![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Wednesday, August 23, 2006
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
ATI Radeon X1950 XTX / CrossFire Evaluation
ATI is today launching new video cards into several market segments along with the world’s first video card using GDDR4 memory. We cover real world gameplay with the high-end single- and multiple-GPU video cards from ATI.
ATI Radeon X1950 XTX
ATI is announcing the ATI Radeon X1950 XTX and X1950 XTX CrossFire Edition video card. This will be ATI’s highest-end video card they produce supplanting the ATI Radeon X1900 XTX. There are three key new features of this video card. The most important feature that helps with performance is the support and inclusion of GDDR4 memory. In fact, this is the world’s first consumer 3D graphics card with GDDR4 implemented. The second key new feature that will help with cooling and noise is the use of a completely new re-designed heatsink and fan unit. While not a hardware feature, but one of the most important “features” of a video card, price; the MSRP is so low it might as well be called a feature.
Performance
Let’s first talk about the performance aspects. The ATI Radeon X1950 XTX is actually based on a new GPU, the R580+. The ATI Radeon X1900 XTX GPU is based on the R580; think of these as cousins. The R580+ uses the 90 nanometer manufacturing process and contains 384 million transistors just like the Radeon X1900 XTX. The reason for a new GPU is that ATI has modified the ring bus memory controller on this GPU to allow faster speeds and tweak it specifically for GDDR4 memory. Faster speeds you say? Why yes, one of the major benefits of GDDR4 is to allow higher memory frequencies. In fact, ATI is starting with 1 GHz (2 GHz DDR) clock speeds! That right there folks is the fastest stock memory on a 3D graphics card for gaming ever put into retail.
At 2 GHz memory speed that means that on the 256-bit memory bus the ATI Radeon X1950 XTX will have 61.4 GB/sec of memory bandwidth. The current Radeon X1900 XTX has 49.6 GB/sec. That is a huge jump in memory bandwidth between ATI’s fastest single-GPU video card previously, and the new ATI Radeon X1950 XTX. For comparison to NVIDIA’s fastest single-GPU this would compare to 1.6 GHz on the 7900 GTX which is 51.2 GB/sec of bandwidth, still a full 10 GB/sec more memory bandwidth. So what does this mean for gamers? Basically when you run at very high resolutions or with high antialiasing settings you may see performance benefits with the faster memory. We will be testing these video cards with high settings at high resolutions to find out if this is the case.
GDDR4 also allows lower power draw and cooler temperatures. In fact, at the current 2 GHz DDR memory speeds the ATI Radeon X1950 XTX has the same memory power footprint as the ATI Radeon X1900 XTX. We asked ATI if there were any problems with GDDR4 resulting in reduced production of the memory modules (we’ve encountered memory shortage problems in the past with video cards) but ATI says they aren’t aware of any problems at this time. GDDR4 production is churning out at a steady pace.
That is all that is new on the performance side with the ATI Radeon X1950 XTX. Core GPU clock speeds remain at 650 MHz which are the same as the ATI Radeon X1900 XTX. There are still 48 pixel shader processors, 8 vertex processors and 16 ROPs just like the Radeon X1900 XTX.
Cooling
The second major feature that is new with the Radeon X1950 XTX is the use of a completely re-designed heatsink and fan unit. We have been very vocal in the past about the volume and type of noise ATI’s dual-slot cooling solutions put out. Thankfully ATI has listened to these complaints and have completely re-designed their cooling unit.
The heatsink is now made up of three separate copper heatsinks that are heat piped instead of one large heatsink block. Memory is also cooled by separate copper heatsinks. The fan has been moved to the rear of the air duct shroud instead of the front of the unit as it was before. The fan blades have also been re-designed as well as the fan motor. The system still works by pulling air from inside your case and exhausting it externally behind your case. They’ve also spiced up the look of the cooling unit by making a translucent red shroud with a snazzy metal ATI logo. All of these modifications should help produce cooler temperatures and reduced noise.
Models
There are two models based on the Radeon X1950 XTX GPU. There will be a regular Radeon X1950 XTX video card and a Radeon X1950 CrossFire Edition. As the name implies the CrossFire Edition would be the “Master Card” version with the compositing chip installed to allow CrossFire operation for dual-GPU performance. What is interesting, and welcomed, are the X1950 CrossFire edition specifications. The specifications for the X1950 XTX CrossFire Edition are exactly the same as the Radeon X1950 XTX. The same 2 GHz memory clock speed is in place, with a 650 MHz GPU clock and 512MB of GDDR4.
This is welcomed because previously the Radeon X1900 XT CrossFire Edition video card was clocked at X1900 XT clock speeds even if you paired it up with the higher clocked Radeon X1900 XTX. With the Radeon X1950 XTX CrossFire Edition video card you will be able to “CrossFire” it with a Radeon X1950 XTX, Radeon X1900 XTX and Radeon X1900 XT. This gives you more options to further improve performance.
Pricing
The third and most important “feature” of this video card is how much money you have to plop down to own one. ATI is setting an MSRP of a very low $449 for both the regular and CrossFire Edition video cards. This is extremely welcomed considering we have been seeing a steady incline on high-end video card prices at launches lately. This is ATI’s fastest and highest-end offering they have and are selling it for only $449! There is another video card up there, the Radeon X1900 XT 256MB which we will talk about on the next page. Now, this is ATI’s MSRP and the price at which you can buy the video card from ATI which we are evaluating here today.
Add-in-board partners may indeed price them differently since they can offer them with different cooling solutions and different clock speeds. When we evaluate add-in-board partner video cards we will make sure to note prices and compare based on those prices. And herein lies the rub. This is not what we would call a “hard launch” today. ATI tells us that they aren’t expecting these video cards to be on the shelves until September 14th. Though today, August 23rd retailers will be taking pre-orders products will not actually be shipped to customers until September 14th, so there is some wait involved here in getting these video cards.
Any way you slice it $449 for a high-end single-GPU video card with 2 GHz memory is a very appealing price.
ATI Radeon X1950 XTX and CrossFire Pictures
Above we have side-by-side the new Radeon X1950 XTX and Radeon X1950 XTX CrossFire. They are identical in specifications except that the CrossFire Edition has the compositing chip on board with the special DVI connection for the CrossFire dongle.
Here is the ATI Radeon X1950 XTX compared to an ATI Radeon X1900 XTX. You can easily see the differences in the cooling unit design here. Note that the PCB length and width and the height of the video cards are exactly the same. The only difference is that the ATI Radeon X1950 XTX has GDDR4 modules on board at a high clock speed and the new cooling unit. This new cooling unit does add more weight to the video card making it noticeably heavier when you hold both video cards.
The new cooling unit takes up the entire length of the video card. As you can see the fan has been moved to the rear of the video card and does have the top open to draw in air. There are also holes underneath the fan to let air be drawn in from underneath. Air is ducted and pushed from the fan through the entire heatsink area and out the back of the PC. There is a heat pipe system in place which moves heat from the part of the heatsink that is directly over the GPU to other parts of the heatsink area. In operation we did find this new cooling unit to be much quieter than the one employed on the ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, there is no more annoying ‘whine’ to the fan.
Here is what a CrossFire setup looks like with the dongle attached. With the video cards sandwiched together like this there is less chance of one of the video cards to be able to draw in more air. Therefore make sure you install good case cooling such as a fan blowing directly across these video cards to help keep them cool, they do get quite hot with hours of gaming.