Introduction

Without a doubt, ATI’s Radeon X1900 XTX is one of the fastest graphics processors on the market right now. ATI outfits the Radeon X1900 XTX with 48 pixel shaders – that’s twice as many shaders as NVIDIA’s GeForce 7800/7900 series and three times more pixel shading horsepower than their previous high-end graphics offering, the Radeon X1800 XT. But it doesn’t stop there. The Radeon X1900 XTX also runs at 650MHz and is outfitted with 50% more on-chip memory for ATI’s occlusion culling technology known as HyperZ. With more memory for HyperZ onboard, the Radeon X1900 is better positioned to tackle ultra high resolutions such as 2048x1536 or, for 30” LCD users, 2560x1600, particularly once AA is turned on.

All this adds up to a GPU that’s been designed to tackle the pixel shader-heavy DX9 games that are becoming increasingly common today under the most demanding situations: high screen resolutions with AA applied.

Sapphire Blizzard Radeon X1900 XTX

The Sapphire Blizzard and NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GTX

The one real chink in the Radeon X1900 XTX’s armor so to speak however has been its heat and noise. With 384 million transistors onboard running at such high clock speeds, the Radeon X1900 XTX’s R580 graphics core generates quite a bit of heat which must be dissipated by the card’s heatsink/fan cooling unit. It’s here where NVIDIA’s GeForce 7900 GTX has a clear advantage over the X1900 XTX. Whereas both cards rely on dual-slot cooling solutions, the fan used on NVIDIA’s 7900 GTX card runs significantly quieter than ATI’s fan used for the X1900 XTX, particularly once the card is running under intense load and the fan’s RPMs are cranked up to the max. Powering up a Radeon X1900 XTX CrossFire system from a cold boot yields noise levels reminiscent of a jumbo jet throttling up for takeoff as the cards fans have a deep, menacing tone.

Sapphire Blizzard Radeon X1900 XTX and ATI X1900 XTX reference card

Waterblock on the GPU

Before we sound too much like alarmists, we should remind you that the X1900 XTX’s noise output is directly proportional to the board’s temperature. As long as you can keep heat in check, the board’s fan won’t generate a lot of noise. If you can manage to keep the card cool -- either by installing an additional case fan to blow cool air over the board, or some other method -- the X1900 XTX isn’t that much louder than other high-end cards that have come before it, if at all (depending on the card).

Sapphire board and its liquid cooler

Dual DVIs and the rest of the backplate

But what if a Radeon X1900 XTX board manufacturer were to develop a card that ran silently or nearly silent; that would be quite a coup don’t you think? You wouldn’t have to worry about noise levels or keeping the card cool, you could just enjoy the performance of your X1900 XTX board.

This is precisely what Sapphire has set out to do with their Blizzard Radeon X1900 XTX board. In fact, Sapphire even overclocks their X1900 XTX Blizzard card from the factory for even more performance! Let’s see how well Sapphire executes it all…