Fortunately, the turnover in the graphics card market has helped push prices on the Radeon X1900 GT well below three hundred bucks in some places, potentially making it a good value for the sharp-eyed enthusiast who can snag one for the right price. But where, exactly, does the Radeon X1900 GT fit into the performance landscape? We’ve tested a lot of graphics cards, but somehow, we’ve never managed to get our hands on a Radeon X1900 GTuntil now. The folks at Connect3D were nice enough to let us coax a Radeon X1900 GT out of them on the eve of its replacement, and we’ve run it through an enlightening gauntlet of synthetic and real-world tests to see how it compares to, oh, fifteen or so competing graphics solutions.
So what really happens when the Radeon X1900 GT shakes its 36 pixel shaders at a very healthy 575MHz? Can it keep up with potent newcomers like the GeForce 7900 GS? We’re about to find out.
Radeon X1900 GT: the R580 at 75%
Like a lot of cards in this price range, the Radeon X1900 GT is based on a hobbled version of a high-end GPU. The same R580 graphics processor that powers the uber-fast Radeon X1900 XTX lies under the sleek, single-slot cooler of the X1900 GT, but in this implementation, about a quarter of the R580’s functional units have been disabled for the sake of product segmentation. This shader-ectomy leaves the X1900 GT with 36 pixel shader processors, 12 texture address units, 12 Z-compare units, and 12 render back-ends. The X1900 GT can manage a maximum of 384 concurrent threads, down from 512 in the stock R580, as well. One area where the X1900 GT hasn’t been hobbled is vertex shader units; all eight of those remain intact.
The end result of ATI’s fiddling with its GPU is still a pretty formidable video card. For its version of the X1900 GT, Connect3D clocks the GPU core at 575MHz and mates it with 256MB of GDDR3 memory running at 600MHzspeeds right in line with ATI’s recommended specs. That combo leaves the Radeon X1900 GT with 6.9 billion texels per second of fill ratebasically the ability to paint textured pixels on the screenand 38.4GB/s of memory bandwidth.
Compare that to the GeForce 7900 GS, which can deliver up to 9 gigatexels/s of fill rate and has 42.2GB/s of memory bandwidth at its stock clock speeds. The Radeon X1900 GT has less peak fill rate, but it makes up the deficit in other waysespecially by having lots of computational power in those 36 pixel shader units. As games use more advanced shading techniques, computational throughput tends to matter more than fill rate, so this is no small thing.
Of course, handicapping the comparative power of the Radeon X1900 GT and its competition from the green team can get tricky in a hurry. The current GPU architectures from ATI and Nvidia are sufficiently different that one can’t directly compare the 20 pixel shader units in the GeForce 7900 GS with the 36 units in the X1900 GT. Experience tells us that Nvidia’s pixel shader units tend to achieve more throughput per clock than ATI’s, but that will depend greatly on many things, including the mix of instructions being executed. Also, one of the two main ALUs in the current Nvidia pixel shader unit splits time between executing shader code and handling texturing, while the R580 has separate and independent texture units. Perhaps the best thing one can do in this situation is simply test performancewhich is exactly what we’ve done.
Before we move on to the test results, we should take a quick look at Connect3D’s version of the Radeon X1900 GT. As you can see, this card comes with the same cooler that also adorns the Radeons X1800 GTO and X1800 XL. This is a much more substantial cooler than the ones you’ll find on many new GeForce cards; its blower sends air through the ducted enclosure across an array of very fine copper fins.
The card features dual DVI ports and full video input and output capabilities. Connect3D packages the X1900 GT with a reasonably complete set of cables to take advantage of these abilities, including a composite/S-Video I/O combo cable and a component output cable. They also throw in extender cables for component and S-Video, a power splitter, and a couple of DVI-to-VGA plug adapters. Connect3D hasn’t bundled any games with the card, but they haven’t skimped on the key hardware accessories, which is the more important thing in my book.
Test notes
First, I should note that although the Radeon X1900 GT is capable of running in a CrossFire configuration with a much more expensive Radeon X1900 XT-class CrossFire card, that card must disable half of its memory in order to pair with the GT. Given the drawbacks, we elected not to test the X1900 GT in this configuration. We simply wouldn’t consider it a good value or a smart config. ATI has also enabled “masterless” or “connectorless” CrossFire on the X1900 GT in a recent driver update, but we didn’t have a second X1900 GT on hand to test this config. Connectorless CrossFire passes data between the two cards solely via PCI Express, which exacts something of a performance penalty, but that penalty might not be too bad for a mid-range card like this one.
