Last minute questions x1950

[Spitfir3]

Hey all,

Okay so now ive got enough cash to buy the Sapphire AGP x1950 pro 512mb card im just wanted to ask a few q's before I buy it.

1. Worth it? Ive got a 6800 nu atm, works fine in XP but now Vista's come along - games run like crud. Also with higher (widescreen) resolutions are more demanding.

2. Better AGP card incoming? Seen threads of other nvidia cards coming soon, better or worse? Im on a rather tight budget atm - but would it be future proof?

3. PSU? Mine's unmarked and came with my Pentium 4 1.9 ghz, Geforce MX 4 or something.... my 6800's fine with it atm - upgraded lots and its okay. Will it implode as soon as I plug this x1950 in tho?

Cheers.

 

[masslac]

1950 PRO is well worth buying. You'll see a substantial improvement over the 6800.

PSU should be OK, as it's not a greedy card. It'll help if you could tell me how many Amps the unit can handle at 12V, though. This info will be on the sticker on the side.

 

[Spitfir3]

okay good,

oh and also, CPU bottlenecking? This be a prob? Tho, i could just O/C my CPU.

 

[masslac]

3200+ will be OK. O/C it anyway tbh. Dual core would do you a world of good tho.

 

[honestjohn]

Hey all,

Okay so now ive got enough cash to buy the Sapphire AGP x1950 pro 512mb card im just wanted to ask a few q's before I buy it.

1. Worth it? Ive got a 6800 nu atm, works fine in XP but now Vista's come along - games run like crud. Also with higher (widescreen) resolutions are more demanding.

2. Better AGP card incoming? Seen threads of other nvidia cards coming soon, better or worse? Im on a rather tight budget atm - but would it be future proof?

3. PSU? Mine's unmarked and came with my Pentium 4 1.9 ghz, Geforce MX 4 or something.... my 6800's fine with it atm - upgraded lots and its okay. Will it implode as soon as I plug this x1950 in tho?

Cheers.

The Sapphire is an excellent card, and you should definitely see the difference. I had one for 3 months and it worked great. Don't be shocked however if you do need a new power supply. It may not be a "greedy" card but it does require a quality PSU with a stable +12v rail with sufficient amperage. Good luck to you.

Also, I wouldn't bother waiting for a different card. The (Sapphire) X1950 Pro is going to be the best bang for your buck AGP card for quite some time. Gecube has an AGP X1950XT coming, and it's an unknow quantity at the moment. I read a few user reviews of the PCI-E version of the card here on OverclockersUK and two of the users were having problems with the TEC cooler. One replaced it with a Accelero X2 and another says he has to periodically tighten the heatsink because of the shoddy fit. Was going to link you, but Overclockers does not list the card on it's site anymore. As far as the 2 new Nvidia Cards from XFX go (7900GS,7950GT), they are both 256MBs and the performance of the 7950GT will probably be better than the X1950 Pro, but not by much.

 

[dazman]

Just got the Gecube 1950XT 256Mb AGP on friday from a competitor for £150 after using the Sapphire 1950 Pro 512MB for a couple of weeks. Having overheating problems though. At first installed the test went to over 110C before I could shut it down. Took off the heatsink and put some Artic Silver 5 on GPU and it helped some but GPU temp still goes up quite high, over 92 C and the env temp goes to 48C then bombs out after a few minutes on Tray Tools 3d renderer. This is with the fans on 100% constant. Have had a load of problems using the 1950 series AGP. Was thinking it was PSU so now am using two PSU's to see if that is the problem. The Hiper Type R 580 powering the motherboad and peripherals and a Colors 600W powering just the graphics card. Still having problems with temp after doing this but none of the other crashes I was having before I started using 2 PSU's. The Hiper has two 12v rails 18amp to the motherboard and 20amp to the periphs. The Colors has one rail but 30 Amps to the periphs. Gonna try lapping the heatsink and figure a way to put cool the VRM mounted at the back of the board under a copper coloured backplate which has a pad on it. Early adaption is sure a biatch!

