ATi X1950 XT

mr. poopyhead · Post by **mr. poopyhead** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 12:24 pm

anyone else have one of these?

i've tried looking on the official sapphire tech forums for some answers but i swear, their solution to EVERY problem is "get a better PSU". they're telling people with 500W PSUs that they need a 250W GPU booster. i don't know what to believe anymore...

hopefully, someone here at the home of sensibile computing can give me some answers.

first question. what kind of benchmark results are you guys getting? i'm getting 5042 in 3dmark06, while most reviews on the internet are getting at least 5500. am i doing something wrong?

second. anyone have any luck cooling this thing passively? according to the sapphire forums, the GPU is supposed to be able to take up to 120 before it throttles down. but according to the SPCR review of the condor/1900XTX (R580, almost the same core) it throttled down at 100. also, if you are using aftermarket cooling, are ramsinks neccessary?

thanks for your time...

ryboto · Post by **ryboto** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 1:27 pm

I don't own one personally, but I read of users using 350W psu's with their x1900 xt's, which would be just as power hungry as the x1950xt. So, don't get all bent out of shape on that front.

Chocolinx · Post by **Chocolinx** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 4:23 pm

I really doubt its your powersupply. Unless you got some clunky generic power supply. My best guess as to your 3Dmark is probably your CPU. Could be bottlenecking. Or memory. Or both, which could explain a 500 point difference. Also the number of applications you have running in the background also make a difference.

Try overclocking (if you want to see if its your CPU) or lightening up the load on your RAM or even set your ram to lower timings if possible. Althoughs will help in your 3D mark. Getting the most out of your other parts will help your card reach its full potential!

mr. poopyhead · Post by **mr. poopyhead** » Wed Jan 17, 2007 6:16 pm

Chocolinx wrote:I really doubt its your powersupply. Unless you got some clunky generic power supply. My best guess as to your 3Dmark is probably your CPU. Could be bottlenecking. Or memory. Or both, which could explain a 500 point difference. Also the number of applications you have running in the background also make a difference.

i know its not my power supply either... but there are so many crazies over at the sapphire forum they almost had me convinced.
check it out for yourself: http://www.sapphiretech.com/en/forums/

its really crazy over there. so many people go out and buy 600W PSUs on a whim just because they're telling them over there that they need one to run a video card. it's sad, really. you'd think that forum was there just to sell power supplies...

Try overclocking (if you want to see if its your CPU) or lightening up the load on your RAM or even set your ram to lower timings if possible. Althoughs will help in your 3D mark. Getting the most out of your other parts will help your card reach its full potential!

yes, my overall score is affected by my CPU and RAM, but i mostly looked at the SM2 and SM3 scores. i guess i didn't mention that at all. but yeah, my shader scores are also completely lagging behind some of the numbers in the reviews. i guess i'll try a different driver version. i'll also do some tests by playing oblivion. maybe the real world results will be better.

roadie · Post by **roadie** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 2:44 am

I can comment on this as the X1950XT is basically a X1900XT but with higher clock speeds. I have tried a variety of PSU's with my system, a 460W Tagan, a 400W Enermax Liberty and the one in my sig.

The Tagan was too loud when the fan ramped up, the Enermax could not supply enough power and caused the system to crash when playing Civ4 and the Antec NeoHE is perfect.

I score the same in 3dmark06 as you, you can compare your score to mine here:

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?3dm06=824950

As far as cooling goes, the stock cooler is perfectly adequate but it is extremely loud. You can use ATITool to manage fan speeds but in order to silence the card, I went with an elaborate and expensive (see sig).

st_o_p · Post by **st_o_p** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 8:46 am

mr. poopyhead wrote:anyone else have one of these?

i've tried looking on the official sapphire tech forums for some answers but i swear, their solution to EVERY problem is "get a better PSU". they're telling people with 500W PSUs that they need a 250W GPU booster. i don't know what to believe anymore...

hopefully, someone here at the home of sensibile computing can give me some answers.

first question. what kind of benchmark results are you guys getting? i'm getting 5042 in 3dmark06, while most reviews on the internet are getting at least 5500. am i doing something wrong?

second. anyone have any luck cooling this thing passively? according to the sapphire forums, the GPU is supposed to be able to take up to 120 before it throttles down. but according to the SPCR review of the condor/1900XTX (R580, almost the same core) it throttled down at 100. also, if you are using aftermarket cooling, are ramsinks neccessary?

thanks for your time...

I have X1900XT, and I cool it passively. In fact my entire PC is fanless. the PSU is Silentmaxx 400W fanless, and the system is fine - no power problems whatsoever (it's Conroe E6700+Ninja, and has 2 Raptors in RAID0; the case is P180). The video card is the only problematic component in the whole fanless setup - I use Aerocase Condor as this is the only passive cooler that comes close to being able to handle the task. Even with it, if I leave the setup at default when the Catalyst ramps up the performance during gaming it sometimes overheats. So I ended up handicapping it by disabling the ATI services, so it always works at slower MHz. All my games run great (including Oblivion w HDR&AA) - so it works for me, but I'm sure I took a performance hit

mr. poopyhead · Post by **mr. poopyhead** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 11:03 am

roadie wrote: As far as cooling goes, the stock cooler is perfectly adequate but it is extremely loud. You can use ATITool to manage fan speeds but in order to silence the card, I went with an elaborate and expensive (see sig).

using an aftermarket cooler, did you have any trouble with memory or voltage regulators overheating?

LuckyNV · Post by **LuckyNV** » Thu Jan 18, 2007 4:58 pm

I'm using a Tagan U22 480W with my X1900XTX, no problems with any game or GPU benchmark

System is
E6600
2GB
Raptor 74GB, 320GB, 300Gb and 80GB drives
XFI XMusic
Two 120mm fans 7V
Two 92mm fans 7V
Two 80mm fans 7V

I've recently installed a Thermalright HR-03, VERY impressed with this cooler, when I did a quick test comparison.
With same room temps
Mounted with the cooler on the rear and with this fan at 7V
http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/produc ... fans/af92c

Stock cooler
Idle - 50-52C - at this temp the cooler is pretty audible
Load - reaches around 75-80C and then the cooler will rev up, and will keep on revving up to maintain a temp lower than 80C, depending on the game etc... this can get VERY loud. It is also pretty annoying for the fan to constantly rev up and down during games depending on the work load.

HR-03
Idle - 39-41C
Load - highly depends on the game - CSS only loads it upto 46C, whilst Supreme Commander Beta and 3DM06 loads it upto 53-54C

Awesome considering the noise level.

A few things to note.
Mounting on the rear leaves the front with zero airflow i.e. the VRM area, you also make sure you need clearance in the back area (no problem with my XP90 and DS4)
I wasn't going to bother myself with remounting, so I just set up a 120mm side fan as a temp measure to keep the VRM around 50C, without it VRM would hit 70C loaded.
Front mount method takes upto 3 slots (2 for the heatsink, 1 for the fan)

Passive - I may test this later without a fan, rear mounted my CPU fan is near the HR-03 so really it will be psuedo-passive. According a review test I've seen passive is no problem with this card, though it does get hot.

mr. poopyhead · Post by **mr. poopyhead** » Fri Jan 19, 2007 7:23 pm

LuckyNV wrote:I'm using a Tagan U22 480W with my X1900XTX, no problems with any game or GPU benchmark

System is
E6600
2GB
Raptor 74GB, 320GB, 300Gb and 80GB drives
XFI XMusic
Two 120mm fans 7V
Two 92mm fans 7V
Two 80mm fans 7V

I've recently installed a Thermalright HR-03, VERY impressed with this cooler, when I did a quick test comparison.
With same room temps
Mounted with the cooler on the rear and with this fan at 7V
http://www.quietpc.com/gb-en-gbp/produc ... fans/af92c

Stock cooler
Idle - 50-52C - at this temp the cooler is pretty audible
Load - reaches around 75-80C and then the cooler will rev up, and will keep on revving up to maintain a temp lower than 80C, depending on the game etc... this can get VERY loud. It is also pretty annoying for the fan to constantly rev up and down during games depending on the work load.

HR-03
Idle - 39-41C
Load - highly depends on the game - CSS only loads it upto 46C, whilst Supreme Commander Beta and 3DM06 loads it upto 53-54C

Awesome considering the noise level.

A few things to note.
Mounting on the rear leaves the front with zero airflow i.e. the VRM area, you also make sure you need clearance in the back area (no problem with my XP90 and DS4)
I wasn't going to bother myself with remounting, so I just set up a 120mm side fan as a temp measure to keep the VRM around 50C, without it VRM would hit 70C loaded.
Front mount method takes upto 3 slots (2 for the heatsink, 1 for the fan)

Passive - I may test this later without a fan, rear mounted my CPU fan is near the HR-03 so really it will be psuedo-passive. According a review test I've seen passive is no problem with this card, though it does get hot.

thanks! that was real helpful. do you have any memory sinks? how hot is your memory getting?

ATi X1950 XT

ATi X1950 XT

Re: ATi X1950 XT