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ATI Radeon X1900 XT 256MB Performance Preview August 23, 2006 |
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Summary: With the debut of the Radeon X1950 XTX, prices on the rest of ATI's lineup have now fallen. But ATI's decided to concoct something special to take down NVIDIA's popular GeForce 7900 GT GPU: the Radeon X1900 XT 256MB! The X1900 XT 256MB retains all the key features found in more expensive 512MB X1900 cards, only it has half the memory and a much lower $279 price tag. Join us as we explore the performance of this card in comparison to both stock and factory overclocked GeForce 7900 GT cards, and how much of a performance impact does 512MB of memory have on performance? Read the answers inside!
 Introduction | Page:: ( 1 / 17 ) |
Of the three, ATI’s first effort, the Radeon X1800 XL, was arguably their least successful attempt. The card never really got off the ground, early benchmarks of the card often pegged it below the GeForce 7800 GT in terms of performance, and by the time ATI resolved their availability issues with the Radeon X1800 XL, GeForce 7800 GT cards could be had for the same, if not less money. It also didn’t help that the Radeon X1800 XL ran noisy. In our Radeon X1800 XT/X1800 XL Performance Preview article we noted that the card even generated quite a bit of noise at times in the Windows desktop.
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ATI took these complaints to heart and instituted tweaks so that follow-up cards weren’t as noisy, and delivered performance increases with subsequent driver releases, but by then the damage had already been done and production of the Radeon X1800 XL quickly ended. ATI toyed with the idea of a 512MB Radeon X1800 XL but fortunately this proposed card never saw the light of day. Instead ATI ultimately handed the role of GeForce 7800/7900 GT-fighter to the Radeon X1800 XT 256MB and to a lesser extent, the X1800 XT 512MB, and these cards were more than ready for the challenge.
Outfitted with higher clock speeds than the Radeon X1800 XL, the X1800 XT cards had originally been intended to compete with NVIDIA’s flagship card at the time, the 24-shader GeForce 7800 GTX, so by the time they were re-tasked to take on the GeForce 7900 GT, the X1800 XT cards were already quite familiar with their opponent (as the 7900 GT performs closest to the 7800 GTX).
Curiously though it seemed to us at least, that ATI was never fully committed to this strategy. For instance, initially we were told by ATI that they had no plans to produce 256MB Radeon X1800 XT cards themselves, relying on their board partners to produce the cards instead although they eventually relented and began selling retail 256MB cards. And in case you haven’t noticed, reviews of Radeon X1800 XT 256MB cards are hard to come across on the Internet as well. As reviewers, we’d get a wide range of responses on X1800 XT 256MB review inquiries from ATI and their board partners, it was as if the X1800 XT 256MB was the illegitimate card no one wanted to admit existed, even though it was a real product and nothing to be ashamed of.
Most recently, ATI “replaced” the Radeon X1800 XT line with their Radeon X1900 GT GPU. We put the word replaced in quotes because while ATI considers it to be the latest challenger to the 7900 GT, officially replacing the X1800 XT line, we showed you back in May that the older Radeon X1800 XT performs faster than the X1900 GT with today’s games, despite having fewer shader units. Follow-up driver releases from ATI did little to resolve this issue and therefore most ATI enthusiasts in the know opted to purchase the older Radeon X1800 instead of the newer, 36-shader, X1900 GT card.
Meanwhile, while all this was occurring, GeForce 7900 GT sales continued along at a brisk pace.
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With their latest Radeon X1900 variant, ATI hopes to put a stop to that though. This time they’ve enlisted the services of the Radeon X1900 XT GPU, only this time they’ve equipped the board with 256MB of memory. According to ATI, the Radeon X1900 XT 256MB carries an MSRP of $279 and will be hitting retail on September 14th. With more shaders and faster clocks, the Radeon X1900 XT 256MB should be more than capable of handling the challenge right?
| Board analysis | Page:: ( 2 / 17 ) |
Physically, the board is indistinguishable from the Radeon X1900 XT 512MB. As you can see, ATI uses the same heatsink/fan unit previously used for Radeon X1800 XT and X1900 XT/XTX cards, although now Ruby sports a different pose and looks considerably less tan.
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Taking a look at the board design itself ATI’s made no changes to the Radeon X1900 XT 256MB: all the power circuitry used on the X1900 XTX 512MB is also present on the Radeon X1900 XT 256MB. Basically, all ATI’s done is swap out the 512Mbit density modules used on the 512MB Radeon X1900 XT cards with 256Mbit density modules. Like the 512MB Radeon X1900 XT/XTX the modules themselves are officially rated for speeds up to 800MHz, so enthusiasts actually have a little bit of headroom for overclocking.
As far as we can tell, ATI’s made no changes to the way the fan operates on the Radeon X1900 XT 256MB. The temperature thresholds that kick the fan into higher RPMs are carried over intact from previous Radeon X1900 XT cards. This will probably come as a disappointment to many of you (especially considering the redesigned cooler found on the X1950 XTX), as the fan can get pretty loud when it kicks into full gear. Fortunately aftermarket coolers can be purchased for the Radeon X1900 XT 256MB that deliver better cooling performance with lower noise levels. In fact, we just conducted a mini-roundup of several aftermarket fans with prices starting as low as sub-$25 that would be well suited for the Radeon X1900 XT 256MB.