We did run into a few snags in our testing, although none of them affected the Radeon X1900 GT. Most notably, when we tried to run a pair of GeForce 7600 GT cards in SLI, we encountered some odd image artifacts that we couldn’t make go away. The image artifacts didn’t appear to affect performance, so we’ve included results for the GeForce 7600 GT in SLI. If we find a resolution for the problem and performance changes, we’ll update the scores in this article.
Also, the 3DMark06 test results for the Radeon X1950 XTX CrossFire system were obtained using an Asus P5W DH motherboard, for reasons explained here. Otherwise, we used the test systems as described below.
Our testing methods
As ever, we did our best to deliver clean benchmark numbers. Tests were run at least three times, and the results were averaged.
Our test systems were configured like so:
Processor | Core 2 Extreme X6800 2.93GHz | Core 2 Extreme X6800 2.93GHz |
System bus | 1066MHz (266MHz quad-pumped) | 1066MHz (266MHz quad-pumped) |
Motherboard | Asus P5N32-SLI Deluxe | Intel D975XBX |
BIOS revision | 0204 | BX97510J.86A.1073.2006.0427.1210 |
North bridge | nForce4 SLI X16 Intel Edition | 975X MCH |
South bridge | nForce4 MCP | ICH7R |
Chipset drivers | ForceWare 6.86 | INF Update 7.2.2.1007 Intel Matrix Storage Manager 5.5.0.1035 |
Memory size | 2GB (2 DIMMs) | 2GB (2 DIMMs) |
Memory type | Corsair TWIN2X2048-8500C5 DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz | Corsair TWIN2X2048-8500C5 DDR2 SDRAM at 800MHz |
CAS latency (CL) | 4 | 4 |
RAS to CAS delay (tRCD) | 4 | 4 |
RAS precharge (tRP) | 4 | 4 |
Cycle time (tRAS) | 15 | 15 |
Hard drive | Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB SATA 150 | Maxtor DiamondMax 10 250GB SATA 150 |
Audio | Integrated nForce4/ALC850 with Realtek 5.10.0.6150 drivers | Integrated ICH7R/STAC9221D5 with SigmaTel 5.10.5143.0 drivers |
Graphics | Radeon X1800 GTO 256MB PCI-E with Catalyst 8.282-060802a-035722C-ATI drivers |
Radeon X1900 XTX 512MB PCI-E + Radeon X1900 CrossFire with Catalyst 8.282-060802a-035515C-ATI drivers |
Radeon X1900 GT 256MB PCI-E with Catalyst 8.282-060802a-035722C-ATI drivers |
Radeon X1950 XTX 512MB PCI-E + Radeon X1950 CrossFire with Catalyst 8.282-060802a-03584E-ATI drivers |
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Radeon X1900 XT 256MB PCI-E with Catalyst 8.282-060802a-03584E-ATI drivers |
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Radeon X1900 XTX 512MB PCI-E with Catalyst 8.282-060802a-03584E-ATI drivers |
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Radeon X1950 XTX 512MB PCI-E with Catalyst 8.282-060802a-03584E-ATI drivers |
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BFG GeForce 7600 GT OC 256MB PCI-E with ForceWare 91.47 drivers |
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Dual BFG GeForce 7600 GT OC 256MB PCI-E with ForceWare 91.47 drivers |
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XFX GeForce 7900 GS 256MB PCI-E with ForceWare 91.47 drivers |
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Dual XFX GeForce 7900 GS 256MB PCI-E with ForceWare 91.47 drivers |
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GeForce 7900 GT 256MB PCI-E with ForceWare 91.31 drivers |
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Dual GeForce 7900 GT 256MB PCI-E with ForceWare 91.31 drivers |
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GeForce 7900 GTX 512MB PCI-E with ForceWare 91.31 drivers |
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Dual GeForce 7900 GTX 512MB PCI-E with ForceWare 91.31 drivers |
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GeForce 7950 GX2 1GB PCI-E with ForceWare 91.31 drivers |
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OS | Windows XP Professional (32-bit) | |
OS updates | Service Pack 2, DirectX 9.0c update (August 2006) |
Thanks to Corsair for providing us with memory for our testing. Their quality, service, and support are easily superior to no-name DIMMs.
Our test systems were powered by OCZ GameXStream 700W power supply units. Thanks to OCZ for providing these units for our use in testing.
Unless otherwise specified, image quality settings for the graphics cards were left at the control panel defaults.
The test systems’ Windows desktops were set at 1280×960 in 32-bit color at an 85Hz screen refresh rate. Vertical refresh sync (vsync) was disabled for all tests.
