Sapphire X1950 GT

[W1zzard]

[page=Introduction & Specifications]
Introduction

The Sapphire X1950 GT is directly based on the Radeon X1900 GT Series. Like the X1950 Pro and X1900 GT it uses AMD's RV570 GPU, which is produced in a 80 nm process with 330M transistors.

Here's how the specs of these three cards compare:

<table border="1" class="resulttable" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="3">
<tr>
<th></th>
<td>X1900 GT</td>
<td>X1950 GT </td>
<td>X1950 Pro </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Pixel Shaders</th>
<td align="right">36</td>
<td align="right">36</td>
<td align="right">36</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Vertex Pipes</th>
<td align="right">8</td>
<td align="right">8</td>
<td align="right">8</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>ROPs</th>
<td align="right">12</td>
<td align="right">12</td>
<td align="right">12</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>GPU</th>
<td align="right">RV570</td>
<td align="right">RV570</td>
<td align="right">RV570</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Size</th>
<td align="right">256 MB </td>
<td align="right">256 MB </td>
<td align="right">512 MB </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Bus Width </th>
<td align="right">256 bit </td>
<td align="right">256 bit</td>
<td align="right">256 bit</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Core Clock</th>
<td align="right">575 MHz</td>
<td align="right">500 MHz </td>
<td align="right">575 MHz</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Memory Clock</th>
<td align="right">600 MHz</td>
<td align="right">600 MHz </td>
<td align="right">700 MHz</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>Price</th>
<td align="right">$165</td>
<td align="right">$140</td>
<td align="right">$200</td>
</tr>
</table>

As you can see the only change compared to the X1900 GT is that the core clock is lower. So the X1900 GT is faster than the X1950 GT, yet the X1950 has the "faster" marketing name, but the lower price.

The X1950 Pro's major advantage is that it has 512 MB of GDDR3 memory, which costs you about $50 extra. As we will see in the benchmarks there is a clear difference between 256 MB and 512 MB. However, $50 in this price segment are like 30%-40% of the card's price. For many users the performance increase does not justify the increased cost.

This card is mainly targeted at budget aware users, who want to play today's games without compromising too much image quality.

Complete Specifications

Features

36 pixel shader processors
8 vertex shader processors
Up to 256-bit 8 channel GDDR3 memory interface
Native PCI Express® x16 bus interface
Plug-and-play (native) CrossFire™


Shader Technology

Support for Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 programmable vertex and pixel shaders in hardware.
Shader Model 3.0 vertex and pixel shader support:
Full speed 32-bit floating point processing
High dynamic range rendering with floating point blending and anti-aliasing support
High performance dynamic branching and flow control
Complete feature set also supported in OpenGL® 2.0


Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering

2x/4x/6x Anti-Aliasing modes:
Sparse multi-sample algorithm with gamma correction, programmable sample patterns, and centroid sampling
New Adaptive Anti-Aliasing mode
Temporal Anti-Aliasing
Lossless Color Compression (up to 6:1) at all resolutions, up to and including widescreen HDTV
2x/4x/8x/16x Anisotropic Filtering modes:
Up to 128-tap texture filtering
Adaptive algorithm with performance and quality options
Improved rendering with higher subpixel precision and LOD computation levels
New rotational high quality rendering mode


3Dc+™ — Advanced Texture Compression

High quality 4:1 compression for normal maps and luminance maps
Works with any single-channel or two-channel data format


Ring Bus Memory Controller

Programmable arbitration logic maximizes memory efficiency, software upgradeable
New fully associative texture, color, and Z cache design
Hierarchical Z-Buffer with Early Z Test
Lossless Z-Buffer Compression (up to 48:1)
Fast Z-Buffer Clear
Z Cache optimized for real-time shadow rendering
Optimized for performance at high display resolutions, up to and including widescreen HDTV


Avivo™ Video and Display Engine

New advanced video capabilities, including high fidelity gamma, color correction and scaling
Dual independent display controllers that support true 30 bits per pixel throughout the display pipe
Full symmetry on both heads
Each display interface supports display resolutions beyond 2560x1600
Advanced DVI capabilities, including 10-bit, 16-bit HDR output
YPrPb component output for direct drive of HDTV displays
Seamless integration of pixel shaders with video in real time
MPEG1/2/4 decode and encode acceleration:
DXVA support
Hardware motion compensation, iDCT, DCT and color space conversion
All-format DTV/HDTV decoding
Adaptive per-pixel de-interlacing and frame rate conversion (temporal filtering)


