|
Sapphire Radeon X1600 XT 256MB Ultimate Review |
|
Written by Mavke
|
|
Tuesday, 11 July 2006 |
Hardware Secrets shares a review on the Sapphire Radeon X1600 XT Ultimate graphics card. Sapphire released a Radeon X1600 XT model using a silent cooling solution. As you know, the Radeon X1600 XT is the top mid-range chip from ATI. The Ultimate edition is build around the same reference design as the standard ATI Radeon X1600 XT, featuring the default clock speeds but comes with a silent cooling solution. The silent cooling solution from Sapphire uses two all-aluminum big heatsinks with two aluminum heatpipes connecting them together, with a big fan on the back heatsink. A quite impressive silent cooling that will please certainly a lot of enthusiasts of nearly silent PC's.
 Sapphire Radeon X1600 XT 256MB Ultimate Review
The Radeon X1600 XT runs officially at 590MHz and accesses its memory at 1.38GHz. This model from Sapphire runs at the standard clock rates. The Ultimate edition is build around the RV530 XT chip and comes with 256MB of Samsung memory rated at 1.4ns. These memory chips can run up to 1.4GHz. Since this video card accesses the memory at 1.38GHz, there is not that much room if you wish to overclock its memory inside its specifications. Of course, knowing the Samsung memory, there is always some extra margin and performance to be gained while overclocking.
We have looked at two other Radeon X1600 XT cards before, and we didn't like Radeon X1600 XT, as it was too expensive for the performance it delivers. The Radeon X1600 XT could be found between $167 and $200. This special model from Sapphire, however, can be found at $140, just $10 more than the standard Radeon X1600 XT from the same manufacturer. Quite a lot cheaper than models from other companies. ASUS carries a model also with silent cooling, quoted at $161. With this price, it is just a little bit more expensive than GeForce 7600 GS, but it is far better than this NVIDIA chip.
On the other hand, the GeForce 7600 GT provides a far better performance than the GeForce 7600 GS and is faster than the Radeon 1600 XT. The GeForce 7600 GT is more expensive and, generally speaking, is a far better product than the Radeon X1600 XT. But then comes pricing, and this model from Sapphire is quoted exactly between the GeForce 7600 GS and GT. So, if you are thinking on buying a GeForce 7600 GS, consider this model from Sapphire. Altough if you have more than $140 to spend on a video card, go for a GeForce 7600 GT, as it smashes the Radeon X1600 XT.
Related Articles
Sapphire Radeon X1600 XT 256MB Ultimate Review
HIS Radeon X1600 XT IceQ 256MB Turbo Review
Sapphire Radeon X1600 PRO Ultimate Edition Review
|
NiBiTor v4.5a
