Power Color X1900 XTX
Apr 24th, 2006 | By Archive
Power Color X1900 XTX
Date
: 04/24/06 – 06:01:31 AM
Author
:
Category
: Video Cards
Page 1 : Index
Manufacturer:
PowerColor Computer Inc.
Price:
$609USD (Newegg.com)
It is not often that I get the chance to play with the most powerful video card on the market. It is also not often I get the chance to play with one of the newest video cards on the market. So when I was offered both of those luxuries in one small package I couldn't turn the opportunity down and sleep with myself at night. I guess the only way PowerColor could have sweetened the deal was to provide me with an X1900 CrossFire card but that would be spoiling me too much.
I don't think introductions are necessary because we should all know who PowerColor is. It is not the first or the last time a PowerColor video card will make its way onto the pages of Overclockers Online. I recently looked at the entry level X1 card, the X1300 Pro Bravo edition, which impressed heavily with the new features that the X1 series brought to the ATI line up including SM3.0, HDR lighting, alongside my first look at AVIVO. This X1900XTX will also contain those new tools with a boost in 3D gaming performance.
Incidentally enough, PowerColor is running an Easter promotion, much like everyone is it seems this Easter Season. The top prize in the PowerColor Easter Award Hunt just so happens to be this very card, the X9100XTX. Click on the banner above for your chance to win your own Power Color X1900XTX. The X1900XTX is the latest and greatest ATI offering that is single handedly responsible for the equaling of NVIDIA and ATI offerings. I really won't need to speak much for the performance from this card, I think I will let the benchmarks do that. Let's get to the speaking then…
Page 2 : Package
At this point in the food chain, the package won't prove necessary to some while to others it is the only thing separating the PowerColor X1900XTX from the next companies over. I mean, if youre buying a $609.00 video card then chances are you have done some research, but that's not always the case. That said, the package on this particular X1900XTX is very nice and makes this look like a professional card.
The shiny silver finish of the box is protected by a plastic wrap that ensures you get a brand new product when you take yours home from the store. The layout of the box has the standard information on the front with detailed info on the reverse. I really like the color and feel of this package for this product and think PowerColor comes across very well mannered with packaging like this.
The standard information on the front is the info that manufacturers like to advertise such as the Memory size and type, built in technologies such as AVIVO and SM3.0 as well as special abilities like CrossFire. PowerColor has all of these bases covered with this sticker patch down here.
The edges of the box are where PowerColor displays the most useful information when double checking to find out exactly what you'll need to get a beast like this X1900XTX running. On the rear edge is a list of 'What's In The Box'.
- PowerColor X1900 XTX GameFX Graphics Board
- Component-Out Cable Adapter
- 9-pin S-Video/Composite VIVO Adapter
- S-Video Cable
- Composite Cable
- 2 x DVI-to-VGA Adapter
- External Power Cable
The opposite edge has the System Requirements listed:
- Intel Pentium 4; AMD Athlon or compatible
- 512MB of system memory or more for best performance
- CD-ROM driver (for installation software)
- 450 watt or greater power supply recommended (with 30 Amps current on 12V rail)
Software:
- Windows 2000
- Windows Media Center Edition
- Windows XP (Home or Pro)
Monitor:
- High Resolution MultiSync or multi-frequency monitors or any other type of VGA monitor
- Digital flat-panel (DFP) displays or CRT display (Option)
As I stated earlier, the rear goes into more detail about the powerful X1900XTX and abundance of features which it sports.
This is the type of info we are provided about AVIVO, the technology behind ATI cards producing vivid video playback. Looking at anymore pictures of a box with this amazing of a card inside is a shame so we will stop and finish up the specifications section before getting a look at the PowerColor X1900XTX.
