[H]ard|OCP

Navigation

• [H] Forums
• Archives
• Search
• [H] Folding

Sapphire Radeon X1950 GT

Sapphire Technology is the first and only add-in-board partner with a video card using the new ATI Radeon X1950 GT GPU. Does the Radeon X1950 GT have what it takes to run with the big boys? This $150 video card is full of surprises.

Introduction

Sapphire Technology is a Hong Kong based computer hardware manufacturer that specializes in gaming equipment. Founded in 1996 as a video card manufacturer, they have expanded their manufacturing repertoire to TV tuners and motherboards. All of their motherboards feature ATI core logic, and all of their video cards feature ATI GPUs. They are ATI's largest and most successful manufacturing partner in the world. According to Sapphire's site:

Since ATI announced its manufacturing & distribution relationships with ODMs and AiBs in June of 2001, SAPPHIRE has been THE key ATI Graphics Boards Supplier worldwide and now stands poised and ready to capture the mainboard audience of those who seek a stable platform for their mission critical operations.

Sapphire has the capacity to manufacture 1.8 million video cards per month. They have been ATI's primary manufacturing and distribution partner since 2001.

Today, we have Sapphire's brand new Radeon X1950 GT 256 MB PCI-Express x16 video card up for evaluation.

ATI Radeon X1950 GT GPU

Under the skin, the Radeon X1950 GT is the very same 80nm RV570 silicon found in the higher priced Radeon X1950 PRO. It features 36 pixel shaders, 12 ROPs, and 8 vertex shaders. The primary difference between the Radeon X1950 PRO and the Radeon X1950 GT is the clock speed. The Radeon X1950 GT's GPU runs at 500 MHz, with 1.2 GHz GDDR3 memory, whereas the Radeon X1950 PRO runs at 575 MHz, with 1.4 GHz GDDR3 memory. ATI's MSRP for Radeon X1950 GT based video cards is $179. That price positions the Radeon X1950 GT squarely against the NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS.

To lower the prospective price point, ATI disabled AVIVO support in the Radeon X1950 GT, but it does still support TV and HDTV output. It also features full HDCP support and two dual-link DVI ports.

The Sapphire Radeon X1950 GT comes at ATI's reference clock speeds of a 500 MHz GPU, and 1.2 GHz memory. It is currently available in PCI-Express only. Sapphire has no current plans to introduce an AGP version of this video card.

Sapphire Radeon X1950 GT

The outer box is somewhat standard fare for Sapphire. The box is mostly white with a futuristic gear and a cyborg woman. The front of the box has all of the necessary labels to inform the buyer what he or she is buying. The box also seems to indicate that the full version of the PC game Just Cause is included.

In a departure from the Sapphire norm, there is a window on the box, allowing you to see the nice blue heat-sink shroud. This is a very nice touch. It is somewhat normal with some NVIDIA video card manufacturers, and it is nice to see the idea moving to the other side of the fence as well.

The side of the box gives a very thorough listing of system requirements. Interestingly, the box recommends a power supply that can provide 30 amps on the 12 volt rail. This seems rather high for this level of video card. Our Corsair HX 620 Watt power supply provides 18A on the 12 volt rail, and we had no problems running this video card whatsoever.

The back of the box is the same useless fare that adorns the back of most video card boxes. At least they abstained from showing the same tired canned screenshot comparisons for this one. There is a cursory rundown of features and product highlights, and a parade of awards that Sapphire has won since 2002.

In fact, we noticed something a bit familiar. Sapphire has won over 600 awards for products since 2002. Unfortunately there isn’t a list of what those products were. These awards however do not actually pertain to this specific video card; this is our first look at it. A list inside of what products earned what awards would be a nice touch.

This video card features a translucent cobalt blue plastic heat-sink shroud over a silver aluminum heat-sink. The heat sink uses long, thin aluminum fins that stretch the length of the heat sink, parallel with the PCB. The fan is a familiar blower type design that pushes air down the length of the heat-sink. This is a single-slot video card, as is normal in this price range, and it requires a single 6-pin auxiliary power connector.

The Sapphire Radeon X1950 GT is a fairly long video card for this market segment. It measures about 9 and 1/16 inches long. By comparison, the NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GS is 7 and 7/8 inches long. The Sapphire Radeon X1950 GT is 1 and 3/16 inches longer than the GeForce 7900 GS. For a frame of reference, our Gigabyte GA-965P-DS3 motherboard is only 8 and 1/8 inches across, so this video card sticks over the edge by almost an inch.

For video output, the Sapphire Radeon X1950 GT features two dual-link DVI connectors and the TV/HDTV output port. The back of the video card is as plain as most others, featuring mostly power and biasing circuitry. This video card supports native CrossFire, as evidenced by the pair of CrossFire bridge connectors. Each video card comes with one bridge, and two bridges are required for CrossFire operation.

The bundle with this video card is very complete. It comes with the ubiquitous driver and manual CD-ROM and PowerDVD suite, as well as a quick-installation guide. It also comes with the full version of the game Just Cause ($29.99 USD), as indicated on the box. The cable bundle is extensive. It comes with two DVI to VGA adaptors, a CrossFire bridge, a composite video cable (with adaptor), an HDTV output adaptor dongle, an S-Video cable, and a Molex to 6-pin auxiliary power adaptor. It even comes with a shiny case badge for those of you that like to show off your guts.

Price and Comparison

The Sapphire Radeon X1950 is available from Newegg for $154.99 USD. As we are writing this, Newegg offers a $10 mail-in rebate, lowering the price to $144.99 USD.

Currently, a good GeForce 7900 GS video card will cost buyers $159.99 USD, or $144.99 after the $15 mail-in rebate. The comparable prices place both the Radeon X1950 GT and the GeForce 7900 GS in good footing for the battle for your hard-earned dollars.