So basically the clock speeds on the Radeon X1900 XT 256MB carry over unchanged, as does the cooling and the way the card’s fan operates. But what kind of performance hit (if any) did we experience with less onboard memory? Let’s find out…
| Test Systems | Page:: ( 3 / 17 ) |
System Setup
Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800
ASUS P5W DH Deluxe (for ATI systems)
ASUS P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe (for NVIDIA systems)
2GB Corsair TWIN2X2048-6400C4
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 512MB
ATI Radeon X1900 XT 256MB
ATI Radeon X1800 GTO 256MB
Sapphire Radeon X1900 GT 256MB
ATI Radeon X1800 XT 512MB
Catalyst 6.8
ASUS EN7900 GT TOP
NVIDIA GeForce 7900 GT
Driver version ForceWare 91.33
250GB Maxtor Hard Drive Maxline III SATA Hard Drive w/16MB Cache
Windows XP Professional SP1
DirectX 9.0c
Benchmarks
Pacific Fighters 4.04 (with Perfect landscape setting for ATI and NVIDIA)
Half-Life 2 Lost Coast
Far Cry 1.33 (1.4 patch for ATI cards)
F.E.A.R. 1.07
Quake 4 1.2
Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Battlefield 2 1.3
Lock On: Modern Air Combat
Call of Duty 2 1.2
| 3DMark 06 | Page:: ( 4 / 17 ) |
3DMark 06 – Direct3D
| HDR: HL2 Lost Coast | Page:: ( 5 / 17 ) |
Half-Life 2: Lost Coast – Direct3D
| Battlefield 2 | Page:: ( 6 / 17 ) |
Battlefield 2 – Direct3D
| Battlefield 2 Performance 1600x1200 | ||
| Card | Min FPS | Max FPS |
| GeForce 7900 GT | 62 | 76 |
| ASUS EN7900 GT TOP | 71 | 87 |
| Radeon X1900 XT 256MB | 93 | 126 |
| Radeon X1900 XT 512MB | 97 | 131 |
| Radeon X1800 XT 512MB | 87 | 107 |
| Radeon X1900 GT | 74 | 99 |
| Radeon X1800 GTO | 58 | 71 |
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| Quake 4 | Page:: ( 7 / 17 ) |
Quake 4 – OpenGL
| LOMAC | Page:: ( 8 / 17 ) |
Lock On: Modern Air Combat – Direct3D
| Lock On: Modern Air Combat 1600x1200 | ||
| Card | Min FPS | Max FPS |
| GeForce 7900 GT | 45 | 129 |
| ASUS EN7900 GT TOP | 51 | 142 |
| Radeon X1900 XT 256MB | 28 | 126 |
| Radeon X1900 XT 512MB | 30 | 127 |
| Radeon X1800 XT 512MB | 30 | 128 |
| Radeon X1900 GT | 23 | 111 |
| Radeon X1800 GTO | 22 | 100 |
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| F.E.A.R. Performance | Page:: ( 9 / 17 ) |
F.E.A.R. – Direct3D
| F.E.A.R. Performance 1600x1200 | ||
| Card | Min FPS | Max FPS |
| GeForce 7900 GT | 22 | 78 |
| ASUS EN7900 GT TOP | 22 | 83 |
| Radeon X1900 XT 256MB | 23 | 115 |
| Radeon X1900 XT 512MB | 23 | 121 |
| Radeon X1800 XT 512MB | 22 | 89 |
| Radeon X1900 GT | 17 | 83 |
| Radeon X1800 GTO | 13 | 52 |
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| Oblivion Mountains HDR | Page:: ( 10 / 17 ) |
Oblivion – Direct3D
| Oblivion Performance 1600x1200x32 | ||
| Card | Min FPS | Max FPS |
| GeForce 7900 GT | 22 | 41 |
| ASUS EN7900 GT TOP | 25 | 46 |
| Radeon X1900 XT 256MB | 31 | 49 |
| Radeon X1900 XT 512MB | 31 | 52 |
| Radeon X1800 XT 512MB | 27 | 44 |
| Radeon X1900 GT | 24 | 38 |
| Radeon X1800 GTO | 18 | 28 |
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| Oblivion Foliage HDR | Page:: ( 11 / 17 ) |
Oblivion – Direct3D
| Oblivion Performance 1600x1200x32 | ||
| Card | Min FPS | Max FPS |
| GeForce 7900 GT | 13 | 20 |
| ASUS EN7900 GT TOP | 14 | 22 |
| Radeon X1900 XT 256MB | 25 | 32 |
| Radeon X1900 XT 512MB | 26 | 33 |
| Radeon X1800 XT 512MB | 23 | 30 |
| Radeon X1900 GT | 20 | 26 |
| Radeon X1800 GTO | 15 | 20 |
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| Call of Duty 2 | Page:: ( 12 / 17 ) |
Call of Duty 2 – Direct3D
| Far Cry HDR | Page:: ( 13 / 17 ) |
Far Cry – Direct3D
| Far Cry Performance 1600x1200 | ||
| Card | Min FPS | Max FPS |
| GeForce 7900 GT | 35.2 | 58.7 |
| ASUS EN7900 GT TOP | 39.5 | 66.3 |
| Radeon X1900 XT 256MB | 45 | 66.3 |
| Radeon X1900 XT 512MB | 48.5 | 70.3 |
| Radeon X1800 XT 512MB | 37.7 | 52.5 |
| Radeon X1900 GT | 35.3 | 50.9 |
| Radeon X1800 GTO | 23.5 | 33.5 |
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| Adaptive AA Performance | Page:: ( 14 / 17 ) |