Page 3 : Specifications & Features
The X1900XTX 512MB is the king of kings. Make no mistake about it folks, this card is a beast that provides some incredible specifications at the same time demanding plenty of requirements. Right now we will look over the specifications that produce the performance from this PowerColor offering:
System Requirements:
- 450-Watt power supply or greater, 30 Amps on 12 volt rail recommended (assumes fully loaded system)
- PCI Express compliant power supply (recommended). Connect directly to the power supply with a 6 pin PCI Express power connector
- For Crossfire – 550 watt power supply or greater, 38 Amps on 12 volt rail
- 512MB of system memory
Features:
- Dual-Link TMDS transmitter
- AVIVO Support
- Crossfire Ready
- H.264 Support
- 16(48 pixel shader processors)
Package Contents:
- S-Video Cable
- Composite Cable
- HDTV Cable
- VIVO Cable
- 2 x DVI to VGA Adapter
- Manual
- Drivers CD
- Power Cable
In my last review of an X1 card, the PowerColor X1300PRO Bravo, I went into pretty good depth as to the benefits of SM3.0 as well as HDR Lighting effects so I won't duplicate that work here. The link provided above will take you directly to the features page and half way down the screen shots start. So I figured I would cover more of the aspects of ATI's AVIVO H.264 technology. This is a small portion of ATI's web site describing AVIVO:
Page 4 : Package Contents
The mandatory advertising sleeve is off and we are into the generic white box that looks awfully familiar to the X1300PRO I received from PowerColor.
This box, un-like the one I just mentioned comes with a card that fills the entire thing. Everything is of course well secured with paperwork and CDs in an upper compartment above the card itself and all accessories in the lower compartment.
Clearly everything is packed tight because there is a good pile of accessories. It is nice to see PowerColor minimize packaging and giving such a large product such a small total package by use of such packing methods.
Like I said, there is quite the accessories package with a full VIVO equipped card. On the left are a pair of DVI-I adapters making both connections compatible with us VGA users. The colorful cables easily denote it as the YPrPb component output for HDTV displays. Beside the HDTV leads is the VIVO cable followed by a Composite cable and S-Video Cable. This is the standard package for any VIVO card.
The only paperwork is the User's Manual that actually does a great job in explaining the various inputs and outputs of the card. The manual even suggests maximum lengths for various cable types at one time saying just how in-depth it is. With instruction booklets like this, it is hard to under stand how VIVO and video capture on the whole seems to be such a difficult process. Included is a very basic software package with a drivers disk and some CyberLink software. All I am looking for is software that provides capture ability via the VIVO connections.
With the manual and other papers removed we get our first peak at the card itself.
When looking at that last photo, you may have noticed the cardboard curling in to fit the card. With the card completely removed we can easily see how the box isn't big enough to fit the card and this actually bent the card into a curved shape. I would prefer a thin layer of foam or the like on top and bottom of a card this prestigious and no pressure to be put on the card while in its packaging.
The result of the pressure is a card with a slight curve ball.
There is no way to hide it, the card is big. Double thick and as long as most motherboards are wide. Some people are bothered by a double slot cooler but not me. If that is what is necessary then so be it. There is nothing else to comment on as this is the basic reference card from ATI. In fact, it is the exact same card and indistinguishable from other makers such as GeCube and Connect 3D.
The rear end of this monstrous card contains the 6-pin connector required for use from the power supply. The memory and GPU are housed under the main heatsink and fan but that isn't the only heatsink on this card. Conveniently located to get airflow drawn over it by the cooling fan, the MOSFET heatsink will serve its purpose of providing clean stable power to the card.
A dual DVI card needs to DVI ports as well as the input/output for the various dongles.
All of the memory needs is on the topside of the card so the backside is rather scarce of any hardware. We do however see the brackets that hold that large heatsink and fan on. Much to my surprise there is not much back there doing that job.
Getting under the heatsink will simply be a matter of removing these 4 screws and the 4 others just outside of these.
After unplugging the fan connection the whole assembly pulls off with ease. The thermal paste looked almost Arctic Silver like but it is hard to say. From underneath the heatsink we can see that the copper fins are connected to the copper core that contacts the video cards GPU. This setup clearly runs hot so temperature will likely be the issue with clocking.
