Today I & other TE members recieved one of the best Graphics Card out there. I had to hold a heavy heart spending close to Rs 30,000 for a graphics card but was it worth it , Read On 
Sapphire Radeon X1900XT 512MB DDR3 PCI Express Graphics Card
Official Link
First Impression :
The Box in which the card came is decent. Had all the contents layed out in proper arrangement protected by a thin Plastic Box.
The Card:
The Card is heavy. Being a monster , this baby has a heavy heatsink to give it efficient cooling. The fan on the heatsink helps to exhaust the hot air directly out of the cabinet which is great to keep the temperature down inside. The Card is long , it measures around 7.5 inches . I first thought i will have trouble fitting it in my A8N-E board , but it avoided the ram slots and the chipset fan , so no problems there
hyeah:
Accesories & Softwares & Games :
There is a lot of Bundled accessories that come with the card.
Connectors
DVI to VGA converters, a 9 pin DIN VIVO cable, RCA composite HDTV cable, 9 pin DIN to HDTV cable, and a 4 pin to 6 pin PCIe power converting cable.
Softwares & Games
Cyberlink PowerDirector, Cyberlink PowerDVD, Sapphire Select (4 trial games included), Driver CD.
The Sapphire Select gives you the option to test out the 4 games as demo. Later out of the 4 , 2 games could be upgraded to full version using the keys printed on the cd cover.
The Games are
Tony Hawk Underground 2
Richard Burns Rally
Price of Persia - Warrior Within
Brother in Arms - Road to Hill 30.
All these are decent games but a new game like FEAR would have been great to demonstrate the juice of this card right out of the Box.
The Manual included is pathetic. You dont have to do much except putting the card in the slot and plugging the PCI E Power connector from your PSU or the same provided by Sapphire to your Card and you are good to.
On booting the system , the fan makes a pretty loud swooshing noise as it starts spinning for 5 secs and then becomes basically very quiet . Even with the side panel open , the noise is hardly audible.
After installing the latest drivers from the Web ( Catalyst 6.3 Version ) , I started to experience what this Card is all about.
I wont be going into Technical details like benchmarking because of my Processor ( AMD 64 3200+ ). I will leave that to the Experts with the Uber Hardware on TE
.
After 15 mins of booting the sytem , The temp of card stayed at 59 degrees.
The speed of the Fan is 1878 rpm which explains why the card is quiet. The Max RPM is 5200 on which the noise is very loud
I did run rthdribl : High Dynamic Range Image-Based Lighting to test out the cooling ability of the Stock cooler.
After running rthdbril for 20 mins , the result was this
The 79 degrees is quite hot but according to ATI , 90 to 100 degrees is the danger zone for the card so i was satisfied . Also the fan speed did not increase much from 1878 rpm as the temp increased to 79 degrees which took me by surprise :O , i had to adjust the speed settings using an overclocking software
I tried using Rivatuner but it didnt support the 6.3's.
To adjust the Fan speeds manually , i used this software i found on the net
http://www.driverheaven.net/zardon/overclocker.zip
Gaming Experience :
I installed Battlefield 2 and got playing . Cranked everything up to highest setting possible and started to Play. After 1 hour intense playing , the experience was awesome. There was absolutely no frame skipping or jerking , the 3200+ and 1 gb ram and the card worked great and i was more than happy with the performance of the card.
On using Fraps , got an average of 65 FPS at 1024 x 768 ( 17" CRT
) with highest settings ( lowest 40 , highest 90 )
Verdict:
I am not a harcore gamer like i used to during college days. It all about after a long days work , come home and game for some time to chill & relax.
This is a Great graphics card. Probably the best currently available for the special price of Rs 29,120 with 2 years warranty. ( Thanks to Darklord and his Dealer ). I am totally satisfied with the card and should serve me for couple of yearshyeah: and who knows , i might start gaming more again :hap2:
Time to buy some new games
Sapphire Radeon X1900XT 512MB DDR3 PCI Express Graphics Card
Official Link
First Impression :
The Box in which the card came is decent. Had all the contents layed out in proper arrangement protected by a thin Plastic Box.
The Card:
The Card is heavy. Being a monster , this baby has a heavy heatsink to give it efficient cooling. The fan on the heatsink helps to exhaust the hot air directly out of the cabinet which is great to keep the temperature down inside. The Card is long , it measures around 7.5 inches . I first thought i will have trouble fitting it in my A8N-E board , but it avoided the ram slots and the chipset fan , so no problems there
hyeah:
Accesories & Softwares & Games :
There is a lot of Bundled accessories that come with the card.
Connectors
DVI to VGA converters, a 9 pin DIN VIVO cable, RCA composite HDTV cable, 9 pin DIN to HDTV cable, and a 4 pin to 6 pin PCIe power converting cable.
Softwares & Games
Cyberlink PowerDirector, Cyberlink PowerDVD, Sapphire Select (4 trial games included), Driver CD.
The Sapphire Select gives you the option to test out the 4 games as demo. Later out of the 4 , 2 games could be upgraded to full version using the keys printed on the cd cover.
The Games are
Tony Hawk Underground 2
Richard Burns Rally
Price of Persia - Warrior Within
Brother in Arms - Road to Hill 30.
All these are decent games but a new game like FEAR would have been great to demonstrate the juice of this card right out of the Box.
The Manual included is pathetic. You dont have to do much except putting the card in the slot and plugging the PCI E Power connector from your PSU or the same provided by Sapphire to your Card and you are good to.
On booting the system , the fan makes a pretty loud swooshing noise as it starts spinning for 5 secs and then becomes basically very quiet . Even with the side panel open , the noise is hardly audible.
After installing the latest drivers from the Web ( Catalyst 6.3 Version ) , I started to experience what this Card is all about.
I wont be going into Technical details like benchmarking because of my Processor ( AMD 64 3200+ ). I will leave that to the Experts with the Uber Hardware on TE
.After 15 mins of booting the sytem , The temp of card stayed at 59 degrees.
The speed of the Fan is 1878 rpm which explains why the card is quiet. The Max RPM is 5200 on which the noise is very loud
I did run rthdribl : High Dynamic Range Image-Based Lighting to test out the cooling ability of the Stock cooler.
After running rthdbril for 20 mins , the result was this
The 79 degrees is quite hot but according to ATI , 90 to 100 degrees is the danger zone for the card so i was satisfied . Also the fan speed did not increase much from 1878 rpm as the temp increased to 79 degrees which took me by surprise :O , i had to adjust the speed settings using an overclocking software
I tried using Rivatuner but it didnt support the 6.3's.
To adjust the Fan speeds manually , i used this software i found on the net
http://www.driverheaven.net/zardon/overclocker.zip
Gaming Experience :
I installed Battlefield 2 and got playing . Cranked everything up to highest setting possible and started to Play. After 1 hour intense playing , the experience was awesome. There was absolutely no frame skipping or jerking , the 3200+ and 1 gb ram and the card worked great and i was more than happy with the performance of the card.
On using Fraps , got an average of 65 FPS at 1024 x 768 ( 17" CRT
) with highest settings ( lowest 40 , highest 90 )
Verdict:
I am not a harcore gamer like i used to during college days. It all about after a long days work , come home and game for some time to chill & relax.
This is a Great graphics card. Probably the best currently available for the special price of Rs 29,120 with 2 years warranty. ( Thanks to Darklord and his Dealer ). I am totally satisfied with the card and should serve me for couple of years
hyeah: and who knows , i might start gaming more again :hap2:Time to buy some new games
