X1900XT impressions

well as a 1800xt user. After a few months uasge. The fan on the card is the loudest fan i haver had on a installed device. There is no room for argument. Its a loud fan. 2D is ok