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[nextpage title=”Introduction”]

Radeon X1900 XTX, formerly known as R580, is the new high-end chip from ATI, replacing Radeon X1800 XT as the fastest GPU from ATI. We’ve got a reference sample for this new model from ATI, so we will compare its performance to other members of the Radeon X1000 series, to previous ATI chips and also with competing products from NVIDIA, namely GeForce 7800 GTX.

Figure 1: Radeon X1900 XTX reference board.

We’ve posted a complete article explaining what’s new on Radeon X1900 family, so we won’t be repeating here everything we have already explained there. The most important feature from this new chip is that it has 48 pixel shader processors, three times more than Radeon X1800 XT and two times more than GeForce 7800 GTX.

So far there are two chips on Radeon X1900 family: Radeon X1900 XT, working at 550 MHz and accessing its memory at 1.45 GHz (46.4 GB/s transfer rate), and Radeon X1900 XTX, working at 650 MHz and accessing its memory at 1.55 GHz (49.6 GB/s transfer rate). Both access their memories at 256-bit rate.

You can see in our tutorial “ATI Chips Comparison Table” the difference between this new chip and the other chips from ATI, while on our tutorial “NVIDIA Chips Comparison Table” you can compare it to its competitors from NVIDIA.

You can see the Radeon X1900 XTX reference board on Figures 2 and 3.

Figure 2: ATI Radeon X1900 XTX reference board.

Figure 3: ATI Radeon X1900 XTX reference board, back view.

Let’s now take a closer look at the Radeon X1900 XTX reference board from ATI.

[nextpage title=”The Radeon X1900 XTX Reference Board from ATI”]

We disassembled the video card heatsink to take a look, see Figure 4. If you pay close attention you will see that the base of the heatsink – the part that touches the graphics chip – is made of copper. The heatsink fins are also made of copper. The fan blows the hot air to outside the computer case, helping a lot to decrease the PC internal temperature. But, because of this blower, besides the x16 PCI Express slot this video card uses the slot right next to it (usually a x1 PCI Express slot).

Figure 4: Heatsink from the Radeon X1900 XTX reference board.

Figure 5: Video card with its heatsink detached.

This video card uses eight GDDR3 512-Mbit 1.1 ns chips from Samsung (K4J52324QC-BJ11)to give it 512 MB of video memory (512 Mbits x 8 = 512 MB). These chips can run up to 1.8 GHz. Since this video card accesses the memory at 1.55 GHz, there is 16% headroom for overclocking the memory keeping it inside its specs. Of course you can try overclock it over its specs.

Figure 6: 1.1 ns GDDR3 memory chip used by ATI Radeon X1900 XTX reference board.

The reference board has video capture function (VIVO), using ATI Rage Theater chip.

Figure 7: ATI Rage Theater chip for video capture.

[nextpage title=”Main Specifications”]

• Graphics chip: Radeon X1900 XTX running at 650 MHz.
• Memory: 1.2 ns 256-bit 512 MB GDDR3 memory from Samsung (K4J52324QC-BJ12), running at 1.55 GHz.
• Bus type: PCI Express 16x.
• Connectors: Two DVI and one mini-DIN for S-Video output.
• Number of CDs that come with this board: N/A.
• Games that come with this board: N/A
• Programs that come with this board: N/A.
• More information: https://www.ati.com
• Average price in the US*: USD 620 (for the 512 MB model, which was the one we reviewed).

* Researched on Shopping.com on the day we published this review.

[nextpage title=”How We Tested”]

During our benchmarking sessions, we used the configuration listed below. Between our benchmarking sessions the only variable was the video card being tested.

Hardware Configuration

• Motherboard: DFI LAN Party 925X-T2 (Intel 925X, Sep. 20th, 2004 BIOS)
• CPU: Pentium 4 3.4 GHz LGA 775
• Memory: Two 512 MB DDR2-533 CM2X512-4200 CL4 from Corsair memory modules
• Hard Drive: Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus (40 GB, ATA-133)
• Screen resolution: [email protected] Hz

