X1950 Pro AGP is coming!

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: zodder

my *Sapphire* x1950p/512 works *fine* with exactly 18a on the 12v rail ... but i can't O/C at all

Are you using the latest Catalyst drivers (7.xx)? If so, install the 6.12 drivers instead. It gets rid of the flickering screen and lets you overclock your card. I had the same problem, and the 6.12 drivers took care of it and my card is currently running 621/749.

i had 6.12 ... i can O/C with the very latest Cats ... also ... the OC renders my rig *unstable*

if i also try to run with my CPU OC'd to 3.31 Ghz it is also unstable ... so i backed doen my 2.80c to 3.2Ghz --almost no performance difference and it is *stable*]

it really *needs* 30a on the 12v rail ... and i will upgrade my PS when i can afford a 1,000 watter for my next xfire rig
-- but use it in my rig now, why not?

 

[MustangSVT]

any good deals on this card yet?

 

[mismajor99]

I've been slowly going from game to game to see how my performance compares. Yesterday I swung by BestBuy (Since Gamestop has just about the lousiest PC gaming section in the world) and I picked up Rainbow Six Vegas and Darkstar One(Yeah, I'm a huge Sci-fi Sim fan...). I was really gunning for Vegas though to see how it ran, and for the most part it's looks pretty but the controls just don't seem to be optimized for the PC(I figured this though being that it's a port from the 360). Right now, I'm trying to lower down the haze effect that the game puts off, and sharpen and brighten it up a bit. Any suggestions? Or is this just the look and feel of the game?

Also, I got around to Oblivion and cranked up my settings and it runs very smoooooth compared to my X850. Now, time for HL2.

I can't seem to get past one game a day because I start getting into each one with my new card All in all, I didn't think that I would see much of a jump in visuals, but it's pretty evident now that this card absolutely buries my old card.

 

[Paratus]

I got my X1950PRO

It's a Diamond Viper X1950PRO 512MB

I have not installed it yet.

The card itself is obviously made by Sapphire as the PCB is blue, extra tall, with two molex connectors on the front end. The cooler is the same as the Sapphire model except the cover is clear. It's the single slot cooler with ~ 32 aluminum ducts, and a copper plate over the core. The memory is attached to the cooler by thick thermal tape.

The bundle is sparse with 2 DVI to VGA adpaters, a 9pin to component adapter, s-video & RCA cable & svideo to RCA adapter. The software looks to be Cat vs 7.1 and a bonus software CD which I haven't checked yet. It DOES NOT have the Rage Theater chip so NO VIVO. (Amazon and the Diamond Viper page says it does)

The box recommends 38A on the 12V rail . Hopefully my new Enermax Liberty 500W will be able to handle it (32A total across 12V1 & 12V2 each with an individual max of 22A)

BTW any P4 Prescott owners know how high is a safe voltage to OC to? My 3.2E will do 3.6 at stock but can't quite boot to windows at 3.8.

 

[hellokeith]

The HIS 512MB version is back in stock at NewEgg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814161069

Go figure, I wait a few months to buy one, and the 512 was out of stock, so I got the 256. Oh well, I took the $40 difference and applied it to a 250GB hard drive.

edit: probably doesn't matter, my flat panel max is 1280x1024@75Hz, so I'd never push enough pixels to fill up more than 256MB of vram.

 

[dainthomas]

Originally posted by: Paratus
I got my X1950PRO

It's a Diamond Viper X1950PRO 512MB

I have not installed it yet.

The card itself is obviously made by Sapphire as the PCB is blue, extra tall, with two molex connectors on the front end. The cooler is the same as the Sapphire model except the cover is clear. It's the single slot cooler with ~ 32 aluminum ducts, and a copper plate over the core. The memory is attached to the cooler by thick thermal tape.

The bundle is sparse with 2 DVI to VGA adpaters, a 9pin to component adapter, s-video & RCA cable & svideo to RCA adapter. The software looks to be Cat vs 7.1 and a bonus software CD which I haven't checked yet. It DOES NOT have the Rage Theater chip so NO VIVO. (Amazon and the Diamond Viper page says it does)

The box recommends 38A on the 12V rail . Hopefully my new Enermax Liberty 500W will be able to handle it (32A total across 12V1 & 12V2 each with an individual max of 22A)

BTW any P4 Prescott owners know how high is a safe voltage to OC to? My 3.2E will do 3.6 at stock but can't quite boot to windows at 3.8.

My NeoHE 550 has 18A each on 3 12V rails. Makes me kind of nervous about ordering this card if it'll have problems.

