SAPPHIRE RADEON X1950 XT
256MB GDDR3 AVIVO REVIEW

"This is a review of the Sapphire Radeon x1950 XT which uses the R580 Core. The Sapphire Radeon x1950 XT will be compared to the Connect3D Radeon x1950 Pro, Sapphire Radeon x1800 GTO, Sapphire Radeon x800 GTO and the Sapphire Radeon x1650 Pro. We have selected a mixture of benchmarks including 3dmark 2005, 3dmark 2006, ATI Double Cross, PowerVR Fable, Rightmark, Shadermark, Doom III, Prey and Quake 4. The Sapphire Radeon X1950 XT brings forth the dawn of a new technological day where games are no longer chained to the limits of the PC hardware!"

VIDEO CARD	GPU	CORE CLOCK	MEMORY CLOCK	MEMORY TYPE	MEMORY INTERFACE	PIXEL SHADER	DIRECTX
SAPPHIRE X1950 XT	R580	625	1800	256MB GDDR3	256	48	9.0C
CONNECT3D X1950 PRO	RV570	575	1380	256MB GDDR3	256	36	9.0C
SAPPHIRE X1800 GTO	R520	500	1000	256MB GDDR3	256	12	9.0C
SAPPHIRE X800 GTO	R430	400	980	256MB GDDR3	256	12	9.0B
SAPPHIRE X1650 PRO	RV535	600	1400	256MB GDDR3	128	12	9.0C
VIDEO CARD	GPU	CORE CLOCK	MEMORY CLOCK	MEMORY TYPE	MEMORY INTERFACE	PIXELS SHADER	DIRECTX

CORE SPEED (MHZ)

	625
	575 (-8%)
	500 (-20%)
	400 (-36%)
	600 (-4%)

SAPPHIRE RADEON X1950 XT CONNECT3D RADEON X1950 PRO
SAPPHIRE X1800 GTO SAPPHIRE X800 GTO SAPPHIRE X1650 PRO

COMMENT - "The Sapphire Radeon x1950 XT is clocked at 625 Mhz which is 8% or 50 Mhz higher than the Connect3D Radeon x1950 Pro. The Sapphire Radeon x1650 Pro is clocked only 25 Mhz slower than the Sapphire Radeon x1950 XT which is impressive for a budget video card."

MEMORY SPEED (MHZ)

	1800
	1380 (-23%)
	1000 (-44%)
	980 (-46%)
	1400 (-22%)

SAPPHIRE RADEON X1950 XT CONNECT3D RADEON X1950 PRO
SAPPHIRE X1800 GTO SAPPHIRE X800 GTO SAPPHIRE X1650 PRO

COMMENT - "The Sapphire Radeon x1950 XT has a BIG memory speed advantage of 22% or more. How will the Connect3D Radeon x1950 Pro perform when compared to the Sapphire Radeon x1650 Pro."

PIXEL SHADERS

	48
	36 (-25%)
	12 (-75%)
	12 (-75%)
	12 (-75%)

SAPPHIRE RADEON X1950 XT CONNECT3D RADEON X1950 PRO
SAPPHIRE X1800 GTO SAPPHIRE X800 GTO SAPPHIRE X1650 PRO

COMMENT - "Core and memory speeds are important but with Pixel Shader intensive games the more Pixel Shaders a video card has the better. The newer Sapphire Radeon x1950 XT has 48 Pixel Shaders and the Connect3D Radeon x1950 Pro has 36. The other video cards only have 12 Pixel Shaders which will be a disadvantage with some software."

SYSTEM INFORMATION

VIDEO CARD	SAPPHIRE RADEON X1950 XT
	CONNECT3D RADEON X1950 PRO
	SAPPHIRE RADEON X1800 GTO
	SAPPHIRE RADEON X1650 PRO
ATI DRIVER	CATALYST v7.4
PROCESSOR	AMD ATHLON64 3500
MOTHERBOARD	ASROCK 939 DUAL SATA 2
MEMORY	2 x 512MB OCZ GOLD XTC PC3200 DDR
OPERATING SYSTEM	WINDOWS XP SERVICE PACK 2
DIRECTX VERSION	v9.0C

3DMARK 2005

	9274
	8655 (-7%)
	6554 (-29%)
	5006 (-46%)
	5259 (-43%)

RETURN TO PROXYCON

	37
	37
	29 (-22%)
	23 (-38%)
	25 (-32%)

FIREFLY FOREST

	27
	25 (-7%)
	20 (-26%)
	15 (-44%)
	15 (-44%)

CANYON FLIGHT

	53
	46 (-13%)
	33 (-38%)
	23 (-57%)
	26 (-51%)

SAPPHIRE RADEON X1950 XT CONNECT3D RADEON X1950 PRO
SAPPHIRE X1800 GTO SAPPHIRE X800 GTO SAPPHIRE X1650 PRO

COMMENT - "The Sapphire Radeon x1950 XT shows it's power by outperforming the Sapphire Radeon x1800 GTO by 29%, Sapphire Radeon x800 GTO by 46% and the Sapphire Radeon x1650 Pro by 43%. The only slightly negative is that the Sapphire Radeon x1950 XT was only able to beat the Sapphire Radeon x1950 Pro by 7%."