X-bit labs

PowerColor X1950 Pro Extreme Graphics Card: Sacred Silence (page 3)

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin , Yaroslav Lyssenko

[ 12/19/2006 | 03:39 PM ]

PCB Design

The graphics card from PowerColor differs from the ordinary Radeon X1950 Pro with its cooling system design only. They are identical otherwise.

Even with a new PCB, the Radeon X1950 Pro is still quite long and may not fit into small system cases. The position of the power connector is questionable. It is placed in the middle and near the edge of the PCB, which is less convenient than the usual position in the top left corner.

The PowerColor X1950 Pro Extreme processor works at 595MHz, although the manufacturer’s website declares 600MHz for all the X1950 Pro series models, including the model that matches ATI’s reference card. We don’t know the reason for this erroneous information.

The graphics card carries eight 256Mb Samsung K4J55323QG-BC14 chips (8Mx32) for a total of 256 megabytes. The X1950 Pro Extreme 512MB model seems to be equipped with Samsung K4J52324QC chips that have a twice larger capacity. The memory frequency of the PowerColor X1950 Pro Extreme is 700 (1400) MHz. This is the rating frequency of 1.4ns chips and is somewhat higher than that of the reference card, which is 690 (1380) MHz.

Traditionally for ATI’s Radeon X1800, X1900 and X1950 series, the card carries a Rage Theater chip that endows it with VIVO functionality – not a very useful feature nowadays, yet a nice additional bonus that the competitor’s graphics cards do not offer. The PowerColor X1950 Pro Extreme has a standard configuration of connectors that a majority of today’s top-end graphics cards have: two DVI-I ports and one universal video output. Since this card supports VIVO, the video output is a 9- rather than 7-pin connector. It is not compatible with the standard S-Video connector and requires an adapter (like the one included with the card) to connect a TV-set to this interface.