We used the following versions of our test applications:
- Quake 4 1.3 with trdm1 netdemo
- The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion 1.1
- Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 1.21
- F.E.A.R. 1.07
- Half-Life 2: Episode One with trdem1 demo
- FutureMark 3DMark06 Build 1.02
- FRAPS 2.7.2
The tests and methods we employ are generally publicly available and reproducible. If you have questions about our methods, hit our forums to talk with us about them.
Pixel-filling power
We’ve already discussed the X1900 GT’s fill rate, how it matches up with the GeForce 7900 GS, and how pixel filling power is becoming less important as programmable shaders become more prevalent. You can see in more detail below how the X1900 GT matches up specs-wise to many of today’s video cards.
Core clock (MHz) |
Pixels/ clock |
Peak fill rate (Mpixels/s) |
Textures/ clock |
Peak fill rate (Mtexels/s) |
Effective memory clock (MHz) |
Memory bus width (bits) |
Peak memory bandwidth (GB/s) |
|
Radeon X1650 Pro | 600 | 4 | 2400 | 4 | 2400 | 1400 | 128 | 22.4 |
GeForce 7600 GT | 560 | 8 | 4480 | 12 | 6720 | 1400 | 128 | 22.4 |
All-In-Wonder X1900 | 500 | 16 | 8000 | 16 | 8000 | 960 | 256 | 30.7 |
Radeon X1800 GTO | 500 | 12 | 6000 | 12 | 6000 | 1000 | 256 | 32.0 |
GeForce 7800 GT | 400 | 16 | 6400 | 20 | 8000 | 1000 | 256 | 32.0 |
Radeon X1800 XL | 500 | 16 | 8000 | 16 | 8000 | 1000 | 256 | 32.0 |
GeForce 7800 GTX | 430 | 16 | 6880 | 24 | 10320 | 1200 | 256 | 38.4 |
Radeon X1900 GT | 575 | 12 | 6900 | 12 | 6900 | 1200 | 256 | 38.4 |
GeForce 7900 GS | 450 | 16 | 7200 | 20 | 9000 | 1320 | 256 | 42.2 |
GeForce 7900 GT | 450 | 16 | 7200 | 24 | 10800 | 1320 | 256 | 42.2 |
BFG GeForce 7900 GS OC | 525 | 16 | 8400 | 20 | 10500 | 1320 | 256 | 42.2 |
XFX GeForce 7900 GS 480 XT | 480 | 16 | 7680 | 20 | 9600 | 1400 | 256 | 44.8 |
GeForce 7950 GT | 550 | 16 | 8800 | 24 | 13200 | 1400 | 256 | 44.8 |
BFG GeForce 7950 GT OC | 565 | 16 | 9040 | 24 | 13560 | 1430 | 256 | 45.8 |
Radeon X1900 XT | 625 | 16 | 10000 | 16 | 10000 | 1450 | 256 | 46.4 |
Radeon X1800 XT | 625 | 16 | 10000 | 16 | 10000 | 1500 | 256 | 48.0 |
Radeon X1900 XTX | 650 | 16 | 10400 | 16 | 10400 | 1550 | 256 | 49.6 |
GeForce 7900 GTX | 650 | 16 | 10400 | 24 | 15600 | 1600 | 256 | 51.2 |
GeForce 7800 GTX 512 | 550 | 16 | 8800 | 24 | 13200 | 1700 | 256 | 54.4 |
Radeon X1950 XTX | 650 | 16 | 10400 | 16 | 10400 | 2000 | 256 | 64.0 |
GeForce 7950 GX2 | 2 * 500 | 32 | 16000 | 48 | 24000 | 1200 | 2 * 256 | 76.8 |
Of course, specs are one thing, and delivered performance is another. We can measure the pixel and texel fill rate using 3DMark’s simple synthetic tests.
Few of the cards achieve anything close to their peak pixel fill rates here, but they do tend to come close to their peak texel rates. The Radeon X1900 GT makes good on nearly all of its 6.9 gigatexels per second, but that still leaves it in GeForce 7600 GT territory. Fortunately, raw fill rate isn’t everything, as the X1900 GT is about to demonstrate.
Quake 4
In order to make sure we pushed the video cards as hard as possible, we enabled Quake 4’s multiprocessor support before testing.
The X1900 GT produces just borderline playable frame rates in Quake 4 at 1600×1200 at High Quality with 4X AA, slightly behind the GeForce 7900 GS. My seat-of-the-pants evaluation says the single-player game is more or less playable on the X1900 GT at 1600×1200 with those settings, but it’s a little iffy. Dropping back to 2X antialiasing makes things feel smooth enough. For deathmatch, though, I’d probably want to run at a lower resolution.
