Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro... good if i'm stickin' w/ AGP?

Vrbas · Post by **Vrbas** » Sat May 26, 2007 12:43 pm

Radeon X1950 Pro...

What do y'all think about this 512MB card for my AGP motherboard? Since i'll be stickin' w/ AGP for just a bit longer, i'm thinking about runnin' the home stretch with this guy. Plus, i'm lookin' for something to beat the crap out of my current X1600 Pro card, and i'm hoping this X1950 Pro will be able to handle some of the current/newer games w/ decent settings. Any opinions?

brites · Post by **brites** » Sat May 26, 2007 1:04 pm

On AGP slot... one of the best... When compared to the PCIe 1950Pro it's better (not by much)... the only down side is the H.264 decoding where the GP bus doesn't take it to well and calls the help of the CPU to do some work... but I say... go... and buy it

Vrbas · Post by **Vrbas** » Sat May 26, 2007 1:27 pm

nothing i can do to take the load off my CPU? Not something you can change in a tool or anything, just the way it's made?

Also, how well does the 1950 Pro overclock, or is it even worth it? FYI, i got a Zalman VF900 heatsink/fan to replace the stock heatsink. I saw that the 1950 Pro required 2 power connectors so i assumed it was gonna get pretty warm under there. Hopefully my 480 Watt power supply can handle it.

brites · Post by **brites** » Sat May 26, 2007 2:55 pm

The load of the CPU... is an AGP bus "problem" it just doesn't have the BW needed for the job...
About OC... it's best to change the original for a better cooler because the original isn't very good... and 480w is quite sufficient

Vrbas · Post by **Vrbas** » Sat May 26, 2007 3:07 pm

thanks for the help bro. What about the overclocking? Even worth the effort?

brites · Post by **brites** » Sun May 27, 2007 6:56 am

For what I've read there aren't much gain OC this baby... unless you buy a great cooler and have the patience to OC step by step... but has I said even without OC this graphics is a very good... be

brites · Post by **brites** » Sun May 27, 2007 7:37 am

One other thing... see this one... by the looks the cooler can handle the OC (that isn't very gainful... and probably it as to be done manually!?!)
http://www.gecube.com/products-detail.p ... d_id=65116

the down side is that it as only 256Mb GDDR3... so the 512 vs probably is better...

Vrbas · Post by **Vrbas** » Sun May 27, 2007 1:15 pm

Well, as far as a cooler goes, i already got one of the Zalman heatsink/fans.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835118001

I believe this will allow me to push the card a little bit further, but what do you think? W/ an aftermarket heatsink/fan, you think it would still be worth the time and effort to OC?[/url]

brites · Post by **brites** » Sun May 27, 2007 4:47 pm

Read this part of a review on this card

http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/Sap ... ocking.php

and you can see that the benefits of OC aren't that good...

Vrbas · Post by **Vrbas** » Sun May 27, 2007 9:20 pm

Hmmm, interesting site... i like it, thank you. The only thing is that i plan on replacing the stock fan/heatsink w/ the Zalman VF900, so i don't think temperatures will be a problem. What sort of tools will i need to OC this ATI card?

brites · Post by **brites** » Mon May 28, 2007 6:13 am

As you may have notice in the review the people that done it couldn't Oc via software they had to do it manually... I don't know if there are now any ATI software to juice this card... but you can try the most common ones...

Vrbas · Post by **Vrbas** » Mon May 28, 2007 9:33 am

thanks for the help