CrossFire™

Multi-GPU technology
Four modes of operation:
Alternate frame rendering for maximum performance
Supertiling for optimal load-balancing
Scissoring for compatibility
Super AA for maximum image quality
Native CrossFire support simplifies setup by requiring no dedicated slave or master hardware
24-bit CrossFire connection enables high resolutions and refresh rates
Supports the broadest range of platforms for both Intel and AMD


[page=Packaging & Contents]
Packaging
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/package1_small.jpg (http://www1.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/package1.jpg)
The box styling is typical Sapphire, a white box with some kind of alien on it... oh it's a robot this time. The little window in the package lets you get a good look at the card's pretty blue cooler.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/package2_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/package2.jpg)
On the back you get to know the features of the X1950 GT in several languages.

Contents
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/contents_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/contents.jpg)
Inside the box you will find:

Sapphire X1950 GT graphics card
Software and Documentation bundle
S-Video Adapter and cable
Component output cable
2x DVI adapter
PCI-E power adapter
Internal CrossFire connector


The package has everything you need to get going. The included CrossFire connector will be useful when you decide to link multiple RV570 cards together - any X1950 Pro, X1900 GT Rev. 2, X1950 GT can be used in CrossFire.

[page=The Card]
The Card
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/card1_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/card1.jpg)
Sapphire uses their well established blue PCB color for these cards. The cooler is also customized by Sapphire. Instead of the red transparent ATI cooler we know from the X1900 GT Rev. 2, a blue cooler can be found on the card which communicates Sapphire's corporate identity much better.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/card2_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/card2.jpg)
The back of the card is fairly standard, all hot components are on the other side.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/outputs_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/outputs.jpg)
Like you would expect from a high-end video card, two Dual-Link DVI outputs are on the card. So you can attach displays running higher than 1600x1200. If you have an older analog display, you can of course use the included DVI adapters on both ports.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/crossfire_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/crossfire.jpg)
As mentioned before, the X1950 GT can be paired with other RV570 GPUs to run in CrossFire which improves performance and/or image quality. With future ATI Catalyst versions it will also be possible to run Quad-CrossFire. The internal connector cable is included with the accessories.

[page=A Closer Look]
A Closer Look
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/cooler_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/cooler.jpg)
The cooler is a one-slot cooling solution. Its base plate is fairly simple and uses thermal pads to achieve contact with the memory. Even though the pads are rather thick, there is quite some memory overclocking potential left in this card as you will find out later.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/card3_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/card3.jpg)
With the cooler removed you can see that the card follows today's standard layout: eight memory chips spread around the GPU in the center.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/power_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/power.jpg)
Since the X1950 GT does draw quite some power, an additional PCI-E power connector is required for operation of the card.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/memory_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/memory.jpg)
256 Megabytes of Samsung 1.2 ns GDDR3 memory are used on this card. GDDR4 would be much too expensive for this price range and does not offer that many benefits over GDDR3.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/gpu_small.jpg (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/gpu.jpg)
The GPU used is the RV570 Revision A12. I wonder what the little X stands for on the GPU.

[page=Test Setup]
Test System
<table border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" class="ramtable" width="450">
<tr align="center">
<th colspan="2" scope="row" style="font-size:larger;text-align:center">Test System</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th width="150" scope="row">CPU:</th>
<td scope="row">AMD Athlon64 FX-60 @ 2900 MHz<br />(Toledo, 2x 1024 KB Cache)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Motherboard:</th>
<td scope="row">Sapphire PC-A9RD580<br />ATI Radeon XPRESS 3200</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Memory:</th>
<td scope="row">2x 1024MB G.Skill F1-4000BIU2-2GBHV CL3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Harddisk:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">WD Raptor 360GD 36 GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Power Supply:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">OCZ GameXStream 700W</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Software:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">Windows XP SP2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Drivers:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">NVIDIA: 91.47<br />ATI: Catalyst 7.1</td>
</tr>
</table>


All video card results were obtained on this exact system with the exact same configuration.
All games were set to their highest quality setting


The following resolutions were tested per benchmark:


1024 x 768, No Anti-aliasing, No anisotropic filtering. This is a standard resolution without demanding display settings.
1280 x 1024, 2x Anti-aliasing, 8x anisotropic filtering. Common resolution for most gamer flatscreens today. A bit of eye candy turned on in the drivers.
1600 x 1200, 4x Anti-aliasing, 16x anisotropic filter. Highest non-widescreen resolution available to a wide range of users. Very good looking driver graphics settings.
2048 x 1536, 4x Anti-aliasing, 16x anisotropic filter. Highest non-widescreen resolution available to any consumer video card. Very good looking driver graphics settings.


The "OC" score is the card running at the highest possible overclocked settings as determined by the "Overclocking" section of this review. Please note that each single card overclocks differently.

[page=Far Cry]
Far Cry
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/farcry.jpg
Far Cry (http://www.farcry-thegame.com) was released in early 2004 by the new development studio Crytek. It quickly became a massive success because it was one of the first titles to take you in a beautiful 3D outdoor world. Far Cry was one of the most demanding games at its time. Even with today's video cards you can still see big differences in frame rates, especially at the higher resolutions.

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[page=FEAR]
FEAR

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The first person shooter F.E.A.R (htttp://www.whatisfear.com), developed by Monolith Game Studios, was released in Fall 2005 and has a great 3D engine that uses a large number of shading and shadow effects to accurately model the game world. In addition to that it features a realistic physics engine that lets you interact with many objects in the game world. The game was voted game of the year by several publications.

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[page=Prey]
Prey
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/prey.jpg
Prey (http://www.prey.com) is based on a highly modified 3D engine made by id Software. This first person shooter brought a completely new way of gaming to the genre. In many levels you find yourself walking upside down or on the walls. This adds a completely new aspect to the gaming experience in this genre.

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[page=Quake 4]
Quake 4
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/quake4.jpg
The Quake titles are among the most successful first person games. Developed by id Software, the famous game studio that brought you DOOM, you find yourself in a scifi world that is full of aliens and shocking effects. The main focus of the game is the single player story line. Quake 4 (http://www.quake4game.com) puts you on the home planet of the Strogg. In a number of missions you and your fellow marines will encounter all sorts of enemies, including some really huge aliens.

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[page=X3]
X3
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/x3.jpg
X3 (http://www.egosoft.com) is a space combat/trading simulation game with beautiful graphics. The game world is gigantic and there is always something new to see. Even though the user interface is not that great, the title has found many fans that love to explore the rich content. When you are flying in your spaceship you are sometimes tempted to just stop the action to take a look at the highly detailed ships and planets.

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[page=3DMark03]
3DMark03
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/3dmark03.jpg
Futuremark Corporation (http://www.futuremark.com) is the number one player in the world of synthetic benchmarking. The 3DMark series is the most popular test suite for video card testing and is used by gamers, overclockers and manufacturers alike to determine how fast their hardware is. Even though it is a few years old, 3DMark03 can easily stress today's video cards.

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[page=3DMark05]
3DMark05
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/3dmark05.jpg
Another benchmark from Futuremark (http://www.futuremark.com) is 3DMark05 which comes with four completely new game tests that make massive use of shaders and lighting effects. 3DMark05 is a great test for modern video card architectures - in some tests you are often close to the 30 fps mark, below which your games will feel sluggish.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/3dmark05_1024_768.gif

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[page=Power consumption]
Power consumption
Cooling modern video cards is becoming more and more difficult, especially when users are asking for quiet cooling solutions. That's why the engineers are now paying much more attention to power consumption of new video card designs.

<table border="1" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" class="ramtable" width="450">
<tr align="center">
<th colspan="2" scope="row" style="font-size:larger;text-align:center">Test System</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<th width="150" scope="row">CPU:</th>
<td scope="row">AMD Athlon64 FX-60 @ 2900 MHz<br />(Toledo, 2x 1024 KB Cache)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Motherboard:</th>
<td scope="row">Sapphire PC-A9RD580<br />ATI Radeon XPRESS 3200</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th scope="row">Memory:</th>
<td scope="row">2x 1024MB G.Skill F1-4000BIU2-2GBHV CL3</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Harddisk:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">WD Raptor 360GD 36 GB</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Power Supply:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">OCZ GameXStream 700W</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Software:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">Windows XP SP2</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th valign="top" scope="row">Drivers:</th>
<td valign="top" scope="row">NVIDIA: 91.47<br />ATI: Catalyst 7.1</td>
</tr>
</table>

In order to characterize a video card's power consumption, the whole system's mains power draw was measured. This means that these numbers include CPU, Memory, HDD, Video card and PSU inefficiency.

