X1900 XT/XTX Roundup: A Closer Look at the Performance Leader in Graphics
by Josh Venning on February 15, 2006 4:00 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Sapphire X1900 XT & X1900 XTX
Sapphire is a company from which we've seen good results come in the past, and today, we have two different X1900's from them. Most of the X1900's that we have look nearly identical except those made by Sapphire, whose only difference is the small Sapphire logo on the heat sink. Other than this, both the X1900 XT and XTX look exactly like ATI's reference X1900s.
The boxes for these two cards are similar in style, with flashy silver, gray and white images on the front and the Sapphire logo in the top corner. Included with both of these cards is the familiar “Sapphire Select” game CD, which lets you choose two games of your choice from Tony Hawk's Underground 2, Richard Burns Rally, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, and Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30. This is a nice game bundle, and the option to choose which games you want is a plus for both of these cards. We've seen good performance with Sapphire products in the past, especially in the area of overclocking. We were very interested to see what kind of overclocking results could be achieved with these already blazing fast cards.
Sapphire is a company from which we've seen good results come in the past, and today, we have two different X1900's from them. Most of the X1900's that we have look nearly identical except those made by Sapphire, whose only difference is the small Sapphire logo on the heat sink. Other than this, both the X1900 XT and XTX look exactly like ATI's reference X1900s.
The boxes for these two cards are similar in style, with flashy silver, gray and white images on the front and the Sapphire logo in the top corner. Included with both of these cards is the familiar “Sapphire Select” game CD, which lets you choose two games of your choice from Tony Hawk's Underground 2, Richard Burns Rally, Prince of Persia: Warrior Within, and Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30. This is a nice game bundle, and the option to choose which games you want is a plus for both of these cards. We've seen good performance with Sapphire products in the past, especially in the area of overclocking. We were very interested to see what kind of overclocking results could be achieved with these already blazing fast cards.
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yacoub - Wednesday, February 15, 2006 - link
Sadly I don't think Gigabyte is an ATI partner, but I do hope Sapphire is working on better cooling for the X1900 series. Asus is NVidia but might also make ATI cards? I don't remember. If they try to passively cool it like with their 7800GT they just better do it well enough that it's not roasting itself to death at 70+ degrees Celsius. =/Clauzii - Wednesday, February 15, 2006 - link
In pro music applications 0.1db is considdered inaudioble but 0.7db - everyone can hear that change - Unless there is a louder component overall in the system.yacoub - Wednesday, February 15, 2006 - link
49.x db is still ridiculously loud, no matter how much an exponential change it is from 50.x.The loudest part in my current rig is around 37db. Claiming 49anything is quiet is RUBBISH and it most certainly is NOT a significant improvement over 50.x db. A slight improvement would be 47db instead of 52 db. A significant improvement would be 42db instead of 52db. A worthwhile improvement would be replacing those terrible fan designs with a Zalman/AC style cooler and offering that stock like Sapphire has in the past.
Come talk to me when it's at 45-47db at 100% fan speed and I'll be interested in buying it (because I'll drop it to ~20% fanspeed with ATITool like I do my current stock-Zalman-cooled Sapphire X800XL and that'll be close enough to this curent level of quiet to be acceptable.
Bull Dog - Wednesday, February 15, 2006 - link
<^ Broke owner of a Sapphire X1900XT"The X1900 is one of those cards that is on just about everyone's wish-list. Those who are lucky enough to own one are probably the envy of their friends and also perhaps became broke from the purchase."
:)
Bull Dog - Wednesday, February 15, 2006 - link
yo konw we really need an edit function.....Decent not dedcent.