ATI's New High End and Mid Range: Radeon X1950 XTX & X1900 XT 256MB
by Derek Wilson on August 23, 2006 9:52 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Test
For the most part, this is a high end article focusing on the faster 3 cards ATI announced today. We will include benchmarks of the X1900 XT 256MB in both our high end tests, and in a comparison with the numbers we ran for our recent summer midrange roundup. Our high end tests will consist of higher resolutions and will use the same high end platform we employed for our midrange article. This time, along with the benefits we see from using the fastest CPU we can get our hands on, this is also the type of system we might recommend for high end gamers to run their cards in. Thus, people interested in these cards can get a glimpse of what actual performance might look like on their personal system using our numbers.
| CPU: | Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 (2.93GHz/4MB) |
| Motherboard: | Intel D975XBX (LGA-775) ASUS P5N32SLI SE Deluxe |
| Chipset: | Intel 975X NVIDIA nForce4 Intel x16 SLI |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 7.2.2.1007 (Intel) NVIDIA nForce 6.86 |
| Hard Disk: | Seagate 7200.7 160GB SATA |
| Memory: | Corsair XMS2 DDR2-800 4-4-4-12 (1GB x 2) |
| Video Card: | Various |
| Video Drivers: | ATI Catalyst 6.8 NVIDIA ForceWare 91.33 |
| Desktop Resolution: | 1920 x 1440 - 32-bit @ 60Hz |
| OS: | Windows XP Professional SP2 |
The games we have chosen to test represent a wide variety of engines and styles. We are testing 7 games today due to the time constraints of this article. As the interest in HDR and advanced visual effects continues to rise, the tradeoff required for antialiasing is often overshadowed by the quality available from other options. This is especially true in games like Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Oblivion, and Black & White 2. In every game but Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory and Oblivion, we will be testing with and without 4x antialiasing. These games really shine when HDR is enabled, so we won't bother disabling it. (ATI still offers the "Chuck Patch" to enable both HDR and antialiasing, which can be seen as an advantage for their hardware. However, this doesn't work with all HDR modes and is currently targetted mostly at Oblivion and Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory.)
For all of our tests, the only default driver setting we change is vsync which we set to off. All other settings are left alone, as the default settings from each camp yeild generally comparable image quality. There are a few exceptions to the rule, but none of the test we ran show any shimmering or other problems noted in the past with NVIDIA's default quality.
In reporting our results, in hopes to increase readability, we will be including a snapshot of one resolution using our standard graphing engine graphs along side a resolution scaling line graph.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
74 Comments
View All Comments
JarredWalton - Thursday, August 24, 2006 - link
Anisotropic filtering was enabled in all tests at 8xAF as far as I know. When we use antialiasing, we generally enable anisotropic filtering as well.LoneWolf15 - Thursday, August 24, 2006 - link
Looks like there's no HDCP support or HDMI connector added like I'd expect with a brand new top-end card. And, they didn't add the new quieter cooler to the X1900XT. Pity. I doubt it would cost ATI more, and it'd up the sale of cards since people hate the noisy fan ATI has been currently using.I'll pass. My older (by alpha-geek standards) X800XL does the job fine.
P.S. -1 for not doing any bench tests with Elder Scrolls: Oblivion.
DerekWilson - Saturday, August 26, 2006 - link
also, all of these cards have HDCP support -- which I believe I mentioned somewhere in there. HDMI is up to the vendor.JarredWalton - Thursday, August 24, 2006 - link
+2 You might want to read page 8.LoneWolf15 - Thursday, August 24, 2006 - link
I don't know what's going on, I must have been blind. My apologies there, Jarred.Dfere - Thursday, August 24, 2006 - link
You just can't always eat your cake and then have it left over.YOu should change your phrase from "Sometimes we can have our cake and eat it too"
to "Sometimes we can eat our cake and have it too"
poohbear - Thursday, August 24, 2006 - link
the established exnglish expression is "you cant have your cake and eat it too", even if it doesnt make logical sense. There are many words and expressions that dont make sense in english (driveway, football, highway). Im guessing you're not a native english speaker, but that's the way the language is. now, please post about technology and not the logic of english expressions.Griswold - Thursday, August 24, 2006 - link
Whats wrong with football? Or do you mean american "football"?poohbear - Thursday, August 24, 2006 - link
can anyone confirm if those power consumption tests are for the entire system or just the vid cards? the highest figure was 267wts: a high end system that consumes 267wts underload is sweet! can you confirm that is indeed for the entire system (cpu, mobo, hdd, vid card... everything). thanks.JarredWalton - Thursday, August 24, 2006 - link
I'm pretty sure that this is power use for the entire system, but Derek's results are quite a bit lower than what I got on the ABS system I tested last week for X1900 CrossFire. Of course, the water cooling and extra fans on the ABS system might add a decent amount of power draw, and I don't know how "loaded" the systems are in this test. I would guess that Derek ran Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory for load conditions.