F.E.A.R.
We’ve used FRAPS to play through a sequence in F.E.A.R. in the past, but this time around, we’re using the game’s built-in “test settings” benchmark for a quick, repeatable comparison.
If it’s average frame rate you’re watching, the Radeon X1900 GT runs neck and neck with the GeForce 7900 GS, delivering near-identical results. However, the median low frame rates show some separation between the cards in favor of the GeForce. Both cards deliver what look to be borderline playable frame rates at 1280×960 with these very high quality settings, though, with only four frames per second between them. Fortunately, I found that the X1900 GT played the first few levels of F.E.A.R. pretty well at 1280×960 with these settings.
Half-Life 2: Episode One
The Source game engine uses an integer data format for its high-dynamic-range rendering, which allows all of the cards here to combine HDR rendering with 4X antialiasing.
Impressively, the X1900 GT proves to be faster than both the GeForce 7900 GS and the 7900 GT in Half-Life 2: Episode One. The only place where this difference might matter is at 2048×1536, where both cards actually feel pretty close to running the game smoothly, despite their iffy frame rate averages above.
We tested Oblivion by manually playing through a specific point in the game five times while recording frame rates using the FRAPS utility. Each gameplay sequence lasted 60 seconds. This method has the advantage of simulating real gameplay quite closely, but it comes at the expense of precise repeatability. We believe five sample sessions are sufficient to get reasonably consistent and trustworthy results. In addition to average frame rates, we’ve included the low frames rates, because those tend to reflect the user experience in performance-critical situations. In order to diminish the effect of outliers, we’ve reported the median of the five low frame rates we encountered.
We set Oblivion’s graphical quality settings to “Ultra High.” The screen resolution was set to 1600×1200 resolution, with HDR lighting enabled. 16X anisotropic filtering was forced on via the cards’ driver control panels.
Oblivion isn’t really a twitch action game, for the most part, so you might get away with running at Ultra Quality and 1600×1200, as we did for this test. I’d probably drop down to a lower resolution or quality setting with the X1900 GT, though. The GeForce 7900 GS is in the same boat, with slightly lower average and minimum frame rates than the X1900 GT.
Fortunately, having a Radeon gives you better options on the quality front. I’ve mentioned it before, but it holds true for the X1900 GT: the ATI cards’ visuals simply look better in this game thanks to a superior anisotropic filtering algorithm that produces less texture sparkle, moire, and other forms of high-frequency noise, especially on the cobblestone streets of the city. This difference isn’t so apparent in every area of every game, but it was pronounced in our experience with Oblivion. The Radeon X1000 series can also run this game with both high-dynamic-range lighting (a must to get Oblivion’s full visual impact) and edge antialiasing enabled, thanks to a patched version of ATI’s drivers. Due to certain hardware limitations, current GeForce 7-series cards cannot.
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter
We tested GRAW with FRAPS, as well. We cranked up all of the quality settings for this game, with the exception of antialiasing. However, GRAW doesn’t allow cards with 256MB of memory to run with its highest texture quality setting, so those cards were all running at the game’s “Medium” texture quality.
The X1900 GT matches the GeForce 7900 GS step for step once again. Running GRAW at 1280×1024 with these quality settings is asking a bit much from the X1900 GT, but the same is true of the 7900 GS.
3DMark06
The X1900 GT affirms its ability to match up well against the GeForce 7900 GSand the 7900 GTby sweeping the 3DMark06 overall score across all four resolutions. The X1900 GT is faster in four of 3DMark06’s four sub-tests, the lone exception being Graphics Test 1, where the 7900 GS leads by less than one frame per second.
See, I told you it was complicated. Despite having 36 pixel shaders processors and a higher clock speed, the X1900 GT is edged out by the 7900 GS in 3DMark’s synthetic pixel shader test. This is just one test, but it demonstrates the difficulty of handicapping shader performance by looking at specs.
The X1900 GT turns the tables in the vertex shader tests, helped in part by its eight fully-functional vertex shader processors.
Power consumption
We measured total system power consumption at the wall socket using an Extech power analyzer model 380803. The monitor was plugged into a separate outlet, so its power draw was not part of our measurement. We tested all of the video cards using the Asus P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe motherboard, save for the CrossFire system, which required a different chipset. For that system, we used an Intel D975XBX motherboard.
The idle measurements were taken at the Windows desktop. The cards were tested under load running Oblivion using the game’s Ultra Quality setting at 1600×1200 resolution with 16X anisotropic filtering.
