Funny if this is 80nm then why is'nt the x1950xtx and crossfire 80nm? Also how did GeCube get the clocks so high on it?

Well the X1950 XTX came out before this card and I guess they were not ready to(or did not need to) make the X1950 XTX 80nm. In reference to your GeCube question, either it is a typo on their site or that cooler they put on there is really good.

Damn, the GeCube comes with a peltier element, no wonder it clocked so high.

Wow! I did not notice the peltier (TEC) part. Mike is this the first video card ever to ship with a peltier cooling unit?

To my knowledge, yeah, that's the first card to ever ship with a peltier element stock.

The reason why ati didnt use 80nm architecture on higher end parts comes from some years ago, from the x850 radeon cards. They used the next gen smaller building construction technique for their next high end parts and all turned into a failure. Logic would say that the smaller arquitecture is more usefull on the high end cards due to thermal dissipation. But in practice applying smaller building construction techniques to the latest high end cards brings a production full of rejected parts by the quality control department. The x850 card was finally released almost 6 months late due to this problem and ati decided not to do that again, instead they use the smaller building technics on the lower end cards and only after they have refined the technique thay go for the high end more complicated arquitecture ones. This is the reason why the 1950 pro is a 80nm part an the xtx is a 90nm.

Hope you enjoyed the story.
(I know I did-Steve)

Thank you evil, And excuse me for sounding noobish but aint the peltier thing you talk about produce condensation?

this card is great. but i hope it does really come to $199.

Reply to anonymous: It really depends on the amount of humidty inside the case. If hot air is not moved out of the case there is a chance that condensation could occur, however I am guessing that GeCube put a low Watt peltier on the card just to make sure that they don't get sued by people who had their components doused with water. Or there may be a Warning notice inside the box so people know the risk.

Is this Peltier cooler better then air or water cooling methods? If so, then why is it not made by any of the biggest companies in the cooling bussiness, such as Zalman and Artic Cooling?

@Track: Definitely better than air cooling, probably a little better than water cooling. They suck a lot of power, and are relatively expensive, and don't really get you *that* much more for the trouble. Plus, if used improperly that can cause a lot of condensation and make a real mess of things. All around, not really worth the trouble.

@Mike: Do they make more noise than my VF900? And I did not know that there was something better than watercooling.. unless u studied PC Hardware in college and know how to create ur own cooling device and staple it onto ur graphics card. Heck, i saw a guy who ran his 7900 GTX @ 1050Mhz, wich a giant black tube going right through it..

@Evil thank you.

@Track It really depends on the implementation. The peltier itself is silent. So it just depends on what fan they have and how fast they have it spinning.

$199.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16814102061
zipzoomfly.com had some Asus in stock for $199.99 also but they all sold out so fast! at $199.99 it's hard to resist that kind of pricing! just keep an eye at zzf.com as they get them in stock because almost all their card's are $199.99 except for the official ATI ones.

I have a pair of these cards in crossfire and they work really well. 3dMark06 score of just over 8600 which is in the range of a single 7950gx2. For some reason I am having problems overclocking them though, I don't know if it is the new technology or what, but I would have thought that the 80nm technology would have made overclocking easier. I have the original ATI version of the cards.

The X1950 Pro CANNOT overclock well. The 80nm core is used to lower temperatures, not to highten overclockability. You see? thats why u come onto this site, so that u can know what ur buying before ur buying it. But if u got them cheap, then its not so bad. Oh, and a 7950 GX2 can get much more than 8600 now that they have made it possible to change the coolers that it comes with.

Right, I'm glad for sights like this, of course. I do have my doubts though because isn't the POINT of lowering the temperature and voltage needed by going to 80nm to allow for higher frequencies??? I mean why else do it if 90nm works great? Save power, save heat, more speed.... Or so I thought. The fact that it's not overclocking well could very well be immature driver compatiblity. I mean just my opinion. We're already seeing some factory overclocked x1950 pro's so obviously they CAN overclock.

Lowering the process size could have either of two effects - lowering temperatures, and increasing clock speeds. This is a hardware issue, not a software (driver) issue, to my knowledge.

yeah, smaller process will give you higher clocks.

you said its being a pain to overclock, im asuming you've volt modded it somewhat right?

nah, actually I just bought a pair of BFG 8800 GTX's I'm gonna put in my rig. Just waiting for the 680i motherboard, so I'm putting the x1950's up on ebay. No amount of overclocking will get these close to an 8800.

It says on the chart that the MSI 512M version is HDCP enabled, but it doesn't expressly say that on the MSI web page (at least not the language I looked at)

Is there any proof that HDCP is enabled on the MSI 512M version?

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=AS-1950PRO
$174.07
Woohooooo! Price went down, I just bought this!!!! CHEAPEST I COULD FIND!

Best to get the X1900GT over this. Its the same card.

Are there any utilities(either generic or manufacturer specific) that watch the GPU temperature and control the fan speed for this card?

And does it worth the extra money to buy the 512 Mb version?

No, it's not worth it to buy the 512mb. Most reviews say 512mb version doesn't give games much of a boost performance. You are better off buying a X1950XTX or Geforce 8800 GTS. Oh and X1900GT doesn't use the new Crossfire bridges and the cooler 80nm core =).

hmmm... to reduce noise level... i think its the best to get the HIS version of this card... check it... http://www.hisdigital.com/html/product_ov.php?id=263 its interesting...

just put this thing in a Dell XPS 410 ... runs great. Tried a BFG 7950GT OC 256mb before this and the NVidia drivers didn't run well on Vista at all. Very happy with this card so far - runs BF2 at full high settings just fine.

Just ordered a NEW Gecube 1950 pro 512Mb for 90%u20AC.
Is this a deal or what?

Sorry I don't know much about this kind of thing, but I want to buy this card as a temporary upgrade until I buy a new rig next year and am wondering what kind of power supply it will require...I don't want to have to upgrade that as well.

I have a Sapphire X1950 Pro 512MB pcie running in my maxed out Dell Dimension E520. This card is great for the price; possibly the best single slot card out there now, especially at the prices you can find them for. Why can't there be a DX10 equivalent of this card??? For that reason I'm not going DX10 until something similar comes around.

Apt42, re: power supply - you'll for sure need one with a PCIe connector. I have a 550W, but I've heard of folks with 350W working okay. Be sure that whatever wattage you get, it has at least 30amp total on the rail(s)... I've heard of BSODs and what not occurring without them.

375W, works fine for me! It is 30 amps on 12V...

727stretch- i have a Dell Dimension E520 and before i order this card i am concerned that it might have some clearance issues as the pci-e is very close to the cooler, Does the card fit okay?

Mine fits in a Dell Dimension 9150, not barely, but it couldn't be bigger than this card to fit... and I think the E520 is the "smaller version" of the 9150 so I'm not so sure if it fits.

does the x1900xt better than the x1950pro?
anyone who can answer?

Yes, though I think it needs more power and is bigger.

i have a 1950pro and want 2 buy a board for crossfire... what board will i buy w/ 2 x16?
tnx...

amd am2 socket...

what version of ati tool will i download for this card?

0.25 beta 14...
best clock for 610mhz