x1950XT AGP

[GhandiInstinct]

That fugly thing on Newegg from Gecube is not what I want. Not to mention that the thing runs too hot with that cooling setup.

So any other makers for AGP on this card? Or will I have to suck up and buy a pro which only has 36 shader processors?

 

[honestjohn]

I don't blame you and sorry no, the Gecube is the only beast of it's kind in AGP unfortunately. If they had used a different cooling design this card would have rocked. Also, don't feel bad about the Pro, it's a damned fine card. Just stay away from the Gecube and Visiontek if you care about monitoring your temps or fan control. No readable temp diode on those two. Also watch out for HIS ICEQ3 Rev.1 cards with product code endiing in (-R). New versions end with (-R-V2).

 

[GhandiInstinct]

Originally posted by: honestjohn
I don't blame you and sorry no, the Gecube is the only beast of it's kind in AGP unfortunately. If they had used a different cooling design this card would have rocked. Also, don't feel bad about the Pro, it's a damned fine card. Just stay away from the Gecube and Visiontek if you care about monitoring your temps or fan control. No readable temp diode on those two. Also watch out for HIS ICEQ3 Rev.1 cards with product code endiing in (-R). New versions end with (-R-V2).

I'll be getting http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16814161082.


Very sad I won't get the 16pipes and higher core clock

 

[honestjohn]

Don't be. Tried out 3 different Pro's and the Gecube XT. The Sapphire Pro 512MB was my favorite. Had 2 bad Rev.1 cards, but it looks like the V2 cards work well though. How's your power supply by the way? Can you feed the Pro properly? If so, it should work well for you.

 

[Rottie]

Sapphire card is a good it is a single slot but i believe it needs two molex connectors. Diamond Viper and Sapphire are same card except Viper has one pci-e 6 connector.

 

[honestjohn]

Originally posted by: Rottie
Sapphire card is a good it is a single slot but i believe it needs two molex connectors. Diamond Viper and Sapphire are same card except Viper has one pci-e 6 connector.

That's correct. The Sapphire works with 2 molex connections and is the only Pro like this. All other cards have PCI-E connectors. I always thought of this as a plus, but I guess it depends on what kind of power supply you have.

Gecube and Visiontek use stock cooling and a different PCB design than the rest, leaving off the temp diode. They also have a different VRM design which may be a plus.

All the other cards are basically the same except for their cooling solutions. Diamond, HIS (non-ICEQ-3), and Sapphire use a stock cooling. While Powercolor, Asus, and HIS ICEQ3, use their own unique cooling designs. Which is better is debatable. Saw some temp comparisons once that said the Powercolor worked better than the others. It does exhaust the hot-air inside the case though and has a tiny heat-spreaders over the VRM modules.

 

[SolMiester]

Powercolour has pcie connector and the acerelor X2 cooling system!

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: GhandiInstinct
That fugly thing on Newegg from Gecube is not what I want. Not to mention that the thing runs too hot with that cooling setup.

So any other makers for AGP on this card? Or will I have to suck up and buy a pro which only has 36 shader processors?

My card runs cool, idles at 39C and goes at full at 54C at max, is the coolest X1950XT card on the market (ATi's reference card simply sucks). But the main issue is that it dissipates heat inside of the cooler cause it has a very big radiator like cooling which has 4 pipes, 2 for cooling the TEC and 2 for cooling the GPU. So in other words, the GPU is cooled by the TEC which dissipates it's heats in the 2 pipes with it's fan and the other 2 pipes which cools the GPU directly. The concept is nice, but power sucking, never had any issues with my old ANTEC 500W PSU dtugh.

 

[Rottie]

evolucion8 did you run benchmark on your fastest card? I want to compare with yous.

 

[evolucion8]

Yeah, I scored 10,084 on 3DMark05 and 4,814 on 3DMark06 with a CPU score of 1,034

 

[Rottie]

Originally posted by: evolucion8
Yeah, I scored 10,084 on 3DMark05 and 4,814 on 3DMark06 with a CPU score of 1,034

Very nice score but mine is better with 4928 3DMarks06 with a cpu score of 1837

 

[CP5670]

Some of the Newegg reviewers on that Gecube card seem to be replacing the cooler with banana peels. :laugh: I like this one:

Pros: Just an update to my previous posting.

Cons: Another member suggested that the banana heatsink provided the best cooling possible. Well, it did for about a week and a half. After experiencing 20C cooler temps at idle apparently the banana melted and dripped on my X-Fi card causing a massive fire. At first the investigators thought it was arson!

Other Thoughts: A peach or plum might provide better cooling capacity because of the onboard sweet juices that will ultimately keep the skin from burning out.

 

[evolucion8]

Originally posted by: Rottie

Originally posted by: evolucion8
Yeah, I scored 10,084 on 3DMark05 and 4,814 on 3DMark06 with a CPU score of 1,034

Very nice score but mine is better with 4928 3DMarks06 with a cpu score of 1837

3DMark06 gives a higher score to dual core CPU's, but considering that my CPU is single core with a FSB of 580MHz and DDR running at 345MHz is pretty damn close. In the gaming arena the story is different, in games which are NOT DUAL CORE OPTIMIZED, this CPU can runs slighly slower or considerably faster than the Athlon X2 4800+, and outperforms the Athlon FX 57, 55, P4 EE and so on, but is slower in streaming applications like WinRaR, Media Encoding etc, is not much slower though, but offers the gaming performance that I need since I'm stuck in the Socket 478/AGP World.