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Power Color Radeon X1950 XT Review
[Abstract]
IntroductionIn case you have not noticed, ATI's website has undergone some superficial changes in appearance to match its new owners - AMD. The red team has gone green, though its logos and bra...
[Content] PCDigitalMobileGame
Conclusion
With its next generation R600 core still under wraps until next year, ATI, like AMD has lost the high-end performance ground to NVIDIA's new GeForce 8 series. However, the distinct lack of DirectX 10 games and Windows Vista hardly make a strong case for NVIDIA's GeForce 8 series at the moment even though the green team has retired two of its GeForce 7 series cards to make way for two of its new GeForce 8800 cards. While performance of these newcomers is unquestionably good, there have been unconfirmed reports of weak sales such as this for the new cards. As odd as it may seem, there is a small possibility that users might be holding out for the expected, more affordable mid-range derivatives. Of course, the more possible reason in our opinion is that potential consumers are eyeing the recently launched and much hyped consoles from Nintendo and Sony instead of a graphics upgrade.
Rather than compete head-on, ATI seems to be concentrating on strengthening its present high-end lineup in order to challenge NVIDIA's GeForce 7 series. It is a strategy that it has been using since the Radeon X1950 XTX and it has only been picking up steam slowly with the Radeon X1650 series and X1950 PRO. Now we have the Radeon X1950 XT joining the team as a direct replacement for the Radeon X1900 XT. More expensive memory chips capable of higher memory clocks, together with software support for CrossFire seems to be the obvious changes compared to the older Radeon X1900 XT.
The only downside that we can see with the Radeon X1950 XT is that for some consumers, it's not exactly the latest in graphics technology. For this elite group of users, a decent performance to price ratio is not exactly the bragging material they require. Fortunately, these users form an extreme niche and are more than likely to wait for the R600 if they haven't already bought a GeForce 8800 GTX by now.
ATI's recent product refreshes have all been about price competitiveness and the Radeon X1950 XT continues that with a strong performance against the NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GT. If only the noise and heat quotient were better rated as well, the Radeon X1950 XT would have won a major battle just like the Radeon X1950 XTX did. For now, its performance is more than enough reason to give it a serious thought. |
PowerColor's retail Radeon X1950 XT doesn't differ from the reference model and just by looking at it, you won't be able to distinguish it from the old Radeon X1900 XT or perhaps for some of you, even the Radeon X1800 XT. Besides a suite of DVD software and more than sufficient cables, it is a rather standard and competent product. Temperatures were predictably higher than the Radeon X1950 XTX or the 80nm Radeon X1950 PRO, especially for the core. We also found some limitations in overclocking the core, but the 1.0ns memory modules does seem to be limited more by ATI's Overdrive utility rather than the hardware.
While the Radeon X1950 XT seems to have been released with relatively little fanfare, it is not another paper launch from ATI. It would of course have been quite a disaster if even a rehashed design turned out to be unavailable, but such fears seem unfounded, given by the brands we have seen selling at online retailers. Prices too reflect its attractive price performance ratio, ranging from US$250 - US$300. This places it directly against NVIDIA's GeForce 7950 GT. Based on the benchmarks we have seen, the Radeon X1950 XT more than holds its own against its NVIDIA opponent and mirrors ATI's recent successes like the Radeon X1950 PRO in offering a slightly better price performance proposition. Priced at S$479 locally, the PowerColor Radeon X1950 XT is decently priced while its performance should tide you over till more DirectX 10 cards and games are launched half a year later.
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