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Sapphire X1950 Pro AGP & X1950 Pro Ultimate PCIe Review January 19, 2007 Brandon Sandman Bell |
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Summary: Looking for a semi-inexpensive AGP or PCI Express upgrade? If so, today's combo review may be just for you. In one corner we have Sapphire's X1950 Pro AGP. This card is the first X1950 Pro AGP on the market to ship with 512MB of memory, but does the extra RAM really make a difference? In the other corner we have Sapphire's X1950 Pro Ultimate Edition. This card utilizes the PCIe interface and ships from the factory with overclocked memory and Zalman's VF900-Cu copper cooler. But how does it perform in comparison to the stock X1950 Pro card? All those questions and more are answered in today's review!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 18 ) |
Sapphire’s Ultimate line continued to evolve over the years as ATI introduced new GPUs, with Sapphire integrating newer heat pipe units from Zalman and eventually an external fan that operated nearly silently in the 9800 XT Ultimate, although eventually Sapphire had to abandon the heat pipe in favor of the more traditional heatsink/fan unit starting with the X800 line of GPUs. Meanwhile NVIDIA’s board partners began to increasingly add additional features to their cards such as cards that were overclocked from the factory -- while Sapphire hasn’t provided out-of-the-box overclocking with their cards, Sapphire did respond by providing their TRIXX utility, which would overclock the graphics card automatically once loaded; all while remaining under the factory Sapphire warranty.
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Most recently Sapphire has introduced a line of liquid-cooled graphics cards that fall under their Toxic brand. We recently reviewed X1900 XTX and X1950 XTX graphics cards that utilized this unique form of cooling. Sapphire uses a modified version of Thermaltake’s Tide Water liquid cooling unit on these cards, with the added addition of TRIXX for higher clock speeds and performance.
For the Radeon X1950 Pro GPU, Sapphire’s really pulling out all the stops. Not only does Sapphire provide a stock Radeon X1950 Pro card that closely follows ATI’s reference design, Sapphire has also developed another Ultimate card based on the X1950 Pro GPU, their Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro Ultimate, and the Sapphire X1950 Pro AGP, both of which we’re reviewing today. At CES a few weeks ago Sapphire also announced an additional Radeon X1950 Pro SKU that combines two Radeon X1950 Pro GPUs onto one card, the Sapphire X1950 Pro Dual.
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The Sapphire X1950 Pro Dual ships at the standard Radeon X1950 Pro clock speeds, although the board ships with 1GB of RAM (512MB of memory per GPU) so performance is slightly higher than a stock Radeon X1950 Pro CrossFire configuration thanks to the added memory, plus you get the added versatility of only using one PCI Express slot. As a result, the card brings Radeon X1950 Pro CrossFire performance to motherboards with only one PCI Express graphics slot. The card uses a dual-slot cooler however, so physically it takes up a similar amount of space inside your system as two X1950 Pro cards would. Sapphire hopes to ship the X1950 Pro Dual sometime next month, but a price hasn’t been announced.
We’ll be taking a look at two cards that should be much cheaper than the X1950 Pro Dual though, the X1950 Pro Ultimate and the X1950 Pro AGP, which ships with 512MB of memory. Let’s take a look at the Ultimate card first though…
| Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro Ultimate Edition | Page:: ( 2 / 18 ) |
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Until the X1950 Pro Dual debuts, the X1950 Pro Ultimate Edition is the flagship Radeon X1950 Pro card from Sapphire.
At the heart of the card is Zalman’s VF900-Cu VGA cooler. The VF900 is a little slimmer and lighter than the VF700 cooler that has been used previously on Sapphire’s Ultimate and Toxic cards in the past, making it easier to fit inside some cases. Keep in mind however that it’s still a dual-slot cooler; it will definitely eat up the slot directly adjacent to your PCIe graphics slot. To hold the card’s cooler in place, Zalman uses four thumbscrews. These thumbscrews rest on the underside of the card and could potentially get in the way of some motherboards that place massive heatsink/fan units on the North Bridge of the system chipset. Fortunately we tried out a range of ASUS and Gigabyte motherboards, including the latest 975X and P965 boards, as well as the ASUS Crosshair and M2N32-SLI and didn’t run into any issues.
