![[H]ardOCP](/images/blank.gif){kind=small}
- Date:
- Tuesday , January 24, 2006
- Author:
- Brent Justice
- Editor:
- Kyle Bennett
- Google +1
ATI Radeon X1900 Series Evaluation
ATI’s new series of high-end desktop gaming video cards are poised to provide a more immersive gaming experience. We have many comparisons to show you and some surprising results. If you are a gamer, don’t miss this evaluation.
Models Available:
As we mentioned previously, there are three new gaming models available in the X1900 series, the XT, XTX, and XT CrossFire Edition. There is also an All-In-Wonder part being announced, but since we do not have one to evaluate today, we are just going to cover the gaming video cards that we do have.
ATI’s new lineup is quite simple really; at the very high-end is the Radeon X1900 XTX, which is clocked at 650MHz for the core clock and 1.55GHz for the memory, and it has 512MB of GDDR3. As expected, the price is quite high as ATI’s flagship card has an MSRP of $649, not cheap.
Next in line is the Radeon X1900 XT, which is clocked at 625MHz and 1.45 GHz for the core and memory, respectively. Like its big brother the XTX, it also has 512MB of GDDR3. This card has an MSRP of $549. As you can see, the only difference between the XT and XTX is a 25MHz core clock speed and a 50MHz memory clock speed—and $100. To us, paying an additional $100 for an extra 25MHz core speed and 50MHz memory speed seems a bit much. This reminds us of the “PE” or Platinum Edition of the Radeon X800/X850 series; it also had a small clock speed difference over the “XT” model.
The Radeon X1900 CrossFire Edition is allows you to pair it up with an X1900 XT or XTX for dual card action. The CrossFire edition is based on the Radeon X1900 XT clock speeds (625MHz core and 1.45GHz memory with 512MB of GDDR3). Don’t fret though; you can indeed use this CrossFire card with the X1900 XTX. Remember that with CrossFire, you can use two video cards running at asynchronous clock speeds without one card “downclocking” to match the speed of the slower card. Of course, you can only render as fast as the card is clocked, but dual cards would still be faster than one XTX. The price is set at $599, and it includes the dual link DVI connector to allow high resolutions and refresh rates.
The Cards:
Here are the two cards we received for evaluation from ATI, the Radeon X1900 XTX and Radeon X1900 XT CrossFire Edition. In the first picture, it’s difficult to tell the difference between the two cards. If you look at the front connectors, you can see the dual DVI link for CrossFire. The top card is the X1900 XT CrossFire Edition and the bottom is the X1900 XTX. They look identical to the X1800 XT and are the same shape and size. The dual cooler solution that is on the X1800 XT is also on the X1900 XT. This fan is no joke either folks; when it spins up to full speed, it can create a very annoying whine, which is quite noticeable in a quiet room. We hope that ATI can improve this fan design in future products because the noise it creates is really approaching that of the GeForce FX 5800 Ultra, which is not good.
There really are no noticeable physical changes on the outside compared to the X1800 XT. The heat sink pulls in air through the front and exhausts it towards the rear. We did notice that under full load it is blowing a lot of heat out; without question, this card gets hot running the latest games.
Since the Radeon X1900 XT CrossFire Edition can be ran as a single, separate video card, we used it to represent X1900 XT performance. After all, it is just an X1900 XT with a compositing chip and dual DVI link on board, the clock speeds are the same.