Sapphire X1950 Pro Dual
Game Tests - F.E.A.R. and Quake 4
Published: 3rd May 2007 | Source: Sapphire | Price: |
F.E.A.R. is a game based on an engine that uses many features of DirectX 9.0c. It has volumetric lighting, soft shadows, parallax mapping and particle effects, with a slow-motion mode that really taxes today's top of the line GPU's. I fully patched version the game with the latest patch. I played three two-minute runs on a taxing part of the game with plenty of action, using slow-motion for the full time whilst firing at enemy soldiers and using grenades that produce a cool "blast" contortion effect when blown up.
F.E.A.R. sees the three cards level-pegging. At 1920 x 1200 with 4 x AA this is a good performance for the X1950 Pro Dual.
Quake 4
Quake 4 is a game built on the Doom 3 engine. This uses many DX 9.0c features and is a game that nVidia traditionally did well on being an OpenGL game. Once again I did three two minute runs on Quake 4 on each card and took the average of all my readings from these. I played a fast and furious part of the game that required both internal and external scenes.

The Sapphire X1950 Pro Dual seems to do very well in Quake 4 which is pretty strange. I can only concede that Quake 4 seems to like dual GPu configurations. Indeed the "feel" of the game when playing was actually better than when using the 8800GTS.
Most Recent Comments
For an ATI card I am impressed with the performance!
I am not an ATI fan but that it pretty.
Nice review!
I am not an ATI fan but that it pretty.
Nice review!

Dunno about pretty
Pretty huge maybe?
Pretty huge maybe?
Pretty nasty point drop at high res in 3Dmark tbh
Ye which was strange as gaming it didn't do too badly. 3DMark I always take with a pinch of salt but it is a bit disappointing
UPDATE:
Sapphire have said that the retail version comes with 3DMark06 and more importantly 4 DVI outputs for a 4 monitor setup.
Pretty cool.
Sapphire have said that the retail version comes with 3DMark06 and more importantly 4 DVI outputs for a 4 monitor setup.
Pretty cool.
Good review, seems like a cool product, just a little late in the game. Hate to nit pick but on page 3 under Test Setup and Notes it says "To test these high-end nVidia cards I set a PC that gives as little of a bottleneck as possible." Again sorry to be annoying.
Oops 

Quote:
|
Originally Posted by name='Kempez'
UPDATE:
Sapphire have said that the retail version comes with 3DMark06 and more importantly 4 DVI outputs for a 4 monitor setup. Pretty cool. |
And 4 monitors on one card, thats pretty damn good!
But who uses 4 monitors!? :eh:
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by name='Toxcity'
But who uses 4 monitors!? :eh: |
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by name='XMS'
Someone with 4 eyes?
|
The review is decent, as always.
Personally, I think the product is weak. It is dx9, overpriced (almost as much as a GTS but fails to perform as well, again, it is not dx10 either) stupidly large and... Almost pointless. IMO.
Look forward to seeing the HD2900XT

Would u think again if they have an inside inclin that Dx10 might not be with us til Q4.2008 ?
(not a fact, just speculation)
Still pricey imo, I`d still lean the 8800 way if I`m looking to spend around $350.
(not a fact, just speculation)
Still pricey imo, I`d still lean the 8800 way if I`m looking to spend around $350.
Wouldn't touch it with the 8800GTS 320mb beating it in benchmarks and having DX10. The only thing nVidia has to do to really put the grind into ATI is make SLI usable with 2 or more monitors. The dual GPU thing just doesn't do it, ATI needs to come out with DX10 GPU's, and make the cards smaller not bigger. If I were ATI and wanted to come out swinging against nVidia, that would be priority #2--- a smaller video card. Priority #1 would be making the GPU less power hungry while still making faster/powerful cores. With the AMD merger, I don't know whats keeping this from happening because they're pretty much giving up on a market they once ruled but are repeatedly losing sight of.
TJS
TJS


link