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*** The Official X1950 Pro Thread ***

Big.Wayne

Big.Wayne

Big.Wayne

Soldato
Joined
11 Sep 2003
Posts
14,716
Location
London
ruby002abv0.jpg


A little thread for any owners (or prospective owners!) of this great 'mid-range' GPU (AGP or PCI-E).

So far I am well impressed with what I am seeing, amazing what you can get for your money these days in terms of eye-candy! . . . If your in the market for a new GPU and your budget is around the £100 mark you will probably be looking at either the Geforce 7900GS or the Radeon X1950 Pro, both good cards but it looks like the Radeon has the 'edge', read for yourself here and here.


centurionslgkq9.jpg

Screenshots from Prey by 2K. Prey© 2006 3D Realms


Reviews:

Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro
XYZMHz/GPU - XYZXMHz/DDR - 2x DVI-VGA Dongle - Crossfire Connecter - PCI-E Power Adapter - See Bundle
Reviews PCI-E: 1 2 3 - Reviews AGP: 1

HIS ATI Radeon X1950 Pro ICEQ 3 TURBO SILENT
620-635MHz/GPU - 1486MHz/DDR - Bundle Varies
Reviews PCI-E: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

PowerColor X1950 PRO Extreme
600MHz/GPU - 1400MHz/DDR - 1x DVI-VGA Dongle - PCI-E Power Adapter - See Bundle
Reviews PCI-E: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 - Reviews AGP:1

'ULTIMATE' Sapphire ATI Radeon X1950 Pro
580MHz/GPU - 1600MHz/DDR
Reviews PCI-E: 1 2

X1950 Pro 'CROSSFIRE'
Reviews: 1 2 3 4


Comparisons:

Tom's Hardware Guide VGA Charts
Allows for interactive performance comparison, real-time!

Video Card Memory Analysis: 256MB vs. 512MB
Pure-Overclock (12 March, 2006)

GeCube X800XL 256MB vs. 512MB
Tweak Town (3rd August 2005)


Bonus:

Avivo™: Video and Display Perfection
[HTPC] What's all this HD-DVD and Blue-Ray stuff about then?

Folding@Home on ATI GPU's: A Major Step Forward
Believe it or not, some people will be buying this card to help medical research!


Downloads & Showcase:

Installation Procedure?
What's the best way to get your new card up and running?

Catalyst® 'Software Suite' for Windows XP
Single download containing the latest drivers and the 'Control Centre' (34.6MB)
Note: Catalyst® 'Control Centre' needs Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 installed (22.4MB).

Catalyst® Software 'Components' for Windows XP
If you don't like the Control Center then simply download & install the Display Driver (12.2MB)
and the WDM Integrated Driver (3.9MB) and your all set.
Note: The WDM driver (AVIVO) will get rid of the 'unknown device' seen here

Windows Media Video Footage from 'PREY'
Been a while since you played a FPS game, check out this 11 minute video!

Ruby: The DoubleCross (131MB)
Note: Requires at least an X800 GPU

Ruby: Dangerous Curves (179MB)
Note: Requires at least an X850 GPU

Ruby: The Assassin (131MB)
Note: Requires at least an X1K GPU
 
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yea its not too bad a card. but it struggles in games like tombraider legend with next gen content enabled even at a rez of 1024x768. and even marvel ultimate alliance struggles to run with advanced lighting on and shadows at max, and thats on my card running at 800x600.

guess more power is needed these days.

the x1950pro is very good for the price though. [Colour=yellow][You should know better Mav - Minstadave][/color] for the price its probably the best card going on the market now in the price/performance category. just lack of drivers were its earlier problems.
 
Cyber-Mav said:
yea its not too bad a card. but it struggles in games like tombraider legend with next gen content enabled even at a rez of 1024x768.
Click to expand...
Which games that you play have been gOOd on the X1950Pro then Cyber-Mav? and are you a 1920x1200 merchant? :)
beast said:
I can't believe the performance for the price! I'm playing Far cry at the mo with everything set to MAX. :cool:
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I bet that is awsome!, but what screen res are you using Beast? :D

tomanders91 said:
geforce 4 mx 440.
Click to expand...
Wow thats going back some! :eek:

gOOd luck with the saving, if you manage to get your new kit together you will have a pleasant suprise in store! :)
 
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I am still in the early stages of setting things up, but I have had an issue where if I use the CD drivers then my PC doesn't switch off properly (its shuts down too quick), gonna try the latest drivers tonight to see if that helps . . .
 