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As the “Cu” implies, Zalman’s VF900-Cu is composed entirely of copper. To further increase the effectiveness of the cooler, Zalman employs two heat pipes which wring their way around the entire upper portion of the cooler. For cooling, Zalman employs a large variable speed fan that can be manually adjusted to run from 1350-2400 RPMs on retail VF900 units via Zalman’s Fanmate fan speed controller. Sapphire doesn’t include the Fanmate controller with their Ultimate card, opting instead to run their board at around 1800 RPMs. With the card’s fan spinning so slow, it produces very little noise while also doing a very good job of keeping the graphics core and memory cool. In operation Sapphire’s X1950 Pro Ultimate not only runs quieter than the stock ATI Radeon X1950 Pro and its cooler, it also runs cooler. We ran back-to-back idle and load testing in 3DMark and noted a difference of over six degrees Celsius at idle in favor of the Sapphire card (36 degrees versus 42) and 14 degrees Celsius under load for the Sapphire Ultimate (45 degrees for the Sapphire versus 59 for the ATI card).
Sapphire also uses a large copper heatsink to cool the board’s VRM circuitry, at the center of the heatsink is a large “S”, giving the heatsink a bit more flair. Sapphire also uses RAMsinks to cool the graphics card’s memory modules.
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Sapphire has made no changes to ATI’s Radeon X1950 Pro reference board design; all the board’s components are placed exactly as they are on the ATI reference board, although obviously one difference that separates Sapphire’s board from the rest of the crowd is their use of a blue PCB, rather than the red PCB used by ATI and the rest of their board partners. Another key difference between the Sapphire X1950 Pro Ultimate and many other X1950 Pro cards is that Sapphire removes the Rage Theater chip necessary for VIVO (video-in/video-out) support. This means that you can’t hook the card up directly to a camcorder or game console for instance. The card however does have a video jack for outputting to an HDTV or SDTV (via S-Video or composite connection).
In terms of clock speeds, Sapphire runs the graphics core on their Radeon X1950 Pro Ultimate at the standard X1950 Pro clock speed of 580MHz. The memory however is overclocked 110MHz, from the default X1950 Pro speed of 690MHz, to 800MHz (1.6GHz effective) on Sapphire’s X1950 Pro Ultimate. This improves memory bandwidth by about 7GB/sec, from 44.2GB/sec on the stock X1950 Pro to 51.2GB/sec on Sapphire’s X1950 Pro Ultimate. As a result, the X1950 Pro Ultimate should run a little faster than your typical stock Radeon X1950 Pro card, Sapphire claims their board is about 5% faster, although obviously this is going to depend on the game you’re testing and the resolution and eye candy settings used. Keep in mind that the board runs its memory overclocked to 1600MHz out-of-the-box, Sapphire’s TRIXX utility is no longer required.
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For connectivity, the board is equipped with two dual-link DVI connectors and supports HDCP. As we mentioned earlier, VIVO isn’t provided, but the card can be hooked up to an HDTV via the component video cable which is included in the card’s packaging. Also inside the box you’ll find two DVI adapters, a PCIe power adapter, CrossFire cable, S-Video cable, composite video cable, driver CD, manual, and a copy of the game Just Cause on DVD-ROM.
| Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro AGP | Page:: ( 3 / 18 ) |
For starters, Sapphire uses a PCB that’s much larger than any we’ve seen on a graphics card in this class before. The PCB Sapphire uses is considerably taller than anything we’ve seen in recent memory, excluding perhaps the GeForce 7900 GX2. In fact it reminds us of some of the debug cards we’ve come across over the years. Fortunately we don’t think this should be an issue, as the PCB is still shorter than many of the aftermarket CPU coolers we use around here from the likes of Zalman, Thermaltake, Scythe, and others. For reference purposes though we did measure the card at just over 5” tall when housed inside the AGP slot. Also as you can see, Sapphire continues to employ a blue PCB on their cards, both X1950 Pro boards we’re reviewing here today have blue PCBs.
