Introduction

Powercolor send us their latest addition, a mid/high-range video card based on the X1900 series from ATI. The X1900 GT has the same core as the higher end XT/XTX models but comes clocked lower and has fewer pixel shader processors. The decrease in GPU speeds allows the GT to be cooled with a single slot heatsink which covers both core and memory chips. Powercolor decided to stick with the reference design which helps keep the price down. The X1900 GT was originally planned to be sold under the GTO name, but a last minute change by ATI removed the O, which resulted in their product now carrying a name very similar to its main competitor, the NVIDIA 7900 GT.


The X1900 series uses the R580 core

Specification wise the X1900 GT from Powercolor does not disappoint, it?s a feature rich video card with two DVI outputs, HDTV support, TV-Out and VIVO (Video-In/Video-Out), ideal for the gamer as well as the multimedia enthusiast.

With the HWBot video card database we can easily compare the X1900 GT with the other ATI Xxxxx series video cards:


Speficication table (product name ? core ? GPU/MEM clocks ? pixel shader/vertex shader/ROP)

As you can see from the table above, compared to the X1900 XT the GT looses 50Mhz on the GPU and 125Mhz on the speed of the memory, but what will most impact performance is the reduction of pixel shader processors from 48 (16x3) to 36 (12x3). The GT has 256Mb onboard memory which is sufficient for everything but the highest resolutions/detail settings, in which case the GPU speed becomes the limiting factor.

In the box



Inside the red shaded shiny *bling* box you?ll find the following goodies:

S-Video cable

2x DVI->VGA Dongle

HDTV Cable (3-way RCA)

Composite cable

VIVO cable

PCIe 6-pin to 4-pin power cable

Manual, Driver CD and Cyberlink Powerpack



Let?s take a closer look at the card ->

The Powercolor X1900 GT up close

The X1900 GT differs visually from the XT and XTX by having a single slot cooling instead of the 2 slot behemoth on the higher end models. The PCB looks quite similar and without the heatsink installed you?d have a hard time differentiating one from the other.



The heatsink is made from aluminium with a copper insert for the GPU core, it?s held in place by an X-form back plate and screws through the PCB.



The zoomed in area at the top right in the photo above shows 2 jumpers which are found on the back of the X1900 GT, ones allows you to select PAL/NTSC video out, the other enables/disables the VIVO function of the card. Not quite too exiting but good to know nonetheless in case you thought you found a secret ?boost performance? jumper, which is sadly not the case ;-)

Test Setup

JMke's Test Setup
CPU	Opteron 144 @ 2.25Ghz
Cooling	Scythe Mine with stock fan @ 12v
Mainboard	Asus A8N SLI Premium
Memory	2 * 512Mb PC3200 OCZ
Other	Antec Lanboy with 2x80mm fans GlobalWin 520W Silent PSU Maxtor 200GB IDE HDD

nVIDIA Drive used: ForceWare 84.21

ATI Catalyst 6.6

Windows XP SP2

Room temperature was 27?C during testing

Ambient noise (without VGA card ? system only) at ~37.5dBA

Test Methodology and Benchmarks

Our last group test consisted of mid range to low range VGA cards, which meant that higher resolutions resulted in unplayable frame rates with most of the newer games. The X1900 GT is not considered to be mid range and its performance is a noticeable step up allowing higher resolutions and details in modern games.

1280x1024 and 1600x1200 with anti aliasing and anisotropic filtering enabled becomes possible even with the most taxing games, and this with a VGA which is closer by a ?250 price tag than a ?500 one. This is encouraging as the trend the last years for being able to play the latest games at high detail involved ?500+ graphic cards.

We used the following games for our game play evaluation:

Call of Duty 2 (Levels Breakout / Bergstein)

Prey (Demo level)

F.E.A.R. (in-game performance test)

Oblivion (Outdoors / City)

For most games we choose to do manual run-throughs using FRAPS to record minimum and maximum FPS. In game detail settings were turned up to see if we could get playable frame rates at high detail with the X1900 GT.

For comparison a Club 3D 7900GT (running at NVIDIA reference speeds) and a Connect3D X1900 XTX were included.

Let?s start off with Call of Duty 2 ->

Call of Duty 2

We loaded up two different maps and recorded the min/avg/max frames per second during a few minutes of gameplay; the first map was Bergstein:


Full screen

The second map was Breakout:


Full screen


Performance at 1280x1024




The X1900 XTX leads the pack (as expected) the difference between the 7900 GT and X1900 GT is negligible. Let?s add AA into the mix:




Quite a performance drop for the mid range cards, with 4xAA the X1900 GT has some low FPS dips but is able to keep up with the 7900 GT overall.

Performance at 1600x1200




Performance is practically the same as at 1280x1024 with 4xAA, the 7900 GT keeps its small lead, the XTX shows of its power running 4xAA easily at 1600x1200.

Oblivion

The Oblivion graphics engine can be very taxing for even the fastest hardware once you increase the level of detail. There is also a difference in performance compared running ?outside?, in ?city area? or inside a ?dungeon?, the outside is most taxing for the graphics card, the town area is noticeably easier on the GPU while the dungeon is usually less taxing of all.

We choose an outdoor scene and inside the main city. FRAPS was used to log min/avg/max FPS, this was the outdoor run:


Full screen

This was the city benchmark:


Full screen


Performance at 1280x1024




In the city area all cards deliver fluent gameplay, outdoors the X1900 GT is noticeably trailing the 7900 GT but average frame rate is still well within playable values.


Performance at 1600x1200




At 1600x1200 all cards drop their average frame rate, but none fall below playable levels, although we must admit that with the 7900 GT and X1900 GT at stock speeds there are area of noticeable slow down.

Prey

Prey is the recently released game from 3D Realms based on the id Software Doom 3 engine; We used the demo version to evaluate the performance in this portal ridden game, auto save game point ?downward spiral? where the main character swaps a wrench for a gun and runs through the portals for the first time.



At 1280x1024 with 4xAA performance is phenomenal for all cards!



In a game with a graphics engine once dominated by NVIDIA hardware we see the X1900 GT take a noticeable performance lead, average FPS is high and keeps the game fluently playable.


FEAR

We used the in-game performance benchmark in combination with FRAPS to record min/max/avg FPS, different AA levels at 1280x1024 can be tested quickly:



The Average frame rate of the X1900 GT is again noticeably higher than the 7900 GT even with 4xAA it remains over 40.



The minimum FPS tell a slightly different story, here the two mid-range cards are on par, you can also see that the impact using 2xAA is minimal, but using 4xAA with FEAR sees a larger drop, even with the X1900 XTX.

Let?s check out overclocking/noise/cooling performance of the Powercolor X1900 GT ->

Overclocking

The R580 core on the X1900 GT should scale well, but also give up quite a bit of heat once you increase clock speeds, with the single slot heatsink you?ll run into a ?heat? wall rather quickly.

With the stock cooling the GT easily overclocked 634Mhz on the core (575Mhz default) and an impressive 801Mhz on the memory (600Mhz default), unfortunately the missing pixel shader processors could not be re-added, so in the end the performance is still below an X1900 XT, even when GPU/MEM are running faster on the overclocked GT.



In 3DMark2001SE & 3DMark03 (representing older games) the X1900 GT trails the 7900 GT when not overclocked; increasing the GPU/Memory allows it to catch up in 2001SE but not in 03.



In the newer benchmarks the X1900 GT is faster/on par with the 7900 GT and when overclocked the GT is almost catching up with the much faster XTX in 3DMark05. Let?s see what the overclock does in Oblivion:



13% increase in average FPS with the outdoor benchmark scene, not bad at all!



11% for the town/city benchmark, the overclock is certainly paying off in games as well, not only in synthetic benchmarks.

To get the most out of this X1900 GT without resorting to extreme cooling we swapped the stock cooler with a Zalman VF900Cu, this cooler when fed with enough cool air (read: good case cooling) will keep your card running cool and quiet!



With the new found cooling power we were ready to apply the overclocking tricks from our X1900/X1800 series OC guide on the GT. The core voltage was set to 1.270v and memory at 2.04v. This resulted in a final overclock of 668Mhz on the core and 828Mhz on the memory. With an increase of 16% on the core and an impressive 38% on the memory the X1900 GT from Powercolor has some overclocking headroom.


Noise and Temperatures

Unlike the 7900 GT from NVIDIA which has issues with fan speed control, the X1900 GT works as it should, in 2D mode it?s very quiet, not distinguishable from the ambient noise; in 3D mode the fan speed goes up steadily with the GPU temperature, in our hot test environment (thank you heat wave) with room temperature at 27?C the fan went up to 55% which resulted in 44.3dBA at 20cm which is only slightly lower than the Club 3D 7900 GT with its fan at 100%.

GPU temperature reached 93?C easily with the stock cooling, turning up the fan speed manually to maximum speed did reduce it drastically but noise went up and over 48.2dBA. With the Zalman VF900Cu cooling temperatures never passed 80?C with its fan at 12v (<40dBA).

Conclusive thoughts

The Powercolor X1900 GT in some games the performance is on par/better with/than its closest rival, the NVIDIA 7900 GT, while in other games it fall behind a few percentage, overall new games are very playable at 1280x1024 with high detail and higher resolutions are possible with older games, this card can run them fluently.

Priced at ?/$ 260~299 it?s an interesting product for those looking for excellent performance in current games without the funds to get the highest end video card. The single slot cooler on the Powercolor unit is sufficient to keep the GPU cool enough but it does hinder overclocking potential. The fan on the heatsink is inaudible when in 2D mode, yet in 3D mode spinning at ~50% it become more obtrusive, those who are looking for extreme silence should look at third party cooling. With it the GPU can reach clock speeds higher than those of the XT model and this does give the card quite a boost in games, enough to run at higher resolutions and detail.

The overclock we obtained here today is not extraordinary as can be seen in this "Hall of Fame" shot from HWBot.org:



Overall the X1900 GT did not disappoint but it?s hard to forget that the 7900 GT is breathing down its neck with similar specifications and wide availability. Which ever product you choose you can?t make a wrong purchase as they all offer some of the best price/performance ratio currently available.

##Update: We were informed by Powercolor that the estimated resale price for the X1900 GT is going to be reduced to an interesting $199, this would make the X1900 GT a better deal than the 7900 GT.

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