When I can run a bench I getin the 5400's for 3Dmark 06 @ stock GPU which is about 650 points higher than the Sapphire at stock. I was hoping for a bit more with an extra 12 pipes and an extra 68 Mhz Gpu. I'll keep you posted on what happens.

Using a C2D e6300, Asrock 775i65G.

Daz

 

[Brwmogazos]

Just got the Gecube 1950XT 256Mb AGP on friday from a competitor for £150 after using the Sapphire 1950 Pro 512MB for a couple of weeks. Having overheating problems though. At first installed the test went to over 110C before I could shut it down. Took off the heatsink and put some Artic Silver 5 on GPU and it helped some but GPU temp still goes up quite high, over 92 C and the env temp goes to 48C then bombs out after a few minutes on Tray Tools 3d renderer. This is with the fans on 100% constant. Have had a load of problems using the 1950 series AGP. Was thinking it was PSU so now am using two PSU's to see if that is the problem. The Hiper Type R 580 powering the motherboad and peripherals and a Colors 600W powering just the graphics card. Still having problems with temp after doing this but none of the other crashes I was having before I started using 2 PSU's. The Hiper has two 12v rails 18amp to the motherboard and 20amp to the periphs. The Colors has one rail but 30 Amps to the periphs. Gonna try lapping the heatsink and figure a way to put cool the VRM mounted at the back of the board under a copper coloured backplate which has a pad on it. Early adaption is sure a biatch!

When I can run a bench I getin the 5400's for 3Dmark 06 @ stock GPU which is about 650 points higher than the Sapphire at stock. I was hoping for a bit more with an extra 12 pipes and an extra 68 Mhz Gpu. I'll keep you posted on what happens.

Using a C2D e6300, Asrock 775i65G.

Daz

Ouch buddy

Did you buy the x1950XT 256mb agp with the TEC cooling?

cos i am about to buy the same card but i have heard from many guys here that they are having many problems with ge cube cards.

since the card is using TEC how on earth is it overheating ? perhaps the heatsink doesnt cool down properly the hot side of the TEC?


baaah...i know that i am taking a risk buying the ge cube and i may not but its the only XT available and its at the same price range as the sapphire 1950pro 512mb here in greece

 

[dazman]

Ya it is the TEC version but bios has max at 110C and it cant really do that. It may be because it will only go to the 3d settings when fullscreen 3d is being used and the Tray Tools renderer does windowed 3d. It is not the cooling solution because it appears to be very efficient. It cools down from 92 C to 38 C in 5 secs, it is just that it draws so many amps it gets very hot!

Here is the Tray Tool Bios dump:

Display adapter Radeon X1950 Series AGP (0x7244)
Core Name R580
SubVendor GeCube\GeXCube\GIGACUBE (18BC)
SubDevice 3172
BUS 1
Device 0
Function 0
Base Address 0 D0000008
Base Address 1 0000A801
Base Address 2 FF0F0000
Base Address 3 00000000

Bus Type AGP
Current AGP Speed 8x
SMARTGART Installed No

Driver Version 07.2
Release Version 8.342-070202a1-041238C-ATI
QuadBuffer Stereo Support No
Catalyst Registry Path
System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Video\{20FC3C6C-C620-49E1-B481-73AE28F0873E}\0000

______________________________
Clock Information
BIOS VPU 500.00
Current VPU 648.00
BIOS MEM 594.00
Current MEM 702.00

______________________________
Overdrive
Supported Yes
API Version 3
Overdrive Power Caps
Power States 3
1 - GPU:499.50 Memory:594.00 T Max:110°C - 2D , GPU Vid:1.1000v
2 - GPU:398.25 Memory:594.00 T Max:120°C - 2D , GPU Vid:1.1000v
3 - GPU:648.00 Memory:702.00 T Max:110°C - 3D , GPU Vid:1.4500v
Current Settings
Full Screen 3D Only Yes
VPU Recovery Active No
Thermal Protection Active Yes
GPU and Memory clocks shared No
For 3D Only fixed Yes