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The other key difference between Sapphire’s X1950 Pro that you’ll immediately notice are the dual Molex power connectors on the back of the graphics card. With the PCIe version of the X1950 Pro requiring an external power connection, it’s no surprise to see that the AGP variant of the board needs an external power source also, but we were a little surprised to see dual Molex connectors. If you recall, NVIDIA’s GeForce 6800 Ultra required dual Molex connectors also.
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If you forget to plug in one of the Molex connectors, or one of them comes loose, the card won’t operate – during POST the system fails to get a video signal. Like the GeForce 6800 Ultra, each Molex connector needs its own dedicated power connection – in other words, if you run one power cable with two power connections into the card it won’t operate. You need to run two separate, distinct power cables to the card in order for it to function properly.
With this in mind, we were a little disappointed to see that Sapphire only includes one power adapter cable with their Radeon X1950 Pro AGP card. Back in the GeForce 6800 Ultra days, NVIDIA’s board partners were very good about including two power adapters. Fortunately, you can piggyback one or both of the card’s power connections on other devices, say for instance a hard drive(s) and/or optical drive(s); just make sure you aren’t using the same physical power cable to power both of the graphics card’s Molex connectors and you’ll be okay. Of course, a wiser move on Sapphire’s part may have been to just use the same 6-pin power connector Sapphire uses for their PCIe boards, that’s the solution PowerColor has implemented on their X1950 Pro card and we haven’t noticed any problems with it.
The other feature that stands out on Sapphire’s card is their use of 512MB of GDDR3 memory. Sapphire is the first card manufacturer to integrate 512MB of memory on a Radeon X1950 Pro AGP, in fact, most PCIe-based X1950 Pro cards only ship with 256MB of memory. We’ll be curious to see if the larger frame buffer provided by the extra memory yields any performance gains for the 512MB Sapphire board. In theory the extra memory could come in handy under higher resolutions, particularly once AA is applied. As a result, this could make the Sapphire X1950 Pro AGP board a little more future-proof than other X1950 Pro cards, at least on paper.
The rest of the board is pretty standard fare, at least among Radeon X1950 Pro cards. The board ships with two dual-link DVI connections and supports HDCP out-of-the-box, so you can watch HD-DVD and Blu-ray movies at full 1080p resolution with no compromises (provided you have an HDCP compliant monitor), and the board ships at the standard X1950 Pro clock speeds of 580MHz core/700MHz memory. For cooling the GPU and memory modules, Sapphire uses the standard ATI heatsink/fan used for the Radeon X1950 Pro PCIe.
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Like the X1950 Pro Ultimate, Sapphire’s X1950 Pro AGP lacks support for VIVO. This may or may not be a big issue, depending on whether or not you need this feature.
Inside the box you’ll find the driver CD, two DVI adapters, a power adapter, HDTV cable, and S-Video and composite video cables. The card ships without a game bundle to save costs.
