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

ASUS RADEON X1950 Crossfire Edition
Brand	ASUS
Model	RADEON X1950 Crossfire Edition
Graphics Chip	R580
Graphics Memory Type	GDDR4
Memory (MB)	512
Graphics Core Clock (MHz)	650
Memory Clock (MHz)	2000
Memory Speed (ns)	1.0
RAMDAC Frequency (MHz)	Dual 400
Active Cooling on Graphics Chip	Yes
Heatsink on Memory	Yes
Video Capture	Yes
Ports
Dual Monitor Support	Yes
VGA Out	HDMI, DVI-I
Video In and Out	S-Video Out
Package and Support
Printed Manual	Yes
Driver CD	Yes
Performance Tool Software	Overdrive
Major Games	Snowblind, Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter
Major Software	None
VR Glasses	No
DVD Player Software	None
Video Recording Software	ASUS Video Security Online

• 512-bit Ring Bus memory controller
• 256-bit memory
• 650MHz core clock
• 2GHz memory clock
• 384 million transistors
• 80 nanometer process
• 16 ROPs
• 48 Pixel Shader Processors
• 8 Vertex Shader Processors
• DirectX 9.0c
• Pixel Shader 3.0
• Vertex Shader 3.0
• HDR
• Up to 6x MSAA
• Up to 16x AF
• Crossfire Edition

ATI introduced the X1800XT card in late 2005. This card was their first Shader Model 3.0 chipset and featured 16 Pixel Pipelines, 8 Vertex Shader Pipelines. The card was quickly followed by the X1900XTX card which featured 48 Pixel Shader Processors, and 384 million transistors.

Card shot

The main features of the X1950 I've covered in various other ATI X19xx series card reviews over the last year and I won't regurgitate it now. The key features of the X1950 series include 16 ROPs (Outputted Pixels) and 48 Pixel Shader Processors. The X1950XTX has 8 Vertex Shader Processors. The X1K series was the first ATI cards to support Pixel Shader 3.0 and Vertex Shader 3.0. The X1950XTX has a 512-bit Ring bus memory controller. What this means is that the memory is internally read through a 512-bit bus. Externally, the card has a 256-bit memory bus.

One of the key differences between the NVIDIA cards and ATI cards is the ability of the ATI cards to run games with High Dynamic Range Lighting+Anti-Aliasing at the same time. NVIDIA 8800 series cards have the capability, but earlier NVIDIA cards do not. The X1950XTX can do up to 6x MSAA and 16x AF.

The big push at the moment is Windows Vista which requires a video card with Pixel Shader 2.0 or better to run the new Aero Glass GUI. NVIDIA's 8800GTX and 8800GTS cards are the only ones that support Pixel Shader 4.0 on current cards. At the moment, there are no DirectX 10 games that would take advantage of the new features, so Pixel Shader 3.0 cards are still relevant.

ATI's multiple GPU implementation is called Crossfire. They introduced Crossfire in late 2005. Today, Crossfire is supported on Intel boards as well. Unfortunately, it hasn't really taken off, as less than 5% of the multiple GPU systems on the market today have two ATI cards. The competition, SLI from NVIDIA controls well over 90% of the multiple-GPU market.