Brand-new silent GPU! (aye right)

[Bobfantastic]

"ATI innovative heatpipe silent cooling solution"
Ive no doubt it will tear through any game you can throw at it, but silently?!
I doubt the 2GHz RAM chips can go passive either...

[Devonavar]

Don't know about during gaming, but it's surprisingly good at idle. I'd estimate 24~25 dBA@1m. More to come when we (eventually) get around to testing it.

[rpsgc]

I doubt the 2GHz RAM chips can go passive either...

They actually consume less than GDDR3, even at its [GDDR4] higher speed.

[McBanjo]

They seem to be rather quiet according to what I've heard. Probibly not SPCR-quiet but not the jetplanes that is common currently.

[rpsgc]

Certainly quieter than ATI's previous efforts

[smilingcrow]

The review at Anandtech shows the overall system power consumption for the X1950XTX to be 22W less than for the X1900XTX in their test using 3DMark06. If that’s indicative, then maybe the Aerocase Condor could handle that ok.

[moritz]

Finally a die shrink. Of course, they only improved the efficiency of their cutting edge and very budget offerings. The new mid-range X1900 XT is a crutch, from what I can tell, getting none of the new technology. Bah. And Nvidia is still sitting there doing nothing, least of all lowering prices on their own mid-range cards, which is overdue.

[McBanjo]

Finally a die shrink. Of course, they only improved the efficiency of their cutting edge and very budget offerings. The new mid-range X1900 XT is a crutch, from what I can tell, getting none of the new technology. Bah. And Nvidia is still sitting there doing nothing, least of all lowering prices on their own mid-range cards, which is overdue.

Using a new tecnology on the performance card is more expensive and harder than using it on the budget cards. So most companys work out the flaws in manifacturingprocess a bit on cheap alternatives before going for the performance ones.

[EasyRaider]

No die shrink at the high end, just a new revision at 90 nm process (see http://www.beyond3d.com/reviews/ati/x19 ... x.php?p=02).

For the midrange we should soon see RV560 (X1650 XT) and RV570 (X1950 Pro), both at 80 nm. Energy efficiency will hopefully improve further. The RV570 looks especially promising with a 256 bit external bus.

[rpsgc]

Xbit labs just had its review up, with power consumption figures.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... 50xtx.html



So one says the power consumption has gone down and the other says it has gone up, a little.

[McBanjo]

So one says the power consumption has gone down and the other says it has gone up, a little.

So assumption can be that it's just the same?

[rpsgc]

So assumption can be that it's just the same?

Seems that way...

[HueyCobra]

And Nvidia is still sitting there doing nothing, least of all lowering prices on their own mid-range cards, which is overdue.

According to DailyTech, NVIDIA is releasing three new graphics cards - 7100GS, 7900GS & 7950GT. Hopefully the 7900GS will reduce mid-range prices (and be a candidate for passively-cooled versions).