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
One Last Thing, there's an All-in-Wonder Version too
The All-In-Wonder version of this card isn't lagging too far behind this time around. Previous AIW launches have seen at least a little gap between the launch of the card it's based on and an announcement. This time ATI is being proactive and bringing out an AIW version of the X1900 immediately.
The card is a single slot solution, clocked a little lower, and aside from being the cheapest X1900 around, it also features all the bells and whistles AIW users have come to know and love. The price tag doesn't exactly scream bargain, but considering all the features smashed into this part it's obviously not going to be a slouch. While the specs for the part are a considerable cut from the faster cards in the series, the combination of all the positives on this card are incredible. Here's a breakdown:
All-In-Wonder X1900:
Core clock speed: 500 MHz
Memory clock speed: 960 MHz
Price (MSRP): $500
Though the All-In-Wonder series is always sold first in North America (all AIW parts bought here are built by ATI), we haven't seen much in the way of availability for this part today. The card is listed at ATI's own store as out of stock and will ship when available. While the focal point of the launch is on the three main products we tested today, we would have preferred that ATI hold off on the announcement of this part until volume was available. We are more inclined to believe ATI's promise that the AIW will be available in the next couple weeks now that we've seen them deliver so well on this hard launch, and we'll try to test one as soon as possible to see how the reduced clocks affect real world performance.
The All-In-Wonder version of this card isn't lagging too far behind this time around. Previous AIW launches have seen at least a little gap between the launch of the card it's based on and an announcement. This time ATI is being proactive and bringing out an AIW version of the X1900 immediately.
The card is a single slot solution, clocked a little lower, and aside from being the cheapest X1900 around, it also features all the bells and whistles AIW users have come to know and love. The price tag doesn't exactly scream bargain, but considering all the features smashed into this part it's obviously not going to be a slouch. While the specs for the part are a considerable cut from the faster cards in the series, the combination of all the positives on this card are incredible. Here's a breakdown:
All-In-Wonder X1900:
Core clock speed: 500 MHz
Memory clock speed: 960 MHz
Price (MSRP): $500
Though the All-In-Wonder series is always sold first in North America (all AIW parts bought here are built by ATI), we haven't seen much in the way of availability for this part today. The card is listed at ATI's own store as out of stock and will ship when available. While the focal point of the launch is on the three main products we tested today, we would have preferred that ATI hold off on the announcement of this part until volume was available. We are more inclined to believe ATI's promise that the AIW will be available in the next couple weeks now that we've seen them deliver so well on this hard launch, and we'll try to test one as soon as possible to see how the reduced clocks affect real world performance.
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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.