ATI Radeon X1900 XT 256 MB

[W1zzard]

ATI's new X1900 XT 256 MB is designed to fit into the price range that is bound by the X1900 GT on the lower end and the X1900 XT 512 MB on the upper end. In order to bring the card's price down ATI chose to reduce the total memory size from 512 MB to 256 MB. Also a bit slower memory is used. We test how big the performance difference to the more expensive X1900 XTX with 512 MB is.

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[shoman24v]

Great card. I have one. Thanks for the review!

One thing you should note... maybe it's just me but setting profiles for games with CCC is difficult compared to the nVidia control panel. To me that's the major downside to this card and ATi in general.

 

[DaMulta]

I think its the other way around Shoman

 

[Canuto]

Great review W1zz

 

[Mussels]

i have one too, have to agree that its a great priced card with a poor cooler. The accelero x2 or a thermalright HR-03 make it really shine tho.

One oddity: your text about power consumption mentions CPU/ram/HD etc, but the numbers are too low for that, more like you've had a baseline and subtracted it from the results you got to get a rough estimate of teh cards power draw. An X1300 may not use much power, but saying your test PC with an X1300 uses a mere 90W...

 

[W1zzard]

i have one too, have to agree that its a great priced card with a poor cooler. The accelero x2 or a thermalright HR-03 make it really shine tho.

One oddity: your text about power consumption mentions CPU/ram/HD etc, but the numbers are too low for that, more like you've had a baseline and subtracted it from the results you got to get a rough estimate of teh cards power draw. An X1300 may not use much power, but saying your test PC with an X1300 uses a mere 90W...

the numbers are total power consumption of the whole rig measured at the mains power outlet. feel free to buy a cheap power consumption meter thingie and measure you own. you will be surprised

 

[Death Star]

Great review W1zzard. The only thing I would suggest, if I may, is add the X1900XT 512MB to the lineup. Nice work

 

[Soulja]

As always nice review. Well you got the same overclock as i have and im keep getting artifacts or crashes if i go above that speed even if i bump up the voltage a little. I have replaced the stock cooler with a zalman vf700alcu which was also reviewd on this site some time ago and mine temps barley reach 80°C. All in all its a nice card especialy because its about 4 times as fast as mine previous Ati card radeon 9800pro on the same sistem and it lets me play all the games with nice graphic and accaptable performance and thats all what i really need The tihng i would like to know is, is it really that all the newest ati cards have only 1 year waranty? Because in the past different wendors had up to 3 years and also some nvidia partners nowadays give their costumers a lifetime waranty and i think that is one aspect many buyers that dont upgrade to often will look at when their deciding what their next upgrade should be. Because one year waranty(thats what mine card has) is by mine opinion not enough ecpecially for a electronic component as complexed and as stressed as a graphic card and i know noone wants to have his card die the moment the waranty expires and ends up with a nice and once expencive suveniour

 

[bruins004]

ATI manufacturers have been getting better at the warranties.
One of them does offer a lifetime warranty (dont remember which one, maybe Connect3D).
But for the most part they do not.

I figure they will eventually though.
Look at EVGA for example.
Their two main competitors offered a lifetime (BFG) and a double lifetime (XFX) warranties.
So they moved their warranty for 1 year to 2 years.
6 months later they changed their warranty for their new cards to lifetime.

Eventually ATI's manufacturers will change as well.
Just give it time.

 

[Jodiuh]

I still can't believe a single R580 uses more power than 2 G71's. Thankfully Thermalright's HR-03's up to the task.

Thanks for the review W1z!!