______________________________
Radeon PCI configuration space
00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 0A 0B 0C 0D 0E 0F
00 02 10 44 72 07 00 B0 02 00 00 00 03 08 FF 80 00
10 08 00 00 D0 01 A8 00 00 00 00 0F FF 00 00 00 00
20 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 BC 18 72 31
30 00 00 0C FF 50 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 01 08 00
40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 BC 18 72 31
50 01 58 02 06 00 00 00 00 02 80 30 00 1B 02 00 FF
60 02 43 00 1F 01 0D 00 00 00 00 01 11 00 00 00 00
70 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
80 05 00 80 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
90 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
A0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
B0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
C0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
D0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
E0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
F0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

Hardware Information ASIC (Software) Method
Family 60
Emulated Revision 28
Gfx Engine ID 3
VRam Bit Width 256
Installed memory 256

Hardware Information Direct hardware access
Installed memory 256 Mb
Memory Type DDR3
Memory Width 256 bit
Tmu 16

______________________________
Radeon Registers
RADEON_BIOS_0_SCRATCH 00000002
RADEON_BIOS_1_SCRATCH 0100C000
GB_TILE_CONFIG 0141001F
HWDREG_00000000 210017EC
HWDREG_00000001 00000020
HWDREG_00000002 00000000
HWDREG_00000003 0000000D
HWDREG_00000004 24001368
HWDREG_00000005 00000001
HWDREG_00000006 00000000
HWDREG_00000007 0000000D
HWDREG_00000008 00000001
HWDREG_00000009 00000000
HWDREG_0000000A 00010017
HWDREG_0000000B 100FAC1F
HWDREG_0000000C 44221100
HWDREG_0000000D 000730F1
HWDREG_0000000E 00000000
HWDREG_0000000F 0F3FF01A
HWDREG_00000010 0F3FF01A
HWDREG_00000011 0F3FF01A
HWDREG_00000012 0F3FF50A
HWDREG_00000013 0F3FF01A
HWDREG_00000014 0F3FF01F
HWDREG_00000015 000000CA
HWDREG_00000016 000001CA
HWDREG_00000017 0000018A
HWDREG_00000018 0000010A
HWDREG_00000019 0000014A
HWDREG_0000001A 0000060A
HWDREG_0000001B 0000040A
HWDREG_0000001C 0000001A
HWDREG_0000001D 00000012
HWDREG_0000001E 00000017
HWDREG_0000001F 00008028
HWDREG_00000020 00000000

______________________________
Video BIOS Information
Version 009.012.005.002
Part Number 133-A999B1A-100
Date 2007/02/09 10:55
Vram Type DDR3

______________________________
Controller Configurations
Controller 0
Active Connections:
-Monitor (CRT1) (0) 1680x1050x60
Controller 1
Active Connections:
No Active Connections

______________________________
Displays supported by adapter
0 (1) Monitor (CRT1)
1 (2) Second Monitor (CRT2)
2 (4) TV
3 (8) Digital Flat Panel
4 (16) Digital Flat Panel
5 (32) Component Video Output

______________________________
EnumDisplays
Display Type 0, Extended Type 1 , Max Resolution 1920x1080
Display Type 0, Extended Type 2 , Max Resolution 1600x1200
Display Type 1, Extended Type 0 , Max Resolution 1024x768
Display Type 3, Extended Type 1 , Max Resolution 2560x1600
Display Type 3, Extended Type 3 , Max Resolution 1680x1050
Display Type 4, Extended Type 0 , Max Resolution 720x480

______________________________
Loaded Displays
Display 1 index 1
Display 2 index 2
TV Index 4