ATI Radeon X1950 Pro: CrossFire Done Right
by Derek Wilson on October 17, 2006 6:22 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory Performance
We make use of the Lighthouse demo for Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. We have
been using this benchmark for quite some time and facilitate automation with
the scripts published at Beyond 3D. This benchmark is fairly close to in game
performance for our system, but midrange users may see a little lower real
world performance when tested with a lower speed processor.
Our settings all used the highest quality level possible including the extra
SM3.0 features. As the advanced shaders and antialiasing are mutually
exclusive under SC:CT, we left AA disabled and focused on the former. We set
anisotropic filtering to 8x for all cards.
For this 3rd person stealth game, ultra high frame rates are not necessary. We
have a good playing experience at 25 fps or higher. There may be the framerate
junkie out there who likes it a little higher, but our recommendation is based
on consistency of experience and ability to play the game without a degraded
experience.
Once again, ATI has informed us that we should expect to see higher X1950 Pro CrossFire numbers in a future driver release. With other CrossFire configurations as a guide, we can easily expect X1950 Pro to nearly double its single card performance and put it on par with the 7950 GX2 and 7900 GT SLI configurations. As for single card performance, we see the trend of X1950 Pro domination continuing. Performance greater than that of the 7900 GS and GT for $200 is hard to argue with.
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Spoelie - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - link
Bit disappointed, was hoping for 600/700 clocks. I'm curious about the temperatures under load and if it would easily overclock to at least those speeds. And what about HDCP? But I guess we'll have to wait for retail cards.If the price is €200 or less I just might be getting one to replace my x800xt :)
Spoelie - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - link
Apparantly, powercolor clocks all its x1950pro cards up to 600/700 and have a 512mb sku. Plus silent cooling :)http://www.powercolor.com/global/main_product_seri...">http://www.powercolor.com/global/main_product_seri...
No word on hdcp and price tho :/
DerekWilson - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - link
HDCP support is optional for vendors, but it seems like ATI is heavily encouraging them to include HDCP on all 1950 PRO cards. Since it's not guaranteed, be sure to check the specifications before you purchase.The power color 1950 PRO is not passively cooled but it includes a low dB fan. It does look like an interesting product, and we intend to acquire one for further investigation.
Goty - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - link
Go read the review over at bit-tech. They've got prices up and the Saphire card they reviewed has HDCP.MadBadger - Tuesday, October 17, 2006 - link
Thanks for the review :beer;An observation:
-the pricefinder at the top of the article seems a bit out of whack. It shows as x1950 512 mb (PCI), but it links to the 1950 pro 256 mb for amazon and to the x1950 xt for the others.