Sapphire X1950 Pro Dual 1GiB

Review: Sapphire X1950 Pro Dual 1GiB

Final thoughts, HEXUS.awards and HEXUS.right2reply

Sapphire has taken the step to introduce a novel SKU before the long-overdue launch of Radeon HD 2000 series take the shine off the current Radeon X1950 series.

The Sapphire X1950 Pro Dual 1GiB, priced at around £200, is, effectively, two Radeon X1950 Pro 512MiB SKUs which are situated on a single PCB and hooked up via an on-board CrossFire bridging chip.

From a practical sense, housing a pre-CrossFired X1950 Pro setup dictates the use of an extra-large PCB that may not fit into a number of chassis, but we still applaud Sapphire's engineers for creating a unique SKU that generally performs well.

CrossFired performance is enough to see the X1950 Pro Dual take top honours in both our D3D tests, although HDR-related problems are hard to ignore. Further, overall performance is determined by just how sensitive the gaming title is to AMD's multi-GPU CrossFire technology. Our results show a best-case scenario, and other titles may not be quite so responsive to dual GPU usage.

Is it worth it? That's a difficult call on a product that will appeal to a small cross-section of our readership. In pure innovation terms, yes, it's something your friends are not likely to have and, as such, will create quite a buzz. Practically, the quad-monitor setup will be perceived as a distinct bonus to folks with multi-screen setups.

The value proposition isn't bad for a high-end card, either, just like the NVIDIA GeForce 7950 GX2, but we'd be inclined to wait and see what the Radeon HD 2000 series brings to the table before committing.

Bottom line: an interesting limited-run product based on sound engineering that offers decent DX9 performance. Much like the GeForce 7950 GX2, it's a performance/features stopgap until the Next Big Thing arrives.

HEXUS Awards

It's easy to see why it fully deserves our innovation award.

Sapphire X1950 Pro Dual 1GiB

HEXUS Where2Buy

TBC

HEXUS Right2Reply

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If only it was released 2 months ago. Now people will be wanting DX10 for that sort of money.

Possibly, but the number of DX10 games coming is still limited, and we've no idea on DX10 performance yet (the 8800s could yet turn out to be for DX10 what the 5700 was for DX9… ie completely useless).

It's some very, very serious performance compared to either 8800GTS, and much better value than the 8800GTX, even if it is using Crossfire.

Now no one needs to be reminded how lousy the FX series was in DX9… :D

I doubt 8800 would be such a flop.. but still this is serious value if it just kicks in a tad lower into the £180 mark..

Say, Where's my 5600Ultra I paid my pants out for..

Not bad at all - I'm surprised how effective it turned out, and *if* it's at the 200 pound mark, it's priced very well.

Of course the real winner is the expertise gained, possibly allowing more dual cards in the future.

It would have been intersting to see how it lined up with the 7950GX2 just as an interesting comparison between similar prospects from both companies.