ASUS EAX1950 Crossfire Edition Video Card Review :: ASUS EAX1950 Crossfire Edition Card

ASUS uses a very slightly modified version of the ATI reference PCB for the X1950 Crossfire Edition card. They changed the fin logo from ATI on the reference card to ASUS. The card is about the same size as a X1900XTX from the previous ATI cards and uses the same design layout as the X1950XTX card which is what this card is based upon.

The card has a large 13-fin fan that covers the rear of the front side of the card. This fan blows air over the heatsink that covers the graphics chip and the forward part of the front side of the card and blows it out through a grill. ATI also has fitted the card with a heatpipe that exits the top of the grill. This keeps the X1950 Crossfire Edition card cool under even the heaviest stresses.

The card has 8 64MB 1ns GDDR4 chips for memory. The memory is clocked at 2 GHz effective (1GHz actual but memory frequency is doubled for DDR and better memory). The X1950XTX was the first ATI card to sport DDR4 memory which is able to run at faster speeds, providing more memory bandwidth than DDR3 memory. The X1950 has a 256-bit memory bus, giving the card a memory bandwidth of 64GB/second.

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ATI PCI Express cards have always been designed to work with the PCI Express bus from the beginning, unlike their competition, NVIDIA, whose early PCI Express cards required a bridge chip. The X1950 Crossfire Edition card is a PCI Express x16 so don't bother installing it in an AGP slot. High-end video cards require a lot of power and the X1950 Crossfire Edition card has an auxiliary 6-pin power connector to provide it with extra power.

The bracket for the card is rather unique in that it needs to support ATI's Crossfire cable. The connection for the Crossfire cable a DVI-I connector and a TV-Out connector are present. To run in Crossfire mode you need to install a X1950XTX in the second PCI Express x16 slot on a Crossfire-ready motherboard and connect the cable to the Crossfire Edition card then loop the cable to the second X1950XTX.