X-bit labs

PowerColor X1900 XT Graphics Card Review

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin

[ 05/04/2006 | 02:37 PM ]

ATI Radeon X1900 XT is a very successful solution from the price-to-performance standpoint: it is considerably cheaper than Radeon X1900 XTX but is practically as fast. Today we are going to introduce to you one of the graphics cards based on this chip from PowerColor Company.

Table of contents:

• Package and Accessories
  
• PCB Design
  
• Noise, Overclockability, 2D Quality
  
• Testbed and Methods
  
• Performance in First-Person 3D Shooters
  
• Battlefield 2
  
• The Chronicles of Riddick
  
• Call of Duty 2
  
• Doom 3
  
• Far Cry
  
• F.E.A.R.
  
• Half-Life 2
  
• Half-Life 2: Lost Coast
  
• Project: Snowblind
  
• Quake 4
  
• Serious Sam 2
  
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
  
• Performance in Third-Person 3D Shooters
  
• Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
  
• Performance in Simulators
  
• Pacific Fighters
  
• X3: Reunion
  
• Performance in Strategy Games
  
• Age of Empires 3
  
• Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War
  
• Performance in Semi-Synthetic Benchmarks
  
• Aquamark 3
  
• Performance in Synthetic Benchmarks
  
• Futuremark 3DMark05 build 120
  
• Futuremark 3DMark06 build 120
  
• Conclusion
  

As our readers should well know, the announcement of the Radeon X1900 (R580) graphics processor from ATI Technologies was accompanied with a release of three graphics cards based on it: Radeon X1900 XTX, Radeon X1900 XT and Radeon X1900 XT CrossFire Edition. The latter is a specific and narrowly-scoped product equipped with a frame-sewing Compositing Engine and meant for use as a Master in CrossFire tandems. If you want to learn more about this card, refer to our 2 Fast, 2 Furious: ATI Radeon X1900 XT CrossFire Review.

The Radeon X1900 XTX debuted successfully. It outperformed the GeForce 7800 GTX 512 which had never really taken off and became the highest-performance product among consumer graphics cards. ATI Technologies had taken care to provide the new card in mass quantities, so it was available right after the announcement, even though at a steep price of $649. Well, every flagship product is expensive, and the price of this one was also lowered to $549 a month after the release.

The Radeon X1900 XT in its turn only differed from its elder brother in having somewhat lower frequencies: 625/725 (1450) MHz as opposed to 650/750 (1500) MHz. Such a small difference couldn’t have a big effect on the performance in games as our tests proved (for details see our article called The Fast and Furious: ATI Radeon X1900 XTX Review). In most cases there was a negligible difference between a Radeon X1900 XTX and a Radeon X1900 XT or even none at all, although the latter came at an officially recommended price of $549, i.e. $100 cheaper than the flagship model! Since there was virtually no competition from Nvidia at the time of the announcement, the Radeon X1900 XT had the most appealing price/performance ratio. Today it has got a dangerous rival in the GeForce 7900 GTX which is officially priced at $499.

We’re going to talk about PowerColor’s version of Radeon X1900 XT in this review. Products from this company have never boasted gorgeous accessories, but have usually come at a rather low price, contrary to products from ASUS, for example. Let’s see what PowerColor offers us this time.