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i can play games like battlefield 2 and battlefield 2142 at 1600x1200 with 2xAA and all other details at max with 16xAF.

Just cause can also be played at 1600x1200 with forced 2xAA and 8xAF.
Graw runs fine at 1280x960 fine, then again i only got 256mb ram so can;t go higher on the rez. and AA don;t work in GRAW for some odd reason.

those are the only taxing games on my pc at the moment.

tombraider legend with next gen content is still a struggle and goes choppy in places at 1024x768, but without next gen then 1600x1200 with 6xAA and 16xAF runs super smooth.

and same with marvel ultimate alliance as tombraider. when advanced lighting is enabled performance suffers real bad.
 
have a sapphire 1950 pro 256mb and its best card i ever own its eats gamesa live.

i play

DoD source : 1280x1024 maxed out on everything sept hdr off (dont like it) and get 100fps+

CS source : 1280x1024 maxed out on everthing sept hdr off (dont like it) and get 125fps+

Coh: 1280x1024 maxed out cept 2 things on vbery high instead of ultimate and it gave me 49fps in video test and said excellent :D runs smoooth

drivers i am using the ones that come with the card. im to imprssed with performance to change them for newer ones incase i jynx it lol
 
It comes with an adaptor straight out the box, along with (count 'em) two DVI to VGA dongles.


Edit - the sapphire one does anyway.
 
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Zacko said:
I take it these cards need a PCI-E adapter thing from the PSU?
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Yep, most modern PSU's come with this but for older PSU owners an adapter (Molex to PCI-E) is included! :)

beast said:
It comes with an adaptor straight out the box, along with (count 'em) two DVI to VGA dongles.
Click to expand...
I got the Powercolour version and mine came with just one DVI to VGA dongle. . .
 
You'd have to go for the 512MB version, I think it's about 150 + del. Although I don't know if my 256mb version would be fine also, as the 1024x1280 is plenty enough for yours truly!
 
Big.Wayne said:
Here are some results running at 1920x1200

These are pretty decent results considering the cards price :)
Click to expand...
you have to remember what there test system is :
6600 Conroe
2x1GB DDR2

people here that are looking at a x1950 as a cheap AGP upgrade path wont be on the same cpu performance level as there test system.
 
sja360 said:
you have to remember what there test system is :
6600 Conroe
2x1GB DDR2

people here that are looking at a x1950 as a cheap AGP upgrade path wont be on the same cpu performance level as there test system.
Click to expand...
Even a 3700+ would be hard pushed to bottleneck an X1950Pro though. I think anyone with a 3200+ or higher would be laughing, especially if they overclock.
 
Ulfhedjinn said:
Even a 3700+ would be hard pushed to bottleneck an X1950Pro though. I think anyone with a 3200+ or higher would be laughing, especially if they overclock.
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i wasnt specifically on about bottlenecking the gpu, its more the fact these benchmarks are now done with Conroes and amd x2 Cpu's instead of the older northwood p4's or A64's
 
CPU BOTTLENECKING, it's everywhere, I know what it means, but what does it REALLY mean beyond saying 'cpu limited' etc

Ok say the CPU isn't quite fast enough, say it was a p4 @ 2.8GHZ, so would your MAX FPS be slightly lower? would the GPU maintain the arbitary lower FPS figure regardless?
So say its max FPS in a game was 80, where In a non-CPU-limited system it would get 100.
Does it matter if the FPS never went much below 50 cos then the game is still nicely playable right? Or does it not quite work like that? i.e. even CPU bottle-necked, the GPU will slug-through and maintain PLAYABLE frames.
It's hard to explain, or maybe i'm going crazy cos i'm meant to be writing an essay on the kidney lol

I myself am planning to buy the HIS 512mb card, tbh if it gave me smoother play in great games like farcry, f.e.a.r, and HL2 then that would suit me fine.
 
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