The three result values are as following:

Idle: Windows sitting at the desktop (1024x768 32-bit) all windows closed, drivers installed.
Average: 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. This results in the highest power consumption. Average of all readings (two per second) while the test was rendering (no title screen).
Peak: 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. This results in the highest power consumption. Highest single reading


http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/power_idle.gif

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http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/power_peak.gif

The power consumption is exactly what is to be expected from a downclocked X1900 GT. Requirements are fairly low, so most power supplies will have no problems supplying enough juice to your card.

[page=Overclocking]
Overclocking
Previous versions of ATITool did not work right on RV570 cards, that's why many reviewers complained about the impossible memory overclocking. Since ATITool 0.27 Beta 1 you can overclock all RV570 cards using the "Use Driver Level Overclocking" switch in settings.

We used ATITool to automatically find the maximum core and memory clocks of our card.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/maxclock.jpg

In the end the card runs completely stable at 608 MHz Core (22 % overclock) and 743 MHz Memory (24 % overclock).

This is a pretty nice overclock which brings the card much closer to the X1900 GT and the X1950 Pro. Our overclocked card pretty easily beats the X1900 GT, but the X1950 Pro is still out of reach because of its 512 MB GDDR3 advantage.

[page=Value & Conclusion]
Value and Conclusion
<table width="100%" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" id="result">
<tr><th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/dollar.gif</th>
<td>
Sapphire's X1950 GT costs about $145, at this time Newegg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102034) is running a $25 mail-in-rebate promotion which brings the price down to $120 - a no brainer.</td>
</tr><tr>
<th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/thumbup.gif</th>
<td>
Great price / performance
Supports CrossFire
Nice overclocking potential
Solid performance
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<th>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/thumbdown.gif</th>
<td>
Slower than X1900 GT
May be obsolete soon by next-gen ATI products
</td></tr>
<tr><th>9.0</th>
<td>When I first installed the Sapphire X1950 GT I was surprised by its super loud annoying fan noise. After talking to Sapphire about this they sent me a new BIOS (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/3E190ASA.bin). With this the card is a lot quieter and much more fun to use.<br />
Its performance is of course not comparable to super high-end cards, but for a price of $140 it offers one of the best price/performance ratios in the midrange segment. If you previously thought about getting an X1600, the X1950 GT is definitely the better deal. The same applies to similar offerings from NVIDIA.<br />
With about 20% overclocking headroom, this card has some extra potential left in it if you are willing to go the overclocking route. Then its performance can surpass the more expensive X1900 GT and get close to the X1950 Pro. However, with only 256 MB of video memory it may be too slow if you are looking at high-resolutions of 1280x1024 and beyond.
</td></tr>
<tr><th></th><td>http://www.techpowerup.com/images/recommended.gif</td></tr>
</table>

[Zubasa]

Did I read wrong or there is a mistake...
X1900GT use RV570?:confused:
And the standard X1950Pro is 256MB DDR3...

[Eric_Cartman]

yeah, i could have sworn the x1900gt was based on the r580

The GPU used is the RV570 Revision A12. I wonder what the little X stands for on the GPU.

my guess would be they use that to mark the rv570 cores that didn't pass the tests at x1950pro specs

just a guess though

[W1zzard]

original x1900 gt uses r580 .. x1900 gt rev. 2 uses rv570

[Ketxxx]

As nice as the reviews are w1z, isnt it about time those game tests are updated? 3dmark is, afterall, just a synthetic test.

[zwawy]

very nice reviews..thanks

[Zalmann]

Great review, will help clear up some of the common misconceptions that some people here have about the differences between the three.

