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Sapphire Radeon X1900 XT 256MB PCI-E Review |
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Written by Mavke
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Wednesday, 12 April 2006 |
TweakTown posted a review
on the Sapphire Radeon X1900
XT 256MB PCIe graphics card. For several years now, the name Sapphire has meant
blistering fast ATI graphics. As
a company dedicated to the ATI graphics chipset, Sapphire has made for
themselves a reputation of putting out a product that not only meets the factory
standards, but often exceeds them. No matter how well a manufacturer does in the
past makes no difference when it comes to a new product to test out. Today's
contestant is the Sapphire Radeon X1900 XT graphics card. Using the newer ATI R580 chipset and fitted with
512MB of onboard memory, we're going to put it through its
paces.
 Sapphire Radeon X1900 XT 256MB PCI-E Review
Since we have broken into the Radeon X1900 series, we have the luxury of the new R580 VPU. This brings to the table a second-generation graphics card capable of making full use of DirectX 9.0 with Shader Model 3. It also includes 48 pixel shaders and 8 vertex shaders. For those interested in how this compares to the NVIDIA GeForce 7900 series, they have the same number of vertex shaders and only 24 pixel shaders. There is debate on the ratios used by the two manufacturers, but it all comes down to one thing; high performance. Another nice feature of the R580 VPU is the support for HDR.
After the smoke clears and the dust settles, we see ourselves looking at a very impressive graphics card indeed. Simply put, if a new component can produce a minimum of 10% increase in performance across the spectrum, then it is worthy of consideration as an upgrade option. We see exactly this with the Radeon X1900 XT series graphics card and then some. With second generation support of Shader Model 3.0 and eye candy loving HDR support included in this card, you're looking at something that will not only give awesome performance, but will also allow you to see the latest game titles in all their glory.
As far as pricing is concerned, I’m a little concerned about the XT model. While it runs about $100 cheaper than the Radeon X1800 XT, it is only about $40 less than the vaunted Radeon X1900 XTX model. I would like to see a more aggressive reduction in price between the two Radeon X1900 models. But then, I can see saving the few dollars and simply overclocking the XT to XTX speeds with relative ease. Oh, sorry, the price? About $450-ish is what you can expect to lay out for one of these things. Bottom line, if you've been looking for a graphics card that falls squarely into the high-end arena, you will find several choices.
If you're looking for a card that kicks ass and is still cheaper than the top-end product on the market, but still manages to give you all the capabilities of the big brother, then let me introduce you to this Sapphire Radeon X1900 XT. With performance that is simply amazing and support for all the latest and greatest rendering techniques being used now, you certainly won’t be sorry when buying this little gem. It is loud, but it is strong.
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