| Test Systems | Page:: ( 4 / 18 ) |
System Setup
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4200+
MSI K8N Neo2 nForce3 Ultra motherboard
ASUS M2N32-SLI Deluxe nForce 590 SLI Motherboard
2GB Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C4
Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro 512MB AGP
Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro Ultimate 256MB PCIe
PowerColor Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB AGP
Radeon X1950 Pro 256MB PCIe
Catalyst 6.12
BFG GeForce 7900 GS OC PCIe 256MB
EVGA e-GeForce 7800 GS AGP KO SuperClock
XFX GeForce 7600 GT AGP 580M
Driver version ForceWare 93.71
250GB Maxtor Hard Drive Maxline III SATA Hard Drive w/16MB Cache
Windows XP Professional SP2
DirectX 9.0c
Benchmarks
Company of Heroes 1.3
Far Cry 1.33 (1.4 patch for ATI cards)
F.E.A.R. 1.08
Quake 4 1.2
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Battlefield 2142 1.10
Call of Duty 2 1.3
| 3DMark 06 | Page:: ( 5 / 18 ) |
3DMark 06 – Direct3D
| HL2 Lost Coast HDR | Page:: ( 6 / 18 ) |
Half-Life 2 Lost Coast – Direct3D
| Battlefield 2142 | Page:: ( 7 / 18 ) |
Battlefield 2 – Direct3D
| Quake 4 | Page:: ( 8 / 18 ) |
Quake 4 – OpenGL
| Pacific Fighters | Page:: ( 9 / 18 ) |
Pacific Fighters – OpenGL
| F.E.A.R. Performance | Page:: ( 10 / 18 ) |
F.E.A.R. – Direct3D
| Oblivion Mountains HDR | Page:: ( 11 / 18 ) |
Oblivion – Direct3D
| Oblivion Foliage HDR | Page:: ( 12 / 18 ) |
Oblivion – Direct3D
| Call of Duty 2 | Page:: ( 13 / 18 ) |
Call of Duty 2 – Direct3D
| Far Cry HDR | Page:: ( 14 / 18 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Company of Heroes | Page:: ( 15 / 18 ) |
Company of Heroes – Direct3D
| Ballistics Report –X1950 Pro Ultimate PCIe | Page:: ( 16 / 18 ) |
Pros
Radeon X1950 Pro core: ATI’s Radeon X1950 Pro packs in a ton of features for a card that carries an MSRP of $200. The GPU boasts 36 pixel shaders and eight vertex shaders, and sports a 256-bit memory interface. In addition, ATI and their board partners endow the cards with HDCP, and it’s the first ATI GPU to be equipped with native CrossFire support that’s built in to the GPU. And with HDR+AA, the X1950 Pro is built to dish out stunning visuals.
For added punch, Sapphire even overclocks the memory 110MHz higher than default, with the board’s GDDR3 memory running at 800MHz, an improvement of 14%.
Zalman cooling: Sapphire outfits their Radeon X1950 Pro card with Zalman’s VF900-Cu copper cooling unit. The VF900-Cu does an excellent job of keeping the graphics core cool, we noted temps up to 14 degrees Celsius under load with the cooler, and it runs quieter than ATI’s stock cooling unit as well. The only downside is that it’s a dual-slot cooler, so you’ll have to leave the slot next to your graphics card open in order for the card to fit. Most enthusiasts do this already though.
Value: In order to accurately gauge the premium Sapphire is charging for the Ultimate Edition card, you’ve got to look at the street prices the cards are selling for. Currently there’s only one retailer that carries both the standard Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro and the Ultimate Edition of the card: ZipZoomfly.
On Zipzoomfly the stock Radeon X1950 Pro card sells for $194.99, that’s about $5 below the official ATI MSRP. Meanwhile, the Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro Ultimate sells for $230.99. So basically, Sapphire is charging a $36 premium for the Zalman cooler and the overclocked memory. Considering that the VF900-Cu typically sells for $35-$50 online (ZipZoomfly currently sells the LED version of the cooler for $44.99), that sounds about right, as you’re basically getting the cooler pre-installed out-of-the-box, albeit with the only omission being the FanMate fan controller.
Cons
Lack of VIVO: Sapphire has elected not to provide ATI’s Rage Theater chip on their Radeon X1950 Pro Ultimate card, so the board lacks VIVO capabilities. Many competing Radeon X1950 Pro cards ship with built-in VIVO support, so this puts the card at a disadvantage from a features perspective from other X1950 Pro manufacturers, many of which ship with their own exotic cooling solutions.
| AGP Ballistics Report | Page:: ( 17 / 18 ) |
Pros
Performance: With the Radeon X1950 Pro at its heart, and the extra 256MB of memory (512MB total) Sapphire’s Radeon X1950 Pro is the fastest AGP card we’ve ever tested. That’s saying a lot, as over the years we’ve tested a lot of graphics cards.
512MB of memory: In our performance testing, the added memory bought the Sapphire card roughly anywhere from 4-9% in additional performance, with the exact amount varying depending on the game and resolution tested. In theory as more demanding games are released later this year, that figure could expand even further.
Price: Right now there are currently only two Radeon X1950 Pro AGP cards on the market: the Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro AGP and PowerColor’s X1950 Pro AGP, which we reviewed in late December. Since we’ve got firsthand experience with both cards, we’re going to go over the pros and cons of each right here.
The PowerColor board’s chief advantage is that it ships with an Arctic Cooling Accelero 2 cooler. This is one of the best aftermarket coolers on the market right now for VGA cards. Its other chief advantage over the Sapphire card is that its power requirements are physically a little less demanding, only requiring one power cable off your power supply, whereas Sapphire’s card requires two in order for the card to operate. Both cards support HDCP with two dual-link DVI connectors.
Sapphire’s chief advantage is the 512MB frame buffer they’ve endowed their Radeon X1950 Pro AGP card with. The extra memory gives the board a slight boost in performance with today’s applications, and theoretically could come in handy when more intensive games come out later this year (although it’s also possible that the GPU will be too bogged down to deliver sufficient frame rates anyway).
In essence, the PowerColor board is a little easier to live with in day-to-day use. It only requires one power connection and it runs quieter. It’s a dual-slot card so you will lose one expansion slot, but in our opinion it’s worth it considering the quality of the cooler PowerColor uses. Due to its added memory, the Sapphire board is for the performance crowd that wants all-out performance. In terms of pricing, both cards are currently listed at the same $259.99 price tag.
Based on all this, when choosing between the two cards, it’s really going to come down to what you want.
Cons
Dual Molex connectors: Sapphire’s Radeon X1950 Pro AGP is the first AGP card to require dual Molex connectors for operation since NVIDIA’s GeForce 6800 Ultra graphics card from a few years ago. This is highly inconvenient for end users whose power supplies are getting short on free power connections.
| Final Verdict | Page:: ( 18 / 18 ) |
Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro Ultimate
On the AGP front, Sapphire’s Radeon X1950 Pro AGP is the fastest AGP graphics card we’ve ever tested. This is due in large part thanks to its 512MB of GDDR3 memory.
The only real glaring downside to the board is its requirement of dual Molex connectors in order to operate. Again, in order for the card to function properly, you must run two distinct power cables from your system’s power supply to the graphics card. If you don’t, your system won’t get a video signal. This could be a huge hassle for users with older 400W and 450W power supplies that may not have as many connections as today’s latest 700W and 1-kilowatt power supplies do. Fortunately as we mentioned earlier, you can daisy chain your VGA power connection, allowing you to piggyback off the power cable(s) you already use for your optical or hard disk drives, but you can’t run both Molex connectors off the same power cable.
Sapphire could have eased end user’s pain by including dual power adapters inside the card’s packaging, but unfortunately only one adapter is provided. Sapphire also should have spelled this out more explicitly on the card’s packaging and inside the manual. We honestly wouldn’t be surprised if quite a few perfectly good cards end up getting returned because end users didn’t know this.
The only reason we mention this is because we still vividly remember all the hassle NVIDIA’s board partners went through with this back during the GeForce 6800 Ultra days.
If this isn’t a concern for you, Sapphire’s X1950 Pro AGP is highly recommended due to its 512MB of memory onboard. Right now the card is selling for the same price as 256MB X1950 Pro AGP boards, so the extra memory doesn’t carry the expensive premium you normally expect to pay for a card in this segment. This feature alone makes it worth it in our opinion, as upcoming games could potentially really begin to take advantage of the additional memory later this year. By including the additional memory on their X1950 Pro AGP SKU, Sapphire is essentially thinking ahead to those games, helping to future-proof your investment. And of course, the card’s performance in today’s games is nothing short of spectacular. Just make sure to connect the card properly…