Software Configuration

• Windows XP Professional installed using NTFS
• Service Pack 2
• Direct X 9.0c
• Intel inf driver version: 6.0.1.1002
• ATI video driver version: 4.10 (6.14.10.6483)
• ATI video driver version: 4.12 (Radeon X850 Platinum Edition)
• ATI video driver version: 5.3 (Radeon X800 GT)
• ATI video driver version: 5.9 (Radeon X800 GTO)
• ATI video driver version: 6.1 (Radeon X1600 XT from HIS)
• ATI video driver version: 8.173 beta (Radeon X1000 series)
• ATI video driver version: 8.203.3.0 (Radeon X1900 XTX)
• NVIDIA video driver version: 66.93
• NVIDIA video driver version: 77.72 (GeForce 7800 GTX)
• NVIDIA video driver version: 78.02 (GeForce 7800 GT)
• NVIDIA video driver version: 81.98 (GeForce 6800 GS)

Used Software

• 3DMark2001 SE
• 3DMark03 Business 3.50
• 3DMark05 Business 1.10
• Doom III
• Far Cry 1.3

We adopted a 3% error margin; thus, differences below 3% cannot be considered relevant. In other words, products with a performance difference below 3% should be considered as having similar performance.

[nextpage title=”3DMark2001 SE”]

3DMark2001 SE measures video card performance simulating DirectX 8.1 games. It is very effective software for evaluating the performance from previous-generation games, programmed using DirectX 8. In this software we run six tests. We run the software in three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32, first without antialising and with no frame buffer, then we put the antialising at 4 samples and the frame buffer at triple-buffering. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to note that ATI chips can run at 6x antialising. Since NVIDIA chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialising to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our bechmarks, allowing direct comparison between them.

You may be asking yourself why we added an old program in a review of a latest generation video card. To us, it is as important to know the performance of a video card with the latest games as it is to know its performance in an older game. That’s why we kept this software in our methodology.

At a resolution of 1024×768 without any image quality enhancement, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 6.60% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 20.47% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 23.21% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600 and 38.80% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX achieved a performance similar to XFX GeForce 6600 GT.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 32.12% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 30.55% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 25.53% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 23.40% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 20.85% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 16.58% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 15.35% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 15.28% faster, ATI Radeon X1600 XT, which was 14.09% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 13.70% faster, HIS Radeon X1600 XT, which was 13.24% faster and Sapphite Radeon X700 Pro, which was 7.00% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 6.55% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 8.32% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 19.67% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 46.89% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 48.57% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 76.84% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1600 XT and HIS Radeon X1600 XT.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was beaten by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 25.60% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E, which was 24.59% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 19.98% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 18.02% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 16.21% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 10.07% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 9.30% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 7.96% faster and HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 5.42% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 6.18% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 6.36% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 13.83% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 15.72% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 20.37% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 29.37% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 38.08% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 81.95% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 102.77% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 144.95% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX achieved a performance similar to NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was beaten by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 21.25% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 17.59% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 15.20% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 11.57% faster and NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 10.05% faster.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 3.48% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 4.29% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 7.84% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 24.53% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 43.63% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 74.72% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 90.18% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600 and 106.81% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX achieved a performance similar to NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, ATI Radeon X1600 XT, HIS Radeon X800 GTO and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was beaten by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 22.40% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 20.17% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 15.85% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 13.13% faster and NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 7.99% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 6.21% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 6.47% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 16.07% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 17.58% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 17.61% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 19.80% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 29.86% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 53.10% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 86.81% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 132.19% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 165.43% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600 and 178.99% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX achieved a performance similar to NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was beaten by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 20.54% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 14.89% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 12.29% faster and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 6.63% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 9.13% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 33.01% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 34.91% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 41.40% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 47.61% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 66.41% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 86.67% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 93.48% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 137.67% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 201.59% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 342.21% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 390.92% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 503.76% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX achieved a performance similar to MSI GeForce 7800 GTX.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was beaten by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 14.97% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 3.59% faster and ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 3.04% faster.

[nextpage title=”3DMark03″]

3DMark03 measures performance by simulating games written to DirectX 9, which are contemporary games. We run this program in three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32, first without antialising and anisotropic filtering, and then configuring antialising at 4x and anisotropic filtering also at 4x. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to note that ATI chips can run at 6x antialising. Since NVIDIA chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialising to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our bechmarks, allowing direct comparison between them.

