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
Final Words
The numbers really do speak for themselves: the X1900XTX is an incredible part. In the end, the difference in performance between the X1900XT and XTX versions was so small that it's hard for us to see how anyone could justify spending another hundred dollars to have someone at a factory eke out that extra little bit of performance. ATI's justification for the X1900 XTX is that it is a pre-overclocked X1900 XT with a $100 manufacturers stamp of approval.
ATI stand behind their position that the X1900XTX isn't going to be another X800 XTPE, but will be a full production part with plenty of availability through its lifetime. Our first reaction is, with the voice of Chris Rock echoing in our ears: "what do you want, a cookie?" But then reality sets in and we are happy to take what we can get... as long as ATI actually delivers on their promises.
But what an excellent position from which to start following through on everything: the R580 launch is a resounding success in our eyes. Availability at launch, 4 new parts based on a huge and powerful chip, a triumphant return to the top with the new fastest graphics card available, and enough power to make the high quality features of the architecture more than useable. ATI couldn't have asked for anything better, and they certainly would not have been in a good position if they had come up with anything less.
There was some question over whether the X1900 CrossFire would be a let down with it's XT clock speeds, but the difference between reality and the theoretical performance of 2 X1900 XTX parts in CrossFire is even smaller than the difference between the performance of an X1900 XTX and an X1900 XT. If there's anything worth seriously questioning it is why anyone thinks that 4% core overclock combined with a 7% memory overclock is worth $100 to anyone.
One of the interesting non-performance related aspects of this launch is that ATI is phasing out the X1800 series. Their future roadmaps seem to leave a gap in the price range from $200 to $500, so it will be quite interesting to watch what ATI tries to fill the hole with this time around. Maybe we'll see some X1600 GTO parts with unlockable R520/R580 cores. Or maybe we'll see another product launch. Only time will tell.
The numbers really do speak for themselves: the X1900XTX is an incredible part. In the end, the difference in performance between the X1900XT and XTX versions was so small that it's hard for us to see how anyone could justify spending another hundred dollars to have someone at a factory eke out that extra little bit of performance. ATI's justification for the X1900 XTX is that it is a pre-overclocked X1900 XT with a $100 manufacturers stamp of approval.
ATI stand behind their position that the X1900XTX isn't going to be another X800 XTPE, but will be a full production part with plenty of availability through its lifetime. Our first reaction is, with the voice of Chris Rock echoing in our ears: "what do you want, a cookie?" But then reality sets in and we are happy to take what we can get... as long as ATI actually delivers on their promises.
But what an excellent position from which to start following through on everything: the R580 launch is a resounding success in our eyes. Availability at launch, 4 new parts based on a huge and powerful chip, a triumphant return to the top with the new fastest graphics card available, and enough power to make the high quality features of the architecture more than useable. ATI couldn't have asked for anything better, and they certainly would not have been in a good position if they had come up with anything less.
There was some question over whether the X1900 CrossFire would be a let down with it's XT clock speeds, but the difference between reality and the theoretical performance of 2 X1900 XTX parts in CrossFire is even smaller than the difference between the performance of an X1900 XTX and an X1900 XT. If there's anything worth seriously questioning it is why anyone thinks that 4% core overclock combined with a 7% memory overclock is worth $100 to anyone.
One of the interesting non-performance related aspects of this launch is that ATI is phasing out the X1800 series. Their future roadmaps seem to leave a gap in the price range from $200 to $500, so it will be quite interesting to watch what ATI tries to fill the hole with this time around. Maybe we'll see some X1600 GTO parts with unlockable R520/R580 cores. Or maybe we'll see another product launch. Only time will tell.
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Harkonnen - Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - link
Almost $900 CDN for the XTX and it only has a 1 year warranty?Main reason I would never buy an expensive ATi card is that right there.
smitty3268 - Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - link
The people who buy a card this expensive the first day it comes out won't keep it for a whole year, so the warranty doesn't matter. In 6 months another card will be out that makes this one look slow and they'll be spending even more money.DerekWilson - Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - link
Due to popular demand, we have added more percent increase performance comparison graphs to the performance breakdown that shows the performance relatoinships at lower resolutions.Let us know if there is anything else you'd like to see. Thanks!
Live - Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - link
The performance breakdown looks very good now! I would go so far as to say that this should be standard in future reviews.piroroadkill - Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - link
Using a lossy image format (JPEG) for image quality comparison screenshots seems kind of... pointless.But I guess you have to worry about bandwidth.
Josh Venning - Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - link
Thanks for the input all. Just to let you know we are dealing with some problems regarding our power numbers, but they should be up shortly. Thanks for being patient.Josh Venning - Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - link
One more thing.. We also caught a mistype on the graphs that we are in the process of correcting. The two crossfire systems we tested are the X1900 XTX Crossfire and the X1800 XT Crossfire. (we miss-labeled the latter "X1900 XT Crossfire") Sorry for any confusion this may have caused.smitty3268 - Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - link
Ah... That makes much more sense now. I was wondering why the XTX crossfire was doing so much better than the XT crossfire when the specs were so similar.SpaceRanger - Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - link
Problems with the publishing of them, or problems in the sense that it requires a direct link into a nuclear reactor to power properly??
DerekWilson - Tuesday, January 24, 2006 - link
our local nuclear plant ran us an extention cord just for this event :-)