New HIS x1950Pro

[Smudger]

What's happened with these cards? I'm pretty sure the old ones used to be 36 pipes, but these new ones are being advertised as 12 pipes. Is this a reduction in performance, or a change in the way the things are counted, or is it a mistake by Scan with their product details?

[Tel_Tech]

As I recall it's a difference in advertising. The X1800 and X19X0 series had 12 or 16 physical pipelines but the number is multiplied by 3 to give the total number (Allowing for Pixel/Vertex Shaders being counted as seperate pipelines).

This meant an X1900XT for example had the same 16 pipelines as the X1800XT but was advertised as having 48.

Hence why an X1900XT isn't 3 times as powerful as an X1800XT despite supposedly having 3 times the pipe's.

Of course, I could be wrong, but that's how I've come to understand it.

[kalniel]

12 pipelines, 3 shader units per pipe = 36 pixel shaders.

19**XT is 16 pipelines, same 3 pixel shader units per pipe = 48 shaders.

18** has 1 shader unit per pipe, hence 16 shaders.

Branched shader performance of the 19** series is nearly 3 times that of the 18** series, but that's only one facet of graphics card performance.

[Tel_Tech]

12 pipelines, 3 shader units per pipe = 36 pixel shaders.

19**XT is 16 pipelines, same 3 pixel shader units per pipe = 48 shaders.

18** has 1 shader unit per pipe, hence 16 shaders.

Branched shader performance of the 19** series is nearly 3 times that of the 18** series, but that's only one facet of graphics card performance.

That's what my brain was telling me but I couldn't word it right. That and I wasn't 100% on the technicalities.

[Smudger]

Right, thanks for that, I think I understand it...

So, next question is, would this be worth buying (at £125 or thereabouts) as part of a mobo/cpu/memory upgrade, or would it be best to wait for the 2600s to come out?

I'm not keen on the 8500 or 8600, as reviews don't seem to be too positive for those...

Main uses will be general e-mail/internet, interspersed with sporadic gaming, with a particular interest in Crysis...

[Tel_Tech]

The x1950 is an admirable performer in current games, certainly for the price. It's hard to predict Crysis performance however and it's a good 6 months away IMO.

I've owned one of these myself as a stopgap card while an RMA was in progress.

http://www.ginger6.com/xpertvision-5...l-p-24980.html

It's good for the money.

[Smudger]

Blimey, that is a good price...

[just_laze]

That's an incredible price? I didn't think these were that cheap already?!

With 512MB, it should be pretty happy with the higher resolutions, no?

laze.

[Tel_Tech]

We stock them where I work, although slightly more expensive. They're about 15% cheaper than the eq. from a named manufacturer. Funny thing is the one I bought came with 1.1ns memory and clocked quite well:

http://www.futuremark.com/forum/showthread.php?t=42830

That link is to the user review I did on Futuremark.

[just_laze]

It's actually dropped from £112 when you bought it to £94.

It must be the cheapest X1950 Pro (512MB) on the web?

laze.

[Smudger]

Ok, next question is, what's the difference between the Asus P5B and P5B-E, and is it worth the extra £10 or so?