paulphoto's Full Review: ATI RADEON® X1600 Pro, (512 MB) PCI Express V...
ATI Radeon X1600 Pro 512MB
The Radeon X1600 is the current offering of graphics display card from ATI. It is available in two editions: X1600 Pro and X1600 XT. Each is available with an option of PCI-Express 16x or AGP 8x. In terms of memory, the X1600 series come in 256MB or 512MB. I believe each was also available in 128MB when ATI first introduced them over a year ago.
The X1600 series are mid-range video graphics cards aiming to gain support from gaming enthusiasts or computer users who demand high graphics performance. As mid-range graphics cards, they are not cheap, by my standards. The ATI X1600 Pro 512MB PCI-Express is currently selling at my local Circuit City for $199.99. I am sure the X1600 XT should be a bit higher. The AGP edition carries the same price at Circuit City as well as Best Buy.
I am reviewing the X1600 Pro 512MB PCI-Express interface. This is an awesome card with impressive specifications. It has a core clock of 500MHz and able to access its memory at 780MHz (390MHz DDR) with a transfer rate of 128bits per clock cycle. At this frequency, it can boost data at roughly 12.5GB/s.
Offered as a gaming graphics card, it supports SmartShader 3.0 (with 12 pixel and 5 vertex shaders) and DirectX9.0c as well as OpenGL. Most impressive is its memory, which is based on eight (8) GDDR2 512-Mbit 2.5ns chips from Hynix. These eight 512-Mbit chips enable the card to have a total video memory of 512MB (that is, 512-Mbit x 8 = 512MB).
The retail package contains the Radeon X1600 Pro 512MB, CD-ROM driver, User Manual, HDTV/S-Video/Composite/VIVO Cable. The card carries a full one-year warranty from ATI, both parts and labor.
Operating System
For system software (OS), the CD-ROM comes with Windows XP driver. However, there is a download driver for Vista. I also downloaded a new driver using Catalyst version 7.8.
For Linux system, kernel 2.6.18 or higher will auto detect and configure the card properly.
Installation: Hardware and Software
Since this is a PCI-Express card, it requires an empty PCI-Express 16x slot. I use this card as a single graphics display device without the SLI feature. Installation was a snap; not much different from installing an add-on PCI card or AGP.
The card supports S-Video, D-Sub (analog VGA) and DVI (digital) connectors for video display. Fortunately, the card is able to draw enough power (voltage) from the PCI-Express bus without requiring external power like its AGP siblings.
For graphics driver, I use the newer version downloaded at ATI web site. Both Windows XP and Vista (Business) cannot configure the card automatically and each requires the appropriate driver for proper display resolution. I run this card on my system with Windows XP and Vista, so I had to boot into each system to install the driver individually.
Under Linux platform, my Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 (kernel 2.6.9) does not recognize the specific card model, but it uses a generic driver which seems to work fine. For full recognition of the card, Linux kernel 2.6.18 or higher must be used. My Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 (kernel 2.6.18) recognizes the card as RV530 (X1600). Therefore, any Linux distribution using kernel version 2.6.18 or higher will recognize the card fine with proper configuration.
Hardware systems used under ATI Radeon X1600 Pro 512MB.
Second (my personal machine):
Motherboard: Tyan S2895 dual-CPU 940-pin socket
CPU: 2xAMD Opteron 280 dual-core (2.4GHz)
RAM: 4x512MB PC-3200 reg. ECC buffered
HDDs: Fujitsu MAX3073NP (73GB) 15K RPM, 2xMAX3036NP (73GB) 15K RPM, Seagate ST3146707LW (146GB) 10K RPM, Hitachi HUS103014FL360 (147GB) 10K PM, Seagate ST3300007LC (300GB) 10K RPM.
OS: Windows XP, Red Hat Enterprise Linux
Performance
This is such a nice card; it runs very quiet. Its display image is very crisp with rich and detailed color. It appears to be sharper than my cheap ATI Radeon 9550 256MB card; though, this was perhaps a psychological inclination toward the X1600 Pro, especially the current technology on graphics display devices has already reached its peak of true image quality in terms of color and sharpness. Nonetheless, on my LCD monitor at its native resolution at 1280x1024x32, display image is amazing.
Benchmark (Windows XP 32-bit)
To see the card's performance in terms of number so comparison can be made with its competitors, I conducted a few benchmark test using 3DMark2001SE and 3DMark03, both running at resolution 1024x768x32.
It's important to note that 3DMark2001SE measures performance based on DirectX8.0 simulation, while 3DMark03 measures performance in terms of Shader 2.0 and DirectX9.0. I have included a complete run of benchmark with all the detailed score, which is a bit technical; but we can look at the numbers and interpret that the higher the number the better the performance of the graphics card.
3DMark2001SE Score: 17193(higher is better)
Game 1 - Car Chase - Low Detail: 222.9 fps
High Detail: 69.7 fps
Game 2 - Dragothic - Low Detail: 297.9 fps
High Detail: 167.9 fps
Game 3 - Lobby - Low Detail: 200.6 fps
High Detail: 92.5 fps
Game 4: Nature: 86.9 fps
Fill Rate (Single-texturing): 1339.8 MTexels/s
Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing): 1981.1 MTexels/s
High Polygon Count (1 light): 112.0 MTriangles/s
High Polygon Count (8 lights): 34.3 MTriangles/s
Vertex Shader: 221.9 fps
Pixel Shader: 280.8 fps
Adv. Pixel shader: 242.9 fps
Point Sprites: 49.3 Msprites/s
3DMark03 Game Tests: 8526 Game Test 1 Wing of Fury: 184.7 fps
Game Test 2 Battle of Proxycon: 58.5 fps
Game Test 3 Troll's Lair: 49.3 fps
Game Test 4 Mother Nature: 58.4 fps
Feature Tests: Fill Rate (Single Texturing): 1230.3 Mtexels/s
Fill Rate (Multi-Texturing): 1964.4 Mtexels/s
Vertex Shader: 38.6 fps
Pixel Shader 2.0: 70.4 fps
Comparison?
For PCI-Express graphics cards, I have seen performance by ATI X300 128MB and X600 Pro 128MB before. They both did not score higher than 9000 by 3DMark2001SE, and did not prove worthy to replace AGP cards like ATI Radeon 9600XT. What this means is that if the card runs low on its engine clock and with a slow accessing memory, its PCI-Express bus (that assumes to run twice the speed of AGP) is practically meaningless.
However, the X1600 Pro here takes on a different light. My highest record of Radeon 9600XT under 3DMark2001SE was 11063 obtained from an 8x AGP on Biostar motherboard. In spite of the fact that the X1600 Pro has a faster accessing speed on memory, both cards have the same core clock of 500MHz at stock speed. By comparison, the X1600 Pro (scored 17193) is almost 60% faster than the Radeon 9600XT. Even though the X1600 Pro did not reach twice the speed of the Radeon 9600XT it is nonetheless impressive.
A comparison between the Radeon 9600XT and the X1600 Pro merely reaffirms that PCI-Express can reach twice the theoretical speed of AGP bus. However, a graphics card offered from nVidia, the GeForce 6600 GT has similar core clock (500MHz) but slightly higher accessing speed on memory at 1.0GHz with a bandwidth of 16.0GB/s. I tested the card on a different motherboard sometime ago with a score of 17142 under 3DMark2001SE. This shows that the two cards are quite comparable. Since there is still head room for the X1600 Pro to overclock, the ATI Radeon X1600 Pro can easily compete against its competition.
Heat
For a graphics card with a high engine clock at 500MHz, its GPU gets very hot during extended use. Heat is a real issue here. The card features an impressive heatsink with narrow strips of fins spanning out along the opposite direction of the video display ports. Too bad the heatsink is not made of copper (although I did not take it apart to see if copper is used inside). There is a small opening that allows air to get sucked in by the small and quiet fan; the air is then rushed through each fin. The cover helps guide the air through the individual fins to ensure heat dissipation. Since the breather hole where air comes in is small, heat dissipation is not effective, and the device gets extremely hot.
Despite its rise in temperature during extensive use and heavy load, the card did not appear to decline in its performance. However, I definitely recommend looking for an effective cooling method, perhaps by replacing the stock heatsink by an after-market cooler.
Vista: Driver bug?
I did test the card under Windows Vista (32-bit Business Edition) merely to run a benchmark. I tested the card on my son's system under Intel P4 2.93GHz, 512MB RAM, LSI U160 PCI SCSI controller card with Fujitsu MAT3073NP 73GB hard drive on Asus PTGD1-LA LGA775-socket motherboard (with onboard graphics but I set the system BIOS to utilize the PCI-Express device). The driver installed fine. However, the log-on screen was always at 800x600. After log-on I had to switch the screen to 1024x768x32. It seemed that the display driver was unable to recognize the monitor and unwilling to switch the resolution mode. However, I did not encounter this problem under Windows XP on the same system. Since the system has a low RAM of 512MB, regardless of how powerful the graphics device is, the Areo glass or 3D flip feature did not work. However, I did not get to perform a complete test on the card, since many of my programs do not run on Vista anyway. Suffice it to say that under Windows XP, the card performed very well.
Overclock?
Running at stock speed of 500MHz, the X1600 Pro still has a lot of head room to overclock. I have tested the card running at 575MHz with a score over 18000 on 3DMark2001SE. But because of its extensive heat, I did not push the card to its limit and risk burning its GPU.
Warranty/Reliability/Support
As stated previously, the card comes with a one-year warranty from ATI both parts and labor. I have been using ATI products for quite sometime now and have always been impressed with them, in terms of reliability and performance. It's nice that ATI keeps providing drivers even for old and discontinued products. While the new driver for the Vista is not up to the expectations of many high-end users, for WinXP there isn't one tiny disappointment.
Conclusion
As a mid-range graphics card, the ATI Radeon X1600 Pro 512MB PCI-Express is definitely an excellent performer, both for high graphics video/image rendering and gaming. In terms of price, I believe it is a bit expensive compared to its competitor. I was fortunate to find an excellent deal on two of these cards; they came as open box items but nonetheless new and carry full warranty from ATI. If you are looking for pure performance, and price is not really an issue, then the ATI Radeon X1600 Pro 512MB is the real thing. The only big complaint I have is that it gets pretty hot. An after-market cooler is definitely a necessary option to resolve the heat problem.
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Comments: How to interpret Benchmark Scores
Benchmark score is subjective and solely depends on the specific system and its hardware configuration. As can be seen in a previous review by Gr8ful, 3DMark03 gave him a score of 3702 and CPU score of 700, under his own system hardware configuration.
When I tested this card on a machine configured with Intel P4 2.93GHz, 512MB RAM DDR400, Single hard drive Fujitsu MAT3073NP on PCI (32-bit) SCSI controller, Asus PTGD1-LA LGA775-socket motherboard, I obtained almost similar results:
3DMark03: 7228
CPU Tests: 702
CPU Test 1: 82.5 fps
CPU Test 2: 11.8 fps
The only marked difference here is the main score between his 3702 and my 7228, clearly an indication due to other variables as well as the different CPUs between AMD Sempron 1.8GHz and Intel Pentium 4 2.93GHz (533MHz). The same card may perform a bit differently on a different platform
So how do we interpret Benchmark scores? Well, the higher the score the better the performance (on that particular machine). How do we compare benchmark score? Well, we can test different graphics cards on the same machine to see which gives a higher score. This will provide the most accurate comparison.
Since we cannot distinguish the different performance from each graphics card, or the same card on a different machine, benchmark is the only method to help tell them apart.
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
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