Final thoughts, awards, HEXUS.right2reply
Our performance numbers on the previous page indicated that ATI's X1900 GT and NVIDIA's GeForce 7900 GS offered the same kind of gaming performance. ATI's card carried a richer feature-set, arguably better image quality, but NVIDIA's also-impressive GS was available for a lower street price. Whichever one you opted for, you couldn't make a bad choice. That's all the consumer can ask for, really.The release of X1950 Pro changes the playing field in the crucial £125-£150 sector. It's priced at X1900 GT levels but augments the already decent specification with 'proper' CrossFire, HDCP support, a quieter cooler, and, ultimately, better performance derived from greater memory bandwidth. If you liked the X1900 GT, the X1950 Pro offers more in every department for the same financial outlay, so what's already good is now better.
The Radeon X1950 Pro, then, nudges the present midrange graphics-card balance in favour of ATI. NVIDIA's GeForce 7900 GS still remains a decent performer and offers value for money, yet, we feel, the X1950 Pro does it just a touch better.
Sapphire's X1950 Pro 256MiB card is clocked in a little higher than reference specs. suggest, running at 581MHz core and 1400MHz memory. It'll launch this card with its 'lite' bundle in the U.K. and we expect it to be priced at £135. It ships with a standard 2-year warranty and will be available imminently. The underlying architecture and attractive street price are enough for us to award it our recommended gong.
As a final note, stay tuned for the upcoming article that pits X1950 Pro CrossFire against the X1900 GT CF and a couple of SLI'd 7900 GS cards from NVIDIA.
HEXUS Awards
Sapphire X1950 Pro 256MiB
