ATI's New Leader in Graphics Performance: The Radeon X1900 Series
by Derek Wilson & Josh Venning on January 24, 2006 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Details of the Cards
There are actually 4 products being launched today, three of which we were able to get our hands on for this article. We have actually spotted all three of these cards we tested around the internet today, so availability is immediate, and we couldn't be happier. As for pricing, ATI's MSRPs are as follows:
Radeon X1900 XTX -- $650
Radeon X1900 CrossFire Edition -- $600
Radeon X1900 XT -- $550
The CrossFire Edition version of the X1900 is clocked the same as the X1900 XT except for its I/O connectors and compositing engine. The X1900 XT weighs in with some very high clock speeds, especially for the number of pixel pipelines it supports. If you are worried about the CrossFire card bringing down the XTX, don't be. The XTX only sees about a 4% increase in core clock speed and a 7% increase in memory clock speed over the stock X1900 XT.
So, while the price gap between the XTX, XT, and CrossFire versions of the card would seem to indicate sizeable performance differences, we can definitively say that this is not the general case. The XTX is only marginally faster even on paper, and, as we will see, in the real world, real performance is what matters. Our advice is to save your money and go with the cheaper XT. 18% more cost for at best 7% more performance is all that the XTX gives.
There are actually 4 products being launched today, three of which we were able to get our hands on for this article. We have actually spotted all three of these cards we tested around the internet today, so availability is immediate, and we couldn't be happier. As for pricing, ATI's MSRPs are as follows:
Radeon X1900 XTX -- $650
Radeon X1900 CrossFire Edition -- $600
Radeon X1900 XT -- $550
The CrossFire Edition version of the X1900 is clocked the same as the X1900 XT except for its I/O connectors and compositing engine. The X1900 XT weighs in with some very high clock speeds, especially for the number of pixel pipelines it supports. If you are worried about the CrossFire card bringing down the XTX, don't be. The XTX only sees about a 4% increase in core clock speed and a 7% increase in memory clock speed over the stock X1900 XT.
| ATI X1000 Series Features | ||||
Radeon X1900 XT(X) |
Radeon X1600 |
Radeon X1800 XL |
Radeon X1800 XT |
|
| Vertex Pipelines | 8 |
5 |
8 |
8 |
| Pixel Pipelines | 48 |
12 |
16 |
16 |
| Core Clock | 625(650) |
590 |
500 |
625 |
| Memory Size | 512MB |
256MB |
256MB |
512MB |
| Memory Data Rate | 1.45GHz (1.55GHz) |
1.38GHz |
1GHz |
1.5GHz |
| Texture Units | 16 |
4 |
16 |
16 |
| Render Backends | 16 |
4 |
16 |
16 |
| Z Compare Units | 16 |
8 |
16 |
16 |
| Maximum Threads | 512 |
128 |
512 |
512 |
So, while the price gap between the XTX, XT, and CrossFire versions of the card would seem to indicate sizeable performance differences, we can definitively say that this is not the general case. The XTX is only marginally faster even on paper, and, as we will see, in the real world, real performance is what matters. Our advice is to save your money and go with the cheaper XT. 18% more cost for at best 7% more performance is all that the XTX gives.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
120 Comments
View All Comments
tuteja1986 - Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - link
wait for firing squad review then :) if you want AAx8beggerking - Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - link
Did anyone notice it? the breakdown graphs doesn't quite reflect the actual data..the breakdown is showing 1900xtx being much faster than 7800 512, but in the actual performance graph 1900xtx is sometimes outpaced by 7800 512..
SpaceRanger - Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - link
All the second to last section describes in the Image Quality. There was no explaination on power consumtion at all. Was this an accidental omit or something else??Per Hansson - Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - link
Yes, please show us the power consumption ;-)A few things I would like seen done; Put a low-end PCI GFX card in the comp, boot it and register power consumption, leave that card in and then do your normal tests with a single X1900 and then dual so we get a real point on how much power they consume...
Also please clarify exactly what PSU was used and how the consumption was measured so we can figure out more accuratley how much power the card really draws (when counting in the (in)efficiency of the PSU that is...
peldor - Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - link
That's a good idea on isolating the power of the video card.From the other reviews I've read, the X1900 cards are seriously power hungry. In the neighborhood of 40-50W more than the X1800XT cards. The GTX 512 (and GTX of course) are lower than the X1800XT, let alone the X1900 cards.
vaystrem - Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - link
Anyone else find this interesting??Battlefield 2 @ 2048x1536 Max Detail
7800GTX512 33FPS
AIT 1900XTX 32.9FPS
ATI 1900XTX Crossfire. 29FPS
-------------------------------------
Day of Defeat
7800GTX512 18.93FPS
AIT 1900XTX 35.5PS
ATI 1900XTX Crossfire. 35FPS
-------------------------------------
Fear
7800GTX512 20FPS
AIT 1900XTX 36PS
ATI 1900XTX Crossfire. 49FPS
-------------------------------------
Quake 4
7800GTX512 43.3FPS
AIT 1900XTX 42FPS
ATI 1900XTX Crossfire. 73.3FPS
DerekWilson - Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - link
Becareful here ... these max detail settings enabled superaa modes which really killed performance ... especially with all the options flipped on quality.we're working on getting some screens up to show the IQ difference. but suffice it to say that that the max detail settings are very apples to oranges.
we would have seen performance improvements if we had simply kept using 6xAA ...
DerekWilson - Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - link
to further clarify, fear didn't play well when we set AA outside the game, so it's max quality ended up using the in game 4xaa setting. thus we see a performance improvement.for day of defeat, forcing aa/af through the control panel works well so we were able to crank up the quality.
I'll try to go back and clarify this in the article.
vaystrem - Wednesday, January 25, 2006 - link
I'm not sure how that justifies what happens. Your argument is that it is the VERY highest settings so that its ok for the 'dual' 1900xtx to have lower performance than a single card alternative? That doesn't seem to make sense and speaks poorly for the ATI implementation.Lonyo - Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - link
The XTX especially in Crossfire does seem to give a fair boost in a number of tests over the XT and XT in Crossfire.