 

[Toad21]

It can be obtained right now for about 230$ from newegg. The same card in PCI-express is about 160$ though, so you could buy a PCI express mobo and the PCI express version of the card for the same price.

 

[zcubed]

Originally posted by: Toad21
It can be obtained right now for about 230$ from newegg. The same card in PCI-express is about 160$ though, so you could buy a PCI express mobo and the PCI express version of the card for the same price.

then throw in a new cpu, ram and mayhaps hdds. comes to way more than just a new gfx card and mobo lol.

 

[Stumps]

Originally posted by: zodder

my *Sapphire* x1950p/512 works *fine* with exactly 18a on the 12v rail ... but i can't O/C at all

Are you using the latest Catalyst drivers (7.xx)? If so, install the 6.12 drivers instead. It gets rid of the flickering screen and lets you overclock your card. I had the same problem, and the 6.12 drivers took care of it and my card is currently running 621/749.

I have the same problem with my Sapphire, I'm using the 6.12 and I can get it to Auto overdriver upto 625/745 but after a short while it starts to artifact and becomes unstable....I tried backing down the card and found that 590/720 was the maximum stable limit for my card....but the Sapphire is already plenty fast at stock speeds so I figured it's not worth risking the card for such a small overclock, so I run it stock and it performs great.

It doesn't worry me much because normally I don't overclock my Video cards....only recently did I begin again after getting some great results from my BFG 7800GS OC.

 

[GEOrifle]

Sapphire does have PSU requirements 30A on single rail and 20A on dual.
Does HIS IceQ3 have same req's or different?( Connections aren't same).
I sended email to HIS but they didn't answer to me. HIS site doesn't shows nothing about.
Anyone knows it ?

 

[Assimilator1]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: SickBeast
I would get one but I think my CPU is too weak for it...

I only have an XP3200.

I have bad news ... for your wallet

it is an decent match ... especially if you can get a little O/C on it

anything over a ~P4 3Ghz is OK ... especially if you are already getting decent FPS but would like *details* and eyecandy turned up.

I'll sound a word of caution here ,my main rig is an XPM 2500 @2.5GHz (178FSB) ,for the few modern(ish) games that I play (HL2 ,Guild Wars & NFS UG2) my CPU is only just fast enough in the more 'active' moments.
Except in one scene of HL2 (when your in the boat fighting a helicopter) the explosions bought my rig down to a 'fast' slide show (so far thats the only scene that's done that ,not finished the game yet).

When I upgraded from the 9700 Pro to the X800 XT I was able to run at higher res & details but in some of the 'more active moments' it still slowed down.
Possibly some of this is down to my 'low' FSB (though its on tight timings of 2.5-2-2) ,so I wouldn't of thought it'd make a huge difference?
Btw I've got 1GB of RAM ,& I'm fairly sure it wasn't swap file activity

I'm not too worried anyway as the X800 XT will go in my S754 rig when I upgrade this rig to C2D ,but if it was my only rig I'd be somewhat annoyed that I still got slow downs after spending £££ (& its a lot cheaper than a 1950 too).

Here's a rare article comparing an XPM @ 2.37GHz vs Ath64 3000 vs a P4 3GHz HT

An XP 3200 is about as fast as a P4 2.8 GHz going by old AT & THG reviews (depending on the game etc).

Sickbeast
One way to be certain is to benchmark the games you'll want to play on your current card with the res & details very low & see what the minimium FPS is using FRAPS.(chances are the game won't show min FPS but average)

 

[anindrew]

Hi everybody!

I'm very tempted to buy one of these new X1950 AGP cards so I can get a little more gaming life out of my system. I'm wondering is it really worth it to buy one with 512MB over one with 256MB?

System specs:
AMD Athlon64 3500+
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
2GB Corsair Ballistix PC3200 DDR
Evga Geforce 6800GT
WD 74GB Raptor
SB Audigy2 ZS
500W power supply

 

[GEOrifle]

Are you going use 500w PSU for it?
Single rail recommended over 30A, dual-20A each.
I have dual 12v rail with 18A on each and fearing to buy it.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: anindrew
Hi everybody!

I'm very tempted to buy one of these new X1950 AGP cards so I can get a little more gaming life out of my system. I'm wondering is it really worth it to buy one with 512MB over one with 256MB?

System specs:
AMD Athlon64 3500+
MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum
2GB Corsair Ballistix PC3200 DDR
Evga Geforce 6800GT
WD 74GB Raptor
SB Audigy2 ZS
500W power supply

Get 512mb. It will make a big difference in games like Crysis for sure.