At a resolution of 1024×768 without any image quality enhancement, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 5.84% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XT, 10.26% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 20.23% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 25.87% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XL, 29.43% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 46.60% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 47.41% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 73.00% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 76.90% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 81.05% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 81.13% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 105.36% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 126.79% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 151.54% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 241.32% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 300.78% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 377.05% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX 6.46% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XT, 13.47% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 26.29% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 30.15% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XL, 34.65% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 57.18% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 58.11% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 85.87% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 97.30% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 100.03% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 105.17% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 129.90% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 159.54% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 184.24% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 292.54% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 364.48% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 453.97% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 8.64% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XT, 15.34% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 18.92% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 33.59% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XL, 38.87% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 63.49% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 66.03% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 96.63% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 120.59% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 123.75% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 126.01% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 151.72% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 196.60% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 212.89% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 336.15% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 448.10% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 549.97% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 5.34% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XT, 16.59% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 24.14% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XL, 28.64% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 42.77% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 67.31% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 69.22% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 112.91% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 132.54% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 141.42% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 146.67% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 177.14% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 233.89% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 239.37% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 386.80% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 488.81% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 591.52% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 4.61% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XT, 22.42% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 30.60% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XL, 38.39% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 50.80% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 83.04% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 88.40% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 138.94% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 152.66% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 161.59% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 172.43% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 271.69% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 285.78% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 286.25% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 532.40% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 600.74% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 681.11% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 6.63% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XT, 27.72% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 33.70% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 35.22% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XL, 56.29% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 95.42% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 103.37% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 154.03% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 195.63% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 206.36% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 206.84% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 329.07% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 335.01% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 357.31% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 664.56% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 972.68% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 1.047.95% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

[nextpage title=”3DMark05″]

3DMark05 measures performance by simulating DirectX 9.0c games, i.e., using the new Shader 3.0 model. This programming model is used by Far Cry game and other games to be launched in the future. This new programming model is used by GeForce 6 and 7 series from NVIDIA and Radeon X1000 series from ATI.

We run this program in three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32, first without antialising and anisotropic filtering, and then configuring antialising at 4x and anisotropic filtering also at 4x. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to note that ATI chips can run at 6x antialising. Since NVIDIA chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialising to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our benchmark, allowing direct comparison between them.

At a resolution of 1024×768 without any image quality enhancement, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 7.90% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XL, 10.07% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 21.81% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 39.89% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 41.31% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 42.29% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 53.89% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 62.33% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 74.86% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 141.93% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 143.11% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 165.48% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 310.46% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 387.23% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 411.50% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX achieved a performance similar to MSI GeForce 7800 GTX and was beaten only by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 3,44% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1800 XT and it was 10.42% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 20.62% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XL, 21.71% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 41.33% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 62.20% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 63.99% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 66.56% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 78.88% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 92.56% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 109.87% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 197.34% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 218.85% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 242.31% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 432.09% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 544.13% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 575.30% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 11.11% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XT, 21.26% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 36.08% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 36.11% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XL, 65.68% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 88.51% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 92.92% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 96.12% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 110.71% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 128.05% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 168.02% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 264.06% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 273.02% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 415.27% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 589.94% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 700.12% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 819.92% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1800 XT and it was 10.99% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 14.35% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XL, 20.83% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 35.12% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 63.51% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 64.96% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 69.19% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 81.54% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 83.78% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 90.66% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 200.94% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 227.02% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 421.91% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 547.11% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro, 618.40% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600 and 643.85% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

To run at 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements on 3DMark05 the video card must have at least 256 MB of memory, because of that some video cards couldn’t run this test. Here ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 8.79% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XT, 26.71% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 33.69% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XL, 40.89% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 63.13% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 99.42% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 99.97% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 104.39% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 121.32% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 127.29% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 161.79% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 281.59% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 308.39% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 718.31% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 1.030,98% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

To run at 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements on 3DMark05 the video card must have at least 256 MB of memory, because of that some video cards couldn’t run this test. Here ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 18.25% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XT, 48.70% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XL, 50.02% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 66.92% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 88.06% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 136.50% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 141.71% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 164.40% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 179.78% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 180.03% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 221.00% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 355.09% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 396.66% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 961.63% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 1.733,72% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

[nextpage title=”Doom 3″]Doom 3 is one of the heaviest games available today. As we’ve done on other programs, we ran this game at three resolutions: 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32. This game allows several image quality levels and we’ve done our benchmarking on two levels, low and high. We ran demo1 four times and wrote the obtained number of frames per second. The first result we discarded at once, since it is far inferior than the other results. This happens because at the first time we run the demo the game must load all textures to video memory, fact that doesn’t happen from the second time we run the demo on. From the three results left, we consider as our official result the middle result, i.e., we discard the highest and the lowest values. Curiously almost all times the values obtained at the second round on were the same.

