; a review on ATI's latest 12-pipe mid-range product which obviously was based off the R580 silicon, and is quite frankly a very credible graphics card as you'll learn in this article. The card features 36 Pixel Shaders units. And for roughly $219-239 you can pickup the 256MB version already.
Radeon X1650 XT & X1950 Pro & Crossfire
Primarily this is a Radeon X1650 XT Crossfire article, yet with included X1950 Pro Crossfire results as well. Ever since NVIDIA released the GeForce 7600 GS/GT cards earlier this year ATI has had a very rough time delivering a product that offers the same performance. They constantly were close but not close enough. ATI worked hard to finish up its new 80 nanometer products and despite a delay of all the 80 nanometer chips, it is finally ready in good quantities. The Radeon X1950 Pro for example is such a product.
HiS Radeon X1650 PRO review
The Radeon X1650 Pro utilizes the ATI RV535 graphics core, a new revision of the RV530 which was the basis of the X1600 series. What's new then you are asking ? Uhm, well nothing except a newer 80nm fabrication process. That 80nm process ensures cheaper production of the silicon and more importantly less heat and likely lower graphics core voltages. That means you can clock the core faster, which was done quite insignificantly for this model but the increase is there.
Radeon X1950 Pro 512MB Review
So today we'll be looking at the rather lovely Radeon X1950 Pro from this company, a review on ATI's latest 12-pipe mid-range product which obviously was based off the R580 silicon, and quite frankly is a very credible graphics card as you'll learn in this article. The card features 36 Pixel Shaders units. For $199 you can pickup the 256MB version already, it sounds like a great deal as it should offer at least twice the performance of a X1600 Pro.