F@H - ATI X1950 Pro

KE1HA

KE1HA

KE1HA

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Helena, Montana
I picked up an ATI x1950 Pro today .. was on sale out our local goodie store = $199.00 USD ~ 110 GBP. Have it on my C2D 6600 clocked at 600/1500. It's aver is just over 7 Min's per step on the first ten, will see if that lasts.

Does anyone have a good feel for what we should be hitting benchmark wise ?
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Hi Rich .. It's the PCI-E Version. I haven't seen the AGP version yet, then agian I dont have a AGP MB either so I'ev not been looking for one.

The last two work units are averaging between 7.4 and 7.5 .. I can live with that.
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Thats a pretty quick frame time. I have 3 1900XTs (256Mb), all overclocked to GPU 668Mhz and Mem 810Mhz and my frame times average 8 mins. :(
The 256 model seems quite a lot slower than the 512 one.
Think Ill go for the 1950Pros for my other Dual Core PCs.
 
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sculptor said:
Thats a pretty quick frame time. I have 3 1900XTs (256Mb), all overclocked to GPU 668Mhz and Mem 810Mhz and my frame times average 8 mins. :(
The 256 modle seems quite a lot slower than the 512 one.
Think Ill go for the 1950Pros for my other Dual Core PCs.
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My X1950XTX is averaging about 5.6 to 5.7. It's it's clocked at 708/1098. With ATITools I cant' get the MEM above 1098. I think It would do better, at least from what I've been reading, If I could get the MEM up higher. Thing is, that board is about 250 USD more that the Pro, so I could by two x1950 Pros for the price of 1x X1950XTX or thereabouts.

I've heard the AGP versions of the 1950 are going to be even cheaper than the PCI-X version, so it makes a good argument to go with an AGP MB and a lower end C2D. Would make a really nice FAH node and reasonably cheap.
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The AGP version here on pre-order is about the same price as I paid for my X1900XT second hand - though I'm assuming that's just to capitalise on the people who are still stuck with AGP and have more money than sense so will pay over the odds.
Once the initial rush is over and a few other brands are available hopefully the price will drop rapidly :)
 
rich99million said:
The AGP version here on pre-order is about the same price as I paid for my X1900XT second hand - though I'm assuming that's just to capitalise on the people who are still stuck with AGP and have more money than sense so will pay over the odds.
Once the initial rush is over and a few other brands are available hopefully the price will drop rapidly :)
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I keep forgetting im in the land of USD v.s. GBP these days. I think your right thought, they will come down, and that will make a good FAH node, performance v.s. price.
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sculptor said:
Not to sure about the price falling quickly even with competition from other brands, after all it will be the fastest AGP card so it may hold a premium price, probably moreso in the UK.
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hmmm you may be right there - we'll just have to wait and see I guess
If they come down to £150 that's probably the point at which I'll give in - though as you say it may take some time for that :o

At 7:30 a frame that's 630 PPD which is pretty good value for money if the prices comes down enough
 
rich99million said:
At 7:30 a frame that's 630 PPD which is pretty good value for money if the prices comes down enough
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Did some Calculations this weekend. A Low end AMD x2 with 2x PCI-E slots running 2x 1950 Pros's will be approximately 700 USD and produce 1200 - 1300 PPD.
 
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KE1HA said:
Did some Calculations this weekend. A Low end AMD x2 with 2x PCI-E slots running 2x 1950 Pros's will be approximately 700 USD and produce 1200 - 1300 PPD.
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Is it possible to run 2 x X1000 cards and one core (on a dual CPU, C2D, X2) or does each gfx card need its own CPU core?
 
sculptor said:
Is it possible to run 2 x X1000 cards and one core (on a dual CPU, C2D, X2) or does each gfx card need its own CPU core?
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Each GPU essentially needs its own CPU core becasue of the way XP's driver model works. Essentially the CPU sits there continually polling the GPU asking it it's done and needs more data from main memory or disk yet.
 
Mattus said:
So Billy, do we know if this is something which will be sorted in Vista so CPUs and GPUs could fold at the same time?
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Beats me. :confused: :o

I know that Vista brings a new driver model called WDDM, but I don't know how it will effect FAH's usage. It's mostly due to my ignorance. Perhaps I'd immerse myself in the available information if I could afford an X1900. :p

I'd imagine that moving to vista will cause some problems becasue the GUI elements are hardware accelerated. This means that the CPU will not be at idle when in desktop mode. That will free up CPU cycles but will cost GPU time.

EDIT: According to a quick scan of the Wikipedia entry for WDDM, Microsoft has talked about how it was planning a major change to WDDM to allow for better scheduling of tasks (multitasking) on GPUs. WDDM 1.0, which will ship with Vista) only allows rudimentary task scheduling. The upcoming WDDM 2.0, on which Microsoft has not put an introduction date, will require a new generation of GPUs.
 
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BillytheImpaler said:
The upcoming WDDM 2.0, on which Microsoft has not put an introduction date, will require a new generation of GPUs.
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That's a surprise. It's not finished, they don't even know when it's going to be released, but it will require new hardware. Ridiculous.
 
BillytheImpaler said:
Each GPU essentially needs its own CPU core becasue of the way XP's driver model works. Essentially the CPU sits there continually polling the GPU asking it it's done and needs more data from main memory or disk yet.
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So if I could afford it and wanted to build it, the highest PPD machine would be a system built on the following

QX6700 CPU
nForce 680 Motherboard
2 x X1950 XT-X Gfx Cards

Running 2 GPU clients and 1 SMP client (or 2 single CPU clients if there is a problem with Linux and the GPU client)

Obviously it would need 4Gb of memory and a 1000w PSU.

But dosent the new MacPro have 4 PCIX slots.
 
The Mac Pro does have 4 PCI-e slots. Two are 16x and two are 8x wired (16x physical). The MP has currently two dual core CPUs. When quad cores hit mass production we'll see dual quad cores. It already has a 1000W PSU.

The GPU client is Windows-only so you'd have to run XP.

The MP is not your only option if you're looking for 4 PCI-e 16x physical slots. I've seen enthusiast motherboards with them though they're mostly for server work. I can't recall any particular model off the top of my head.
 
Thanks Billy,
just had a quick tot-up of parts and the system I mentioned would cost £2500 (using WD Raptors, dont know if it would make a difference) and would net approx 2500 points a day on average.
Ive just bought my daughter a Mac Mini, so Ill check out the Apple site for prices on the MP.
 
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