Physical examination
Bean fans will have already had a glimpse the card, but now it's time for a proper look.
Covering nearly the whole PCB area is ATI's new reference cooler, complete with translucency and shiny bits (beware the reflecto-porn when taking photos). The cooler's fan draws air from inside the case, over a large mass of copper, then expels it at the card's rear bracket. The fan is speed controlled by an IC on the board which is itself under the command of the GPU. The step-up in speed of the fan is nice and steady, meaning it shouldn't grab your attention as the core warms up.
The bulk of the cooler isn't in direct contact with the GPU, however. A heat-pipe is tasked with moving the heat away from the board and into the main part of the cooler.
The end result is a cooling solution that's significantly better than the X1900 XTX's reference effort and only slightly louder than a 7900 GTX. Its mass does contribute to the board's weight, however, the card weighing in at over 700g. Add-in-Board partners will see a price of around $17 for the reference cooler. We anticipate its use on the vast majority of X1950 SKUs.
Time to get see the card's private parts...
Clearly visible is the R580 labelling (no '+') and the A31 revision. It is therefore still approximately 342.25mm2 in area.
The backplane has two DVI ports, with dual link for powering ass-masteringly large screens. In between is the usual mini-DIN for other forms of video connectivity. There is, as you might expect, the same Avivo support as with the X1900, bearing the fuits of enhanced video playback quality and transcoding accelleration.
The X1950 XTX possesses HDCP (high-bandwidth digital content protection) support, although we cannot demonstrate it to you at this time.
Master Card
Hours of thought went into the master card artwork on the sample we received.
While the budget and mid-range X1000 series cards enjoy some cable-less CrossFire action, up at the high-end dongle waving is still required.
Composition of the two cards' efforts is handled by the same Xylinx FPGA as seen on X1900 CrossFire master cards.
Thoughts then? PCB-wise there are no mind blowing changes for the X1950 XTX. The new cooler is welcomed with open arms; it's about time ATI muted their high-end hardware.