 

[hellokeith]

You only need the 512MB if you will be gaming in resolutions 1600 x 1200 or higher.

 

[zcubed]

go with a 256mb one if ur worried about the psu being low.

 

[MemberSince97]

I've been running it on a thermaltake 430/ 18a single rail for 3 1/2 months no problems at all in gaming. The only problem seems to be with Flash sites, I get the black screens, that lock up quite frequently. My 1950 is a PCI-e though.

 

[GEOrifle]

Originally posted by: zcubed
go with a 256mb one if ur worried about the psu being low.

How i see you got Sapphire with 512mb, what's your PSU spec's?
Have any problems?

 

[anindrew]

My power supply is a 500w Dynex (Best Buy brand). It appears to have 18a on the 12v rails. Interestingly, it has the PCI-E power connector, too. So, if I bought one of the HIS cards, I should be able to just plug that sucker right in there. If not, I have two free normal power connectors. I'm not horribly worried about the power supply.

My monitor is a CRT that can go up to 1792x1344. Usually I game at 1280x1024, but if the card can handle gaming at higher resolutions, I'd certainly try it. Perhaps the 512MB versions could be worth it for me, then. I'll have to keep my eye out for a good deal on one.

 

[zcubed]

Originally posted by: GEOrifle

Originally posted by: zcubed
go with a 256mb one if ur worried about the psu being low.

How i see you got Sapphire with 512mb, what's your PSU spec's?
Have any problems?

i have dual 12V rails with 18A on one and 20A on the other. however i havent tried overclocking because i use the omegas based on 7.1 catalysts. those drivers dont let u overclock at all. i dont seem to be having any problems with any games except B&W2: Battle of the Gods which refuses to run more than a few seconds. but its a buggy game so i dont think its my psu.

 

[apoppin]

there is no patch for B&W2's BotG

it is as buggys as B&W2 was before it was patched

too bad ... i tried playing thru it more than twice ... then gave up
it IS worth a replay except for the bugs

try lowering all your settings ... and save ... a lot

 

[Paratus]

Well bad news for me.

I installed my Diamond X1950PRO 512 today. Hooked up both molexs and ran some tests.

3DM03 jumped to 14700 from 4500 with my 9600XT
3DM05 jumped to 7200 from 2200
3Dm06 crashed at the first SM3.0 test

Voltage on my PSU was good when it crashed. My digital mulitimeter showed a drop of .05V from 12.02 to 11.97 volts when the test started.

I later down loaded ATI Tool and checked the temps. It crashed during the artifact scan at 70C. I did not see anything in 3Dmark however.
I upped the fan speed to 100% and that prevented it from crashing but I got lots of artifacts. It then crashed when I aborted out.

The rate at which the temps climb makes me think the cooler is not seated well on the GPU.

Any thoughts at what else I might try?

The card was gift and bought through Amazon.

 

[Assimilator1]

If you underclock the GPU by 50MHz does it stop the artifacts in ATITool?
Voltages are good anyway.

Originally posted by: apoppin

try lowering all your settings ... and save ... a lot

lol

 

[hellokeith]

Got my HIS x1950 Pro 256MB AGP today.

Man this card is huge! I had to reposition a hard drive because of the card length. My Enermax Noisetaker 485w has a single PCIe power cable which connected nicely.

Played 30 minutes of BF2 1280x960@75 all settings High, View Distance 100%, and 6x anti-aliasing. Also had vertical sync on in the CCC. It worked well. There were a few slowdowns here and there, so I may reduce the AA to 4x. But otherwise, no issues. Played a few 1080p WMVHD files, worked fine.

 

[GEOrifle]

Originally posted by: Paratus
Well bad news for me.

I installed my Diamond X1950PRO 512 today. Hooked up both molexs and ran some tests.

3DM03 jumped to 14700 from 4500 with my 9600XT
3DM05 jumped to 7200 from 2200
3Dm06 crashed at the first SM3.0 test

Voltage on my PSU was good when it crashed. My digital mulitimeter showed a drop of .05V from 12.02 to 11.97 volts when the test started.

I later down loaded ATI Tool and checked the temps. It crashed during the artifact scan at 70C. I did not see anything in 3Dmark however.
I upped the fan speed to 100% and that prevented it from crashing but I got lots of artifacts. It then crashed when I aborted out.

The rate at which the temps climb makes me think the cooler is not seated well on the GPU.

Any thoughts at what else I might try?

The card was gift and bought through Amazon.

I guess it's a powwer supply, you have Coolmax Tarus 400W which is below req's.
Req's: 450w PSU with single rail over 30A, dual -20A each.