|
Connect3D Radeon X1900 GT 256MB PCI-E Review |
|
Written by Mavke
|
|
Sunday, 28 May 2006 |
PureOverclock comes
with a review on the Connect3D
Radeon X1900 GT 256MB PCIe graphics card. There is no denying it, ATI have done a fantastic job with
their high end Radeon X1900 cards, and the XTX variant arguably holds the
performance crown in a single card onfiguration, besting the GeForce 7900 GTX
for raw power and image quality. Not all is perfect for ATI however, and the problem
highlights itself when you take a look at there entire product range from top to
bottom. Moving to NVIDIA's
line up for a moment, I can easily name a new card for each market sector in a
flat second, the GeForce 7900 GTX for the high end, the GeForce 7900 GT for mid
to high, and the GeForce 7600 GT for the mid range.
 Connect3D
Radeon X1900 GT 256MB PCI-E Review
Try doing that with ATI's lineup right now without suffering a seizure? ATI have the high end covered magnificently with the aforementioned cards, but where to go from there? Well, they have the Radeon X1800 XT I suppose, a now discontinued last generation card comparable to the GeForce 7900 GT in performance. It's still a wonderful card for the money but it's hardly a mainstream part. They also have the Radeon X1800 GTO which performance-wise is comparable to the GeForce 7600 GT but once again it is based on an older, bigger, more expensive SKU which consumes more power, thus creating a hotter running card.
To make things worse there are plenty of NVIDIA AIB partners out there offering overclocked GeForce 7600 GT's, making the Radeon X1800 GTO appear even less attractive than it already does. NVIDIA have brought a full line of products to market, and at key price points while using a less complicated architecture than ATI. ATI have recently released the Radeon X1900 GT, a cut down R580 based GPU of which on paper looks to be a real contender to NVIDIA's GeForce 7900 GT. Once again, this is not exactly a cheap part to produce but that's for ATI to worry about. For us, it's all about the performance!
The Radeon X1900 GT is built using an R580 core with one of the quads disabled. This allows ATI to start using up those unused R580 cores that didn't make the grade for Radeon X1900 XTX boards. What you end up with is a 36 pixel shader, 12 texture unit, 12 ROP part, that when compared against the GeForce 7900 GT appears a little under whelming. The Radeon X1900 GT attempts to make up for this with a much higher core clock of 575MHz about 125MHz faster than a GeForce 7900 GT. Taking everything into consideration, the GeForce 7900 GT looks to have the edge on paper.
NVIDIA's second from top GT cards have a mighty reputation for delivering high end performance for reasonable money, and in terms of price/performance the GeForce 7900 GT is probably NVIDIA's best ever card to date. Because of this formidable reputation, ATI really needed the Radeon X1900 GT to rise to the occasion and show the GeForce 7900 GT a thing or two. It needed to deliver something special to draw the masses away from the GeForce 7900 GT. Unfortunately the Radeon X1900 GT just doesn't have the charisma to do any such thing. The GeForce 7900 GT was clearly faster in must current games.
Disabling one whole quad was the only path ATI could take, but sadly for ATI the Radeon X1900 GT's performance just cannot match the 7900 GT. It's possible some decent gains could be had by bringing a 512MB version of the Radeon X1900 GT card to retail, but it's price would have to stay exactly where the 256MB version is. As it stands now, the Radeon X1900 XT is difficult to recommend in the shadow of the GeForce 7900 GT, but your best bet right now is to grab a Radeon X1800 XT 512MB. It should offer very similar performance to the GeForce 7900 GT.
Related Articles
Sapphire Toxic X1900 XTX 512MB PCI-E Review
Sapphire Radeon X1900 GT 256MB PCI-E Review
PowerColor Radeon X1900 GT 256MB PCI-E Review
|
EVGA 8800GTS PCIe 512MB - Rev 02