A very important detail that we must mention is that Doom 3 has an internal FPS lock: it is only capable of generating 60 frames per second, even if your board is able to produce more frames per second than that. This is done in order to make the game to have the same “playability” sensation independently from the video card installed on the PC. This lock, however, is disabled in the game benchmarking mode.

For further details on how to measure 3D performance with Doom 3, read our tutorial on this subject.

At a resolution of 1024×768 without any image quality enhancement, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 5.80% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 14.44% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 16.93% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 25.42% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 27.40% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 38.74% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 40.96% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 45.20% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 46.29% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 73.92% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 78.74% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 212.94% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 283.73% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1800 XT, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, ATI Radeon X1800 XL and NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 3.87% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 7.31% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 16.21% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XL, 21.16% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 22.58% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 23.88% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 56.76% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 70.42% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 86.68% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 100.64% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 110.07% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 111.96% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 151.74% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 156.56% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 379.08% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 486.88% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1800 XT.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 7.18% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 11.74% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XT, 13.65% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 34.47% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 36.59% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 37.24% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XL, 38.78% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 88.67% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 122.62% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 135.33% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 173.19% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 174.92% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 176.68% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 226.79% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 239.61% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 561.07% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 716.98% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 3.38% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 9.81% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 12.36% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 24.39% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 29.66% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 40.15% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 40.37% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 50.49% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 51.99% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 82.14% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 88.50% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 230.22% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 300.87% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX achieved a performance similar to NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX and ATI Radeon X1800 XL.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was beaten only by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 3,81% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 5.10% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XT, 6.88% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 9.34% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 21.23% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XL, 27.42% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 28.28% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 30.94% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 70.81% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 80.23% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 99.16% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 113.51% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 127.34% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 130.10% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 175.58% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 183.83% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 415.22% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 532.00% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 10.64% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 16.62% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XT, 17.55% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 43.97% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XL, 44.68% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 45.87% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 46.60% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 103.69% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 134.48% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 150.42% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 189.84% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 190.79% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 194.67% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 253.60% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 266.80% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 662.07% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 758,25% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

[nextpage title=”Far Cry”]

Far Cry is a game based on the new Shader 3.0 (DirectX 9.0c) programming model available on series 6 and 7 from NVIDIA and series X1000 from ATI graphics chips. We’ve updated the game to version 1.3.
 
As we’ve done on other programs, we ran this game at three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32. This game allows several image quality levels and we’ve done our benchmarking on two levels, low and very high. To measure the performance we used the demo created by German magazine PC Games Hardware (PCGH), available at https://www.3dcenter.org/downloads/farcry-pcgh-vga.php. We run this demo four times and made an arithmetical average with the results. This average is the result presented in our graphs.

This game has a very important detail in its image quality configuration. Antialising, instead of being configured by numbers (1x, 2x, 4x or 6x) is configured as low, medium or high. The problem is that on NVIDIA chips both medium and high mean 4x, while on ATI chips medium means 2x and high means 6x, making the comparison between ATI and NVIDIA chips completely unfair. Because of that we configured antialising at 4x and anisotropic filtering at 8x manually at the video driver control panel.

For further details on how to measure 3D performance with Far Cry, read our tutorial on this subject.

At a resolution of 1024×768 without any image quality enhancement, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 5.37% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 6.73% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 6.74% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 8.48% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 9.45% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 10.42% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 16.52% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 19.46% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT and 28.00% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., HIS Radeon X800 GTO, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, HIS Radeon X1600 XT, Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, ATI Radeon X1800 XL and ATI Radeon X1600 XT.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 11.22% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 46.96% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 49.19% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600 and 79.59% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX achieved a performance similar to MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT and XFX GeForce 6600 GT.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 9.28% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 9.12% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 8.69% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 8.17% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 7.39% faster, ATI Radeon X1600 XT, which was 7.22% faster, HIS Radeon X1600 XT, which was 6.96% faster and Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, which was 5.65% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 8.13% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 10.53% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 19.72% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 24.36% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 47.01% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 106.49% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 118.74% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 167.86% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX achieved a performance similar to MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, HIS Radeon X800 GT and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 9.74% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 8.75% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 8.38% faster and HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 6.45% faster.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 10.07% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 26.60% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 44.85% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 47.50% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 70.43% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 81.30% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 86.71% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 193.20% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 240.03% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 270.33% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX achieved a performance similar to NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 10.39% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 10.30% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 9.77% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 9.25% faster and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 8.62% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 27.47% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 33.11% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 49.76% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 78.48% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 92.72% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 102.27% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 143.23% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 165.65% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 177.47% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 355.14% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 384.73% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 403.60% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1800 XL, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E. and NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was beaten by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 9.75% faster and MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 3.70% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was 15.60% faster than ATI Radeon X1800 XL, 18.11% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 26.54% faster than ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., 31.08% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 71.85% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 100.12% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 101.47% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 147.37% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 179.97% faster than ATI Radeon X1600 XT, 185.68% faster than HIS Radeon X1600 XT, 242.93% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 251.36% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 298.03% faster than factory-overclocked GeForce 6600 256 MB from XFX, 508.33% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 753.48% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 878.89% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

ATI Radeon X1900 XTX was beaten only by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 4.75% faster.

[nextpage title=”Conclusions”]

From our results we can say that Radeon X1900 XTX seems to be optimized for DirectX 9.0 and 9.0c games running at very high resolutions with image quality enhancements enabled.

On 3DMark2001SE, which simulates DirectX 8.1 games, it reached a lousy performance, so it doesn’t seem to be the right product for older games.

But on 3DMark03 and 3DMark05, which simulate DirectX 9.0 and 9.0c games, respectively, it was faster than all other video cards we reviewed to date, including Radeon X1800 XT and GeForce 7800 GTX. Keep in mind that comparisons between Radeon X1900 XTX and Radeon X1800 XT on our reviews aren’t final, since our GeForce 7800 GTX had 256 MB video memory, while ATI samples came with 512 MB.

On 3DMark03 (DirectX 9.0) Radeon X1900 XTX was between 4.61% and 8.64% faster than Radeon X1800 XT and between 10.26% and 27.72% faster than GeForce 7800 GTX, depending on the resolution and video quality enhancements.

On 3DMark05 (DirectX 9.0c) the results varied depending on the resolution that was used. Radeon X1900 XTX achieved a performance similar to Radeon X1800 XT at 1280×1024 and 1024×768 with image quality enhancements enabled, while it was beaten by Radeon X1800 XT at 1024×768. At this resolution it achieved a performance similar to GeForce 7800 GTX. But on other resolutions and image quality settings, Radeon X1900 XTX was between 8.79% and 18.25% faster than Radeon X1800 XT and between 10.42% and 50.02% faster than GeForce 7800 GTX. We must mention that the higher the resolution, the higher the performance difference.

On Doom 3 Radeon X1900 XTX achieved a performance similar to Radeon X1800 XT at 1024×768 and 1280×1024, and even beaten by a small margin by Radeon X1800 XT at 1024×768 with image quality enhancements enabled (at this resolution it achieved a performance similar to GeForce 7800 GTX). On other resolutions and image quality settings, Radeon X1900 XTX was between 5.10% and 16.62% faster than Radeon X1800 XT and between 3.87% and 10.64% faster than GeForce 7800 GTX.

Far Cry was Radeon X1900 XTX’s Achilles’ Hell, as you can see in the previous page, which is funny since it is a DirectX 9.0c game. The only good result on this game was on 1600×1200 with image quality settings maxed out, where it was 18.11% faster than GeForce 7800 GTX.

One flaw on our review is that we didn’t benchmark resolutions over 1600×1200, such as 1920×1200, 2048×1536 and 2560×1600. We think at these resolutions Radeon X1900 XTX would achieve an even better performance, since Radeon X1900 XTX best results were achieved at 1600×1200.

Based on these results, we can clearly say that Radeon X1900 XTX is targeted to really heavy gamers running DirectX 9.0 and beyond games at a resolution of at least 1600×1200 with all image quality settings at their max. If you won’t run your games at these configurations, buying a Radeon X1900 XTX is pointless, since you can have almost similar performance with “cheaper” products.

In our opinion, paying between USD 590 and USD 650 for a video card is insanity even for the most hardcore gamers, as there are high-end video cards that provide far better cost/benefit ratio available at the market (Radeon X1800 XT and GeForce 7800 GTX are good options with you have the money to buy them and Radeon X1800 XL and GeForce 7800 GT are terrific solutions for those that aren’t crazy enough to pay more than USD 400 on a video card).