The X1900 GT’s idle power consumption isn’t bad, but it follows the trend of R580-based graphics cards chewing up quite a bit of power under load. In this case, the X1900 GT requires about 35 more Watts than the GeForce 7900 GS to run the same game at roughly the same performance level.
Noise levels
We measured noise levels on our test systems, sitting on an open test bench, using an Extech model 407727 digital sound level meter. The meter was mounted on a tripod approximately 14″ from the test system at a height even with the top of the video card. The meter was aimed at the very center of the test systems’ motherboards, so that no airflow from the CPU or video card coolers passed directly over the meter’s microphone.
You can think of these noise level measurements much like the system power consumption tests above, because the entire systems’ noise levels were measured, including CPU and chipset fans. We had temperature-based fan speed controls enabled on the motherboard, just as we would in a working system. We think that’s a fair method of measuring, since (to give one example) running a pair of cards in SLI will cause the motherboard’s coolers to work harder. The motherboard we used for all single-card and SLI configurations was the Asus P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe, which on our open test bench required an auxiliary chipset cooler. The Asus P5W DH Deluxe motherboard we used for CrossFire testing didn’t require a chipset cooler, so those systems were inherently a little bit quieter. In all cases, we used a Zalman CNPS9500 LED to cool the CPU.
Of course, noise levels will vary greatly in the real world along with the acoustic properties of the PC enclosure used, whether the enclosure provides adequate cooling to avoid a cards’ highest fan speeds, placement of the enclosure in the room, and a whole range of other variables. These results should give a reasonably good picture of comparative fan noise, though.
We measured the coolers at idle on the Windows desktop and under load while playing back our Quake 4 nettimedemo. The cards were given plenty of opportunity to heat up while playing back the demo multiple times. Still, in some cases, the coolers did not ramp up to their very highest speeds under load. The Radeon X1800 GTO and Radeon X1900 cards, for instance, could have been louder had they needed to crank up their blowers to top speed. Fortunately, that wasn’t necessary in this case, even after running a game for an extended period of time.
In spite of its higher power draw, the X1900 GT manages to turn in lower noise levels on the decibel meter. This is no fluke, either; our ears observed the same quiet performance from the X1900 GT.
I believe there are two main reasons for the X1900 GT’s subdued aural profile. First, the card’s cooler really is larger and more substantial than the one Nvidia supplies on its competing products in this class. Notice how the GeForce 7900 GTX, with a big, dual-slot cooler and the same power draw under load as the Radeon X1900 GT turns out to to be the quietest card of the bunch. Bigger, better coolers matter. Second, ATI and Connect3D allow this card to grow very hot before turning up the blower speed on the thing. The X1900 GT ran our Quake 4 torture test for quite a while without ever kicking its blower into high gear. That’s great for the ears, but don’t put your finger on the card, or you risk burning yourself.
At the end of the day, the Radeon X1900 GT performs virtually on par with the GeForce 7900 GS. The performance parity is really quite remarkable considering how different the two products are in many ways. You’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between the two in day-to-day use. I prefer ATI’s texture filtering algorithms to Nvidia’s, as I’ve noted, and ATI has an edge on a number of other picky image quality-related things, like the ability to do 16-bit floating-point texture filtering in combination with antialiasing. However, I would consider those features more consequential in a more expensive graphics solution, where turning up the image quality features in newer games exacts less of a performance penalty.
Unfortunately, we know less than we’d like to about the X1900 GT’s ability to serve as a component of a more expensive graphics solution, because we don’t have a second Radeon X1900 GT on hand to test “connectorless” CrossFire. We do know that the X1900 GT can work in a faster, cable-based CrossFire config alongside the much pricier Radeon X1900 CrossFire board, but that board would have to limit itself severely in order to operate in CrossFire with the X1900 GT. Practically any mid-range or better GeForce can operate with a peer in connector-based SLI mode with good performance scaling, but ATI’s current offerings on this front are more limited.
Beyond that, the X1900 GT has few drawbacks. It does draw more power when running a game than the 7900 GS, but that additional power didn’t directly translate into additional noise from the card’s cooler on our open test bench. In fact, the Radeon X1900 GT proved to be the quieter of the two cards under load.
Of course, all of these considerations lead us, inexorably, to the issue of price. The GeForce 7900 GS is selling now for between 199 and 229 bucks, give or take. The prevailing price of an X1900 GT is still about $269 at most online retailers. That’s too expensive. However, at least a few small vendors have the X1900 GT listed for closer to $229, and they may be showing us a glimpse of things to come. At least now, if prices do drop, you’ll know what kind of performance to expect for your money out of the Radeon X1900 GT.