Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro

For testing the Sapphire X1950 Pro, we used an Athlon 64 X2 4600+ processor on a DFI LANParty NF4 SLI-DR motherboard. We also used 2GB of Corsair DDR memory (TWINX2048-4400) and a 120GB Maxtor SATA hard drive. The X1950 Pro was compared to an XFX 7900 GT 550M Xtreme and to an ATI Radeon X1900 XTX with reference clock speeds. Note that the XFX 7900 GT is overclocked, while the X1900 XTX and X1950 Pro are not.

HotHardware Test System AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ Powered

Performance Comparisons with 3DMark06 v1.0.2 Details: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmark06/

3DMark06

Futuremark recently launched a brand new version of its popular benchmark, 3DMark06. The new version of the benchmark is updated in a number of ways and now includes not only Shader Model 2.0 tests but also Shader Model 3.0 and HDR tests as well. Some of the assets from 3DMark05 have been re-used, but the scenes are now rendered with much more geometric detail, and the shader complexity is vastly increased as well. Max shader length in 3DMark05 was 96 instructions, while 3DMark06 ups the number of instructions to 512. 3DMark06 also employs much more lighting, and there is extensive use of soft shadows. With 3DMark06, Futuremark has also updated how the final score is tabulated. In this latest version of the benchmark, SM 2.0 and HDR / SM3.0 tests are weighted, and the CPU score is factored into the final tally as well.

Based on our X1950 launch article, it is reasonable to expect and assume that the X1950 Pro will perform about the same as the GeForce 7900 GT. In this case though, the 7900 GT is overclocked considerably, and that is what allows it to edge out the X1950 Pro in 3DMark and other benchmarks. Also, keep in mind that the XFX 7900 GT 550M would probably cost you at least $50 more than the Sapphire X1950 Pro.