| F.E.A.R. Performance 1600x1200 | ||
| Card | Min FPS | Max FPS |
| GeForce 7900 GT | 20 | 77 |
| ASUS EN7900 GT TOP | 22 | 87 |
| Radeon X1900 XT 256MB | 22 | 114 |
| Radeon X1900 XT 512MB | 23 | 117 |
| Radeon X1800 XT 512MB | 22 | 87 |
| Radeon X1900 GT | 16 | 80 |
| Radeon X1800 GTO | 12 | 51 |
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LOMAC
| 6xAA Performance | Page:: ( 15 / 17 ) |
| F.E.A.R. Performance 1600x1200 | ||
| Card | Min FPS | Max FPS |
| X1900 XT 256MB 4xAA | 22 | 114 |
| X1900 XT 256MB 6xAA | 13 | 83 |
| X1900 XT 512MB 4xAA | 23 | 117 |
| X1900 XT 512MB 6xAA | 15 | 97 |
| X1800 XT 512MB 4xAA | 22 | 87 |
| X1800 XT 512MB 6xAA | 15 | 70 |
| X1900 GT 4xAA | 16 | 80 |
| X1900 GT 6xAA | 11 | 67 |
| X1800 GTO 4xAA | 12 | 51 |
| X1800 GTO 6xAA | 9 | 40 |
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| Overclocking | Page:: ( 16 / 17 ) |
| Conclusion | Page:: ( 17 / 17 ) |
As you just saw in our performance benchmarks, the Radeon X1900 XT 256MB often performs ahead of not only the stock GeForce 7900 GT, but also our ASUS EN7900 GT TOP Edition, which is a factory overclocked 7900 GT board. The GeForce boards still come out ahead in flight sims like Lock On: Modern Air Combat, as well as Quake 4, but the Radeon X1900 XT 256MB outperforms it everywhere else. The ASUS EN7900 GT TOP Edition is by no means the fastest 7900 GT card out there though – we intentionally selected a card that offered clock speeds in the middle of the 7900 GT range – there are considerably faster 7900 GT cards out there like the EVGA e-GeForce 7900 GT KO Superclocked and the XFX GeForce 7900 GT XXX. In our GeForce 7900 GT roundup these boards outperformed the ASUS card by over 10% in some cases, which would be enough to pull even with, if not ahead of the Radeon X1900 XT 256MB in some cases. Of course, these boards also sell for higher prices.
The bottom line for many cross-shopping the two GPUs is probably going to come down to price and availability, so you’ll want to check price comparison engines regularly for the latest prices.
In comparison to the Radeon X1900 XT 512MB, the reduced amount of memory present on the 256MB card does impact performance somewhat, but fortunately the performance penalty isn’t too severe. Overall the performance drop going from 512MB down to 256MB is roughly 5%, but there are cases such as F.E.A.R. where the performance decline is as great as 7% at 1280x1024. Of course, if you planned on gaming at 6xAA, the performance decline is going to be even greater, we saw performance decline by anywhere from 9-14%, so if you’d like to game at high AA settings, you’ll want to splurge for the 512MB card if you can afford it.
In terms of CrossFire support, currently your only option for the Radeon X1900 XT 256MB is to purchase a Radeon X1900 XT 512MB CrossFire card. This is far from ideal, as the X1900 XT CrossFire not only costs more than the Radeon X1900 XT 256MB, doing so will also disable half the memory on the CrossFire board.
We’ve been lobbying ATI to open up connectorless CrossFire for a range of cards, including the X800 XL, and we’ve been told that they’re seriously considering doing it, so we’re hopeful that they’ll consider adding that at some point in the future, but we can’t provide an ETA on when that will take place.
The X1900 XT 256MB is part of a slew of new products. At the high-end of ATI’s lineup sits the Radeon X1950 XTX at $449, while the X1900 XT 256MB occupies the sub-$300 price point with its MSRP of $279. Pegged just below the X1900 XT 256MB is the Radeon X1900 GT at $249, while ATI’s also releasing Radeon X1650 Pro and X1300 XT on September 14th priced at $99 and $89 respectively (we’ll have more on these cards in an upcoming article). With all these new cards in the lineup, ATI’s got their strongest lineup from top to bottom that we’ve seen in awhile. The Radeon X1900 XT 256MB looks like it will be a worthy competitor to the GeForce 7900 GT and we can’t wait to see what ATI’s board partners do with this card.