Sapphire Ultimate X1950 Pro 256mb PCI-E

Introduction

With the release of ATI/AMD's R600 graphics card range being 'slightly' delayed, several ATI AIB partners have taken it upon themselves to give the current X1950 Pro specification a bit of a refresh using some good 'ol fashioned overclocking and uprated cooling.

Today we'll be taking a look at Sapphire's flagship X1950 Pro. With a core speed of 580mhz, memory running at 1600mhz and uprated cooling, will this be enough to keep the ATI fans loyal until the R600 makes an appearance?


Specification

The following information has been shamelessly copied from Sapphire's website:

The ULTIMATE Champion of the Mainstream Gaming Targeting the enthusiast with near-silent cooling and jaw-dropping performance, Sapphire delivers adrenaline inducing features to the mainstream with the ULTIMATE ATI RADEON™ X1950 PRO. The SAPPHIRE ULTIMATE ATI RADEON™ X1950 PRO promises to awaken the senses with blistering frame rates and awe-inspiring graphics while not interfering with your senses due to the use of its near-silent ULTIMATE cooling solution. Free your imagination from the shackles of PC hardware limitations while remaining affordable with the latest edition to the Sapphire ULTIMATE family. The Sapphire X1950 PRO makes for a welcome addition to the family with its robust hardware offerings such as: the industry acclaimed X1950 GPU, 256MB of GDDR3 of onboard memory, CrossFire support, DirectX and OpenGL acceleration along with enhanced support for the Windows Vista™ 3D environment. Experience the price vs. performance champion with the Sapphire ULTIMATE X1950 PRO! Hot Features ATI RADEON™ X1950 PRO core (580MHz) 256MB GDDR3 onboard memory (1600MHz) Windows Vista™ 3D environment Support Near-Silent Cooling Solution 256-bit Memory Bus PCI Express x16 / CrossFire support Full Version Software: Just Cause Video Acceleration of: MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, WMV9, VC-1, and H.264 Dual DVI Tv-Out

And for those of us interested in some of the cards more technical specs...

Features • 36 pixel shader processors • 8 vertex shader processors • Up to 256-bit 8 channel GDDR3 memory interface • Native PCI Express® x16 bus interface • Plug-and-play (native) CrossFire™ Shader Technology • Support for Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 programmable vertex and pixel shaders in hardware. • Shader Model 3.0 vertex and pixel shader support: o Full speed 32-bit floating point processing o High dynamic range rendering with floating point blending and anti-aliasing support o High performance dynamic branching and flow control • Complete feature set also supported in OpenGL® 2.0 Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering • 2x/4x/6x Anti-Aliasing modes: o Sparse multi-sample algorithm with gamma correction, programmable sample patterns, and centroid sampling o New Adaptive Anti-Aliasing mode o Temporal Anti-Aliasing • Lossless Color Compression (up to 6:1) at all resolutions, up to and including widescreen HDTV • 2x/4x/8x/16x Anisotropic Filtering modes: o Up to 128-tap texture filtering o Adaptive algorithm with performance and quality options • Improved rendering with higher subpixel precision and LOD computation levels o New rotational high quality rendering mode 3Dc+™ — Advanced Texture Compression • High quality 4:1 compression for normal maps and luminance maps • Works with any single-channel or two-channel data format Ring Bus Memory Controller • Programmable arbitration logic maximizes memory efficiency, software upgradeable • New fully associative texture, color, and Z cache design • Hierarchical Z-Buffer with Early Z Test • Lossless Z-Buffer Compression (up to 48:1) • Fast Z-Buffer Clear • Z Cache optimized for real-time shadow rendering • Optimized for performance at high display resolutions, up to and including widescreen HDTV Avivo™ Video and Display Engine • New advanced video capabilities, including high fidelity gamma, color correction and scaling • Dual independent display controllers that support true 30 bits per pixel throughout the display pipe • Full symmetry on both heads • Each display interface supports display resolutions beyond 2560x1600 • Advanced DVI capabilities, including 10-bit, 16-bit HDR output • YPrPb component output for direct drive of HDTV displays • Seamless integration of pixel shaders with video in real time • MPEG1/2/4 decode and encode acceleration: • DXVA support o Hardware motion compensation, iDCT, DCT and color space conversion • All-format DTV/HDTV decoding • Adaptive per-pixel de-interlacing and frame rate conversion (temporal filtering) CrossFire™ • Multi-GPU technology • Four modes of operation: o Alternate frame rendering for maximum performance o Supertiling for optimal load-balancing o Scissoring for compatibility o Super AA for maximum image quality • Native CrossFire support simplifies setup by requiring no dedicated slave or master hardware • 24-bit CrossFire connection enables high resolutions and refresh rates • Supports the broadest range of platforms for both Intel and AMD

The Sapphire X1950Pro Ultimate makes use of Samsung's K4J55323QG GDDR3 modules rated at 1.4ns. These generally have fairly good overclock potential, and as we can see from the specifications above, Sapphire have already pushed these from the ATI's stock speed of 1380mhz up to 1600mhz. Sapphire have chosen not to overclock the core past the stock speed of 580mhz, which is strange considering the upgraded Zalman cooling on the card.


Packaging

Most modern graphics cards tend to come in cardboard boxes complete with some kind of flashy graphics on the front. However, Sapphire have gone for a more practical and equally attractive approach by placing the card inside frosted plastic packaging. This allows for any pottential buyers to get a good look at the graphics card and its non-stock cooling solution.