Sapphire Ultimate X1950 Pro 256mb PCI-E
Card Appearance
Published: 3rd April 2007 | Source: Sapphire | Price: |
Often dubbed as "Leaf Blowers", it's fair to say that some of ATI's past stock cooling solutions have been anything but quiet. Many ATI AIB's have ditched these stock coolers in favor of their own custom solutions, and from the images below we can see that Sapphire have taken a similar approach.
Rather than going for a generic 3rd party solution, Sapphire have teamed up with Korean silent cooling guru's Zalman who are well known for their "flower" style heatsinks.
Using the popular and well respected all-copper VF900-Cu (which actually retails for around £27), you can expect noise output between ~18-25dbA depending how how the cards BIOS is configured to manage the fan speed.
Using the popular and well respected all-copper VF900-Cu (which actually retails for around £27), you can expect noise output between ~18-25dbA depending how how the cards BIOS is configured to manage the fan speed.
The VF900-Cu makes good contact with the X1950 Pro's RV570 core, and Sapphire have even gone to the trouble of using some kind of generic Silver-based TIM for improved heat transfer.
All of this seems to pay off very well considering the reported temperatures from Rivatuner came in at 34°C idle and 45°C load with an ambient temperature of 22°c.
All of this seems to pay off very well considering the reported temperatures from Rivatuner came in at 34°C idle and 45°C load with an ambient temperature of 22°c.
The memory IC's are passively cooled by blue annodised aluminium chipsinks. These should prove pretty effective considering their close proximity to the airflow from the main Zalman cooler.
We can also see that the PWM mosfets on the back of the card have been given their own 'funky' gold aluminium heatsink to help dissipate heat, and promote greater voltage stability to the cards components.
We can also see that the PWM mosfets on the back of the card have been given their own 'funky' gold aluminium heatsink to help dissipate heat, and promote greater voltage stability to the cards components.
The card has two DVI ports, both of which feature HDCP support and can be used with older VGA screens by use of the included DVI>VGA converter blocks.
Most Recent Comments
Nice review 
I like the new OC3D recommended retailers search looks professional.
I like the new OC3D recommended retailers search
looks professional.Quote:
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Originally Posted by name='equk'
Nice review
I like the new OC3D recommended retailers search looks professional. |
nice review,looks to be a cracking card with an impressive price tag to boot
Looks good. One last ditch dx9 card before R600 rapes many, many psus?
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Originally Posted by name='Ham'
Looks good. One last ditch dx9 card before R600 rapes many, many psus?
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I think the overclocking problems are because of Ati Tool, from the Ati Tool site "All NVIDIA and ATI cards except for Radeon X1950 Pro are supported in this release." The source.
Nice little read, i think i will be heading back over to ATi once there DX10 range is out.
Nothing has felt quite as good as my old x800xt pe :/
Nothing has felt quite as good as my old x800xt pe :/
Actually my 6800GT was a legendary card and the best I've felt with an nVidia card ever I think
I just recently got this card and I currently have the GPU overclocked to 641 and the memory overclocked to 844 and it runs stable. If you use atitool, you have to check the driver level overclocking box in order to overclock the memory. Works great, got a 3Dmark05 score of 10520 on my system. Not too bad considering my weak 4000+ single core processor.
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Originally Posted by name='Pred'
I just recently got this card and I currently have the GPU overclocked to 641 and the memory overclocked to 844 and it runs stable. If you use atitool, you have to check the driver level overclocking box in order to overclock the memory. Works great, got a 3Dmark05 score of 10520 on my system. Not too bad considering my weak 4000+ single core processor.
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Welcome to the forums btw
Glad to be here. I was wondering though... has anyone else been successful at overclocking the memory? From all the forums I've read and reviews, I can't find anyone that's gotten it past 800. I know it's possible, obviously, since I did it.
One other interesting thing to note about the card: I received a model that is obviously a new batch. The heatsink on the end of the card is no longer a gold color and no longer has the "S" on it, it's colored silver now. It also had their latest May release bios on it, which surprised me because the bios was only released about a week and a half or so before I bought the card.
One other interesting thing to note about the card: I received a model that is obviously a new batch. The heatsink on the end of the card is no longer a gold color and no longer has the "S" on it, it's colored silver now. It also had their latest May release bios on it, which surprised me because the bios was only released about a week and a half or so before I bought the card.
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