[W1zzard]

As nice as the reviews are w1z, isnt it about time those game tests are updated? 3dmark is, afterall, just a synthetic test.

which apps would you suggest we use? they need to have an integrated benchmark feature .. only thing i can think of right now is suprememe commander which is horribly inaccurate.

3dmark06 == 3dmark05 + cpu test .. so not really any difference compared to 3dmark05

[Ketxxx]

Something thats extremely demanding in the real world would be nice, say the likes of Oblivion, its in-game FPS counter or fraps could be used to obtain average framerates in places that really matter, like the heavily forested areas and the FPS killing active Oblivion gate areas dotted around. For shits and giggles FPS in places like the Imperial City and indoor areas like taverns could be taken too just for completeness.

[ZakB]

After talking to Sapphire about this they sent me a new BIOS. With this the card is a lot quieter and much more fun to use.

-Can someone tell me how to change BIOS on this card, is there any tutorial or beginners guide?
-Am I going to lose waranty if I do that?

Thanks for review, it's really great!

[Eric_Cartman]

As nice as the reviews are w1z, isnt it about time those game tests are updated? 3dmark is, afterall, just a synthetic test.

thats why there are game tests in the review too.:nutkick:

[W1zzard]

you cant automate oblivion :/

[GargoyleBG]

are you sure this is the correct bios
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/X1950_GT/images/3E190ASA.bin

it's 96Kb, while saving old bios makes 62Kb file :wtf:

[W1zzard]

yes it's the correct bios i got from sapphire .. i will dump my bios from the card once i'm back from travelling

[lordgestle]

Question. Noticed the VRM component layout is different compared to the X1950 Pro reference. Reason I ask is that I just received a Sapphire x1950 Pro 512MB and they layout matches exactly to the x1950GT. I'm a little dissapointed as I already order the VRM cooler for the Accelero and my guess is that this will no longer work so I just wasted an additional 7 bucks. I guess the bigger question is that is this new revision a better version compared to the previous revision (which required a cooler) for the 1950 pro line or is this just bringing the cost down for those models.
All I know is seeing those big caps on a video card does not give me a warm and fuzzy feeling.
*Edit*
Just noticed it missing the mounting holes for the accelero outside of the 4 around the gpu. This 1950 pro going back.

[Ketxxx]

You dont have to automate oblivion, using its built in FPS counter is good enough to test a card with oblivions more challenging areas like in dense forests. As pretty much all graphics cards struggle in this game, IMO its a good test to see if the card you have been eyeing up to upgrade to is really worth its salt.

[Eric_Cartman]

You dont have to automate oblivion, using its built in FPS counter is good enough to test a card with oblivions more challenging areas like in dense forests. As pretty much all graphics cards struggle in this game, IMO its a good test to see if the card you have been eyeing up to upgrade to is really worth its salt.

no not having an automated test means that the conditions can't be reproduced identically every single time, meaning the tests will be invalid

[Ninkobwi]

Any word on the Sapphire 1950GT 512mb version review? I've searched the internet high and low but cannot find one..

[Ketxxx]

no not having an automated test means that the conditions can't be reproduced identically every single time, meaning the tests will be invalid

No, they wont. all you have to do is pick a dense area, then save the game there and load it up. The save file has all essential information to make it useful. Doesnt matter what system that save file is then used on, it will still load with the player in the EXACT place they were standing. From there a general 360 degree sweep is enough to see a minimum and maximum FPS and to work out an "average"

[Eric_Cartman]

No, they wont. all you have to do is pick a dense area, then save the game there and load it up. The save file has all essential information to make it useful. Doesnt matter what system that save file is then used on, it will still load with the player in the EXACT place they were standing. From there a general 360 degree sweep is enough to see a minimum and maximum FPS and to work out an "average"

no that isn't good enough because the frame rate will vary greatly based simply on how fast you do the 360 sweep

for any framerate test to be valid every single aspect has to be identical on every single run

[suraswami]

W1zzard - What are the temps on that 1950GT card and how does it compare with 1950Pro? Is the fan loud/too loud at full speed? Can you try posting the temps with default cooler and after market cooler like Artic cooler?

[NewbieBuilder]

Oh wow, thank you for the review, I was planning to get this gfx card but I still wasn't quite sure on how it would perform. This cleared up most of the stuff I was unsure about. I'll definitely be getting this then.