Now it is time for the mandatory round of close-up photos identifying the various components on the video card. We start in the middle with the memory:
– FOR 2M x 32Bit x 8 Bank GDDR3 SDRAM
The K4J52324QC is 536,870,912 bits of hyper synchronous data rate Dynamic RAM organized as 8 x 2,097,152 words by 32 bits, fabricated with SAMSUNG's high performance CMOS technology. Synchronous features with Data Strobe allow extremely high performance up to 7.2GB/s/chip. I/O transactions are possible on both edges of the clock cycle. Range of operating frequencies, and programmable latencies allow the device to be useful for a variety of high performance memory system applications.
- Auto & Self refresh modes
- Auto Precharge option
- 32ms, auto refresh (8K cycle)
- 136 Ball FBGA
- Maximum clock frequency up to 900MHz
- Maximum data rate up to 1.8Gbps/pin
This little chip is responsible for the VIVO function that I have talked so much about. This chip is a much newer version of that on the X1300PRO Bravo I have looked at from PowerColor. This appears to be a G revision of the same chip with a production date of 0604.
Look at the size of that monster. Now that is what I call a GPU core. It is no wonder the cooling is ridiculous on this thing. The R580 core was much anticipated and has been satisfying ever it came out. I am sure this PowerColor R580 will not disappoint.
The main purpose of taking the heatsink and fan off was to mount Thermaltake Tidewater but since the heatsink is off, we might as well take a look. These are the pads that cover the memory DIMMs.
The copper heatsink that sits directly on the massive core has a relatively smooth surface. I am not sure if lapping would improve contact but it appears to be polished at some point.
My Tidewater water cooling adventures ended early when the mounting bolts wouldn't reach far enough to mount the block. I of course didn't have anything that would work and because I left this task to last I managed to figure this out before a holiday weekend, great. No water fun with the X1900XTX and no CrossFire action, at least I have some things to look forward to.
Page 5 : Installation & Overclocking
With a double slot card, the obvious first step of any installation into a case is going to be the removal of two expansion slot covers. I will be doing most of my benchmarking of this video card in this state and it was very secure despite the size.
The card mounted nicer in this setup than even my X800GTO with Arctic Cooling Silencer GPU cooler. This card fit over the northbridge chipset cooler much better despite coming very close to blocking SATA connections. Despite being as long as it is and wide at certain points as it stretches, the card fits like a much smaller card in a test bench setup. I did use the PowerColor X1900XTX in another little project…
This is just a sneak preview as I don't want to spoil it but the card fits on a microATX motherboard in a miniATX case quite nicely. One heck of a small machine is the result but the point is that the card can literally run in any setup and be easily provided with additional cooling even.
After two sets of drivers were installed, WDM drivers for the video capture as well as the display drivers, we are ready to do some overclocking. I really wasn't expecting a whole lot from this card on the stock cooling but once under water I anticipated this card to shine. Unfortunately the water won't be happening so hopefully it will overclock a good bit on air for us.
The above screen shot was the maximum I could get the card to benchmark at. This was by no means game stable but I could get a loop or two of 3DMark 06 done at these frequencies. The temperatures when running 3DMark were around 70C and would clock about 20MHz higher on both core and memory. The max gaming speeds stayed safe as long as they were under
80C
so I am pretty sure I would gain by getting the GPU cooler with water cooling.
Page 6 : Test Machine
Not a lot has changed in my bench setup aside from the cooling upgrade to the CPU and for this review my power supply will not be its usual little black box. Instead, the power supply will be courtesy Ultra, their Xfinity 600W SLI. It has been running this test system for two weeks with this video card and has another couple ahead of it.
DFI LanParty Ultra-D
AMD Opteron 146 @ 2.9GHz (CAB2E 40546GPAW)
Asetek WaterChill
OCZ OCZ5002048EBPE-K @ DDR525 3-3-2-7
Ultra Xfinity 600W SLI
36.6GB WD Raptor 10,000R4PM
Windows XP Pro SP2 + with all available updates
Components will be spread out across my desk for testing.
Video Cards:
HIS X800GTO IceQ II Turbo 256MB – Catalyst Control Center 6.2
PowerColor X1900XTX 512MB
– Catalyst Control Center 6.4
All the usual suspects will be present for testing including the entire Futuremark series of 3Dmark 01se, 3DMark 03, 3DMark 05, and the newest as we have already seen today is 3DMark 06. The X1900XTX should destroy previous bests in 3DMark 06 as this is the first powerful video card I have had since it has released. Top that with a dual core cameo somewhere in the next few pages of benchmarks and I should be posting some personal bests in any video card related benchmark I have run…and it will be relatively easy. Synthetic benchmarks will not be the end of this journey. From there I will run our standard multi-resolution/multi-enhancements benchmarks as well as some real world Fraps benchmarks on a handful of games.
I quote previous reviews for testing methods:
Page 7 : Synthetic Performance
Numbers are just numbers but they do tell a story. Maybe not the whole story but they give a good indication of performance when paired with some context. The 3DMark suite has been the favorite of benchmarkers for years now and well before Futuremark was Futuremark. The newest revision of 3DMark 06 requires a dual core CPU for respectable scores so the chart is about 1000 points light due to me using a single core Opteron.
No bachelor of science required to figure this out, the X1900XTX beats the pants off of an X800GTO. Wow, there is shocking news. Honestly though, the X1900XTX really is a monster tripling the performance of the X800GTO in the newest tests of 3DMark 05 and 06. Keep system components in mind when comparing scores in some of these benchmarks.
What is really weird is that all the ATI cards perform equally in most of these programs. So when building a system for a specific task, make sure you know the hardware you will need because there is no point in buying a beast like this PowerColor card when all you need is their X1300Pro. The last screenshot here is of my highest 3DMark 06 score. I had to break out a dual core CPU while I had this card to get it.
Page 8 : Battlefield 2
Battlefield 2 is a great title that presses most system requirements to their boiling limits. With the system specs I have on this machine, the video card will be the deciding factor in how the frame rates tally.
I guess I was wrong about that. At the full resolution of my monitor of 1600×1200 the system was the bottleneck with the results being the same with or without AA/AF. At 1280×1024 the same results are had but at a slightly higher frame rates. For those of you with LCDs and resolutions of 1280×1024 on those LCDs, this guy will keep you covered here even with lower system specs.
Page 9 : Doom III
I am anticipating more of a fight from Doom III as far as pressure on the video card goes. It appears as though the X1900XTX from PowerColor was no match for Battlefield 2 but can the time tested classic Doom III make it sweat?
We actually see a slight disparity between the AA and non-AA runs in Doom III which tells us that the video card is actually being taxed. Even at 1600×1200, pushing 70 FPS is hardly considered being taxed but more evidence that this card is a monster that will take something amazing to tame it.
Page 10 : Far Cry
I don't expect that Far Cry will be that beast but it is still one of my favorite games so watching the custom time demo of the River level is always fun. Especially when it is in full screen 1600×1200 with HDR enabled and not dropping below 90 FPS.
It is just amazing to see virtually no drop off in frame rates as the resolution scales up. Even in the Anti-aliased results. I don't have AA and AF cranked to the maximum as the X800GTO doesn't have those options. Trust me though, when playing games with this card, you will be playing with maximum details, full AA/AF, and the highest resolution you can.
Page 11 : Half-Life 2
HL2 is known to run better on ATI cards and tends to be easy on video cards, much like Far Cry is so I do expect to see some ridiculous frame rates through each level of benchmarks.
Very much like Far Cry again, the HL2 results so very little drop off from resolution changes and show that a single X1900XTX is just too much card for gaming at even 1600×1200. At the average LCD resolution of 1280×1024 this card will look amazing and keep you playing the newest games no problem for a long time.
Page 12 : F.E.A.R.
What is this? A game that might actually make the PowerColor X1900XTX work for its title of "Champ". When this game first came out, forums quickly flooded with system requirements groveling. Whenever that happens we know we have a good game on our hands that is pushing hardware to its limits. F.E.A.R. is still that game right now and it will be interesting to see how the X1900XTX does.
For the first time do we see significant drops in frame rates as the resolution increases. This may also be related to the single core CPU I am using for testing as well. Regardless of the drop in frame rates, averaging 41 FPS at 1600×1200 with some AA and AF enabled is quite impressive for F.E.A.R.. Look for the real world performance results in the next section as they should be somewhat similar.
Page 13 : Further Testing
I decided to do some added testing with this card that I haven't done with other cards in the past and it deals with actual game play. Using Fraps I recorded 20 minute sessions at random intervals through various levels of each game and averaged those out. I have also provided the minimum and maximum FPS of any given 20 minute period.
The settings for playing were as follows:
AF: 16X High Quality AF enabled
AA: 6x
HDR: Enabled manually in Far Cry for all levels so AA is off in Far Cry
Details: Maximum or High (highest possible)
Extras: Everything has been enabled including soft shadows and the like
I again tested the VIVO function of the X1 series as my dreams of my Samsung HDTV being here while I had my card didn't exactly pan out so some screenshots showing the various benefits of AVIVO on an HDTV are not to be. As I stated in the Package Contents section, I wanted to see if there was software included with the card that would make the VIVO function allow capture without having to look elsewhere. I installed the software and found where I should have been able to do such a task but couldn't get it to work.
To test that everything was functioning correctly I quickly tested in Media Player Classic and was recording and watching TV from the S-Video input within minutes. I would like PowerColor to really push the VIVO by providing a solid input capturing software that eases that process for the consumer. Not everyone knows about Media Player Classic…wink wink.
The last mention goes to the fan. The variable fan control keeps the noise down as long as it can but at some point during gaming or heavy use, the fan will hit 80%+ and you will think your computer sucked your cat in. Okay, so it isn't that bad but it is loud. At the stock speeds it was much better but once the core was overclocked at all, the fan seemed to be heard more often. Additional cooling is required to maximize these cards, but the upside to that is that there is more to be had for next time.
Page 14 : Conclusion
The PowerColor X1900XTX can only be summed up by one word…awesome. Simply fantastic performance out of a single card that is only rivaled by one other right now from the green camp. My focus today was to see if the extra $400 you would spend on this card versus my current main video card, an X800GTO, was worth it. For me on my large CRT at resolutions of 1600×1200, this card was like playing games all over again. Far Cry was stunning at that resolution with full HDR support and frame rates to kill.
If you are only running a 1280×1024 LCD then this type of card purchase has to be about mid-way up a list of system components because you will want to have a solid 2GB system to let the card stretch its legs. That is all based on right now, the present. Going forward I can highly recommend making the jump at any time. Based on the results of F.E.A.R. I think it is safe to say that a power hungry card like this will be a requirement to max out details on an LCD, especially with LCD resolutions poised to increase at any time.
At this point I will give with ease the PowerColor X1900XTX Overclockers Online Editor's choice award only because the Power Award would mean it was the best we could have at the time but unfortunately I know that not to be true as the best at this time would be this card alongside a good clocking X1900 Cross Fire card, which PowerColor offers as well. That said, this X1900XTX is one of the best single card solutions right now.
Advantages
- Mind boggling performance
- Despite size, very manageable
- Loaded with features, AVIVO / VIVO
- Clocking headroom with additional cooling
Disadvantages
- Fan noise is quite noticeable at times
- Power supply requirements are hefty
- With a street price of over $600 it has to be mentioned
Overclockers Online would like to thank PowerColor for making this review possible.