Heatsink:

Heatsink top

Heatsink bottom

Finned channels

RAM Heatsink

    On the Sapphire X1950XTX card comes multiple heatsinks, one of these with a heat-pipe. Let's start off with the main heatsink that cools the GPU. This heatsink is in two pieces and has a single heat-pipe integrated into it. The lower portion that is in contact with the GPU is a solid chunk of copper with a channel cut in it for the heat-pipe. Sitting atop the copper base is a finned copper heatsink, and the other end of the heat-pipe passes through the fins. The channels created by the fins taper towards the back of the card and direct the heated air away from the card. Then there is another finned copper heatsink that is C-shaped and this covers the RAM modules.

GPU:

R580+ GPU

GPX info

    The Radeon X1950XTX is built on ATI’s new R580+ graphics core. Using the same core as the R580 means that it uses the manufacturing process, which is 90-nm or 0.09 microns, and contains 384 million transistors. Features include 48 pixel Shader Processors – 8 vertex shaders, 16 rendering pixel pipelines, 16 ROP's and 16TMU.  Now, what makes the R580 a R580+, you ask? Well, it's some minor things and a major thing. The minor change first is that the R580 core speed is 625Mhz, while the R580+ is 650Mhz. 25Mhz is an improvement, but nothing major, like I said. Now, on to the major upgrade to this GPU, which is the ability to use GDDR4 memory. More on this memory in the next section.

Memory:

    The memory chips on the Sapphire X1950XTX are GDDR4. These RAM modules clock at a memory speed of 1000Mhz compared to the X1900XT's 725Mhz which is effectively 2000MHz DDR. Thish means ATI is the first graphics company to break the Gigahertz barrier for graphic card memory. As an added bonus, the GDDR4 use less power than the older GDDR3 modules. These RAM modules have a bandwidth of around 64Gb/s, in comparison to the X1900XT RAM modules which have a bandwidth of around 46.4Gb/s and 7900GTX of 51Gb/s.

Cables and Software:

Manual	Software	DVI to VGA	HDTV Cable
AVIVO	Molex to PCI-E	S-Video and Video	Dice after lunch

    A wide assortment of cables are included with the Sapphire x1950XTX. These are: a HDTV Cable, 1 S-Video cable, 1 Video extension cable with RCA plugs on each end, 1 AVIVO cable with one S-Video and RCA plug in and out for a total of 4 connections, Power adapter cable (Molex to PCI-E,) and since this card has dual DVI out on the rear, a set of 2 DVI to VGA adapters are also included.

    On the software end, an installation CD is included. Power DVD 6 and Power Director 4 from Cyberlink are also included, so full advantage of the VIVO feature can be used. A game also was included with the Sapphire X1950XTX, The DaVinci Code. Now, I know it's nice they included a game with the graphics card, but, hey, include a game that will at least warm up the card, not one that will play on a 64mb card.

Benchmarks:

    Benchmarking graphics cards is such a tedious job. I have to play several high-end graphics demanding games. I know... why me, but that is what I have to do to show the end user what they are getting :) All tests have been done in a resolution of 1280x1024, which is max for my 19" LCD monitor.

Test Rig: