ATI Radeon X1950 XTX 512MB PCI-E Preview

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Kurtis Kronk
Brian
ATI
Aug. 23, 2006

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Performance Summary

Half-Life 2 Episode 1

I must say that I'm impressed by the difference in performance in HL2 Episode 1 between the X1950 XTX and X1900 XTX, particularly given that the only difference is the higher clocked GDDR4 (as opposed to GDDR3). The 15fps difference at 1920x1200 with 4xAA/8xAF is enough to make sometimes not-so-smooth gameplay perfectly smooth, and that's pretty cool if I do say so myself. And man does it look great at 1920x1200.

F.E.A.R.

In F.E.A.R. you'll probably still want to stick to 1280x960, but with the X1950 XTX you'll get very playable framerates even with 4xAA/8xAF, whereas with the X1900 XTX even 2xAA/4xAF was really pushing it... Overall not a huge impact on gameplay, but there's a noticable difference in attainable image quality and framerates.

Need for Speed Most Wanted

This game shows exactly why this is a preview and not a full review. The other 2 games displayed a notable improvement in performance thanks to the faster memory clocks, but NFSMW shows only a marginal difference if any (as the graphs show, it actually swings both ways).

Closing Thoughts

So far I'm quite pleased with the ATI Radeon X1950 XTX - considering this is just a refresh of an old product, it has really taken me by surprise. Not only does the the increased memory clock speed help performance (in 2 of 3 games tested for this preview), but they also made improvements to the card's cooler. The X1950 XTX is faster, looks cooler, and it's certainly more quiet than its predecessor. With that said, I need to repeat that this is merely a preview of this new video card. In the next week or two I will post my full evaluation of this card and make a final recommendation. This will have to tide you over until then.

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Page 6 of 6

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Page 1: Introduction & The Cards
Page 2: Test Setup
Page 3: Benchmarks: Half-Life 2 Episode 1
Page 4: F.E.A.R.
Page 5: Need for Speed Most Wanted
Page 6: Performance Summary & Closing Thoughts

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