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Sapphire Radeon X1600 XT Ultimate Edition Review |
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Written by Zombie
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Thursday, 08 June 2006 |
Hexus hit us with their review on the Sapphire Radeon X1600 XT Ultimate Edition graphics card. Sapphire is ATI's favourite bedfellow in the UK. Sources indicate that it sells a third of all ATI engineered desktop cards here, and its product lineup, we reckon, is second to none. Sapphire, then, is large enough to invest in designing custom made cooling for its collection of cards. One such card that's received a makeover is the Radeon X1600 XT. Sapphire dubs it as the Ultimate Edition, replete with double sided heatsink and near silent operation. If you've got around £100 to spend on a midrange graphics accelerator today this abbreviated review will be of special interest to you.
 Sapphire Radeon X1600 XT Ultimate Edition Review
Sapphire is launching the ultimate ATI Radeon X1600 card, then? Pertinent points include support for Shader Model 3.0, a RingBus memory controller, and Avivo video processing technology. This RV530 core is based on an advanced 90nm process. The front mounted heatsink connects to the GPU and two heatpipes help even out the heat dispersal by ferrying a portion to the back of the card. Save for the custom heatsink on this model, the PCB is the same as the company's regular Radeon X1600 XT card, and it runs at the same clocks of 587MHz core and 1386MHz memory. The card is equipped with 256MB of GDDR3 memory.
Sapphire's launching of another Radeon X1600 SKU isn't just a further attempt to fill the company coffers, and rather than simply bump up clock speeds with its Ultimate Edition, Sapphire has added value by engineering a near silent card that will play most modern games with acceptable framerates at the sweetspot LCD resolution of 1280x1024. You pay for the privilege of individual design, however, as the Ultimate Edition commands a £15-20 price premium above the regular version which, other than the cooling employed, is the same card underneath. The bundle is very impressive for a midrange part.
The question you have to ask yourself is whether a reduction is noise, afforded by the Ultimate Edition, is worth the extra £20 outlay. It's a shame that Sapphire has not been able to engineer a completely passively cooled card. Had that been the case, we'd be inclined to look upon it even more favourably. Furthermore, its lack of VIVO also precludes it from being strongly recommended as ideal. As it stands though, the Sapphire Radeon X1600 XT Ultimate Edition is a decent enough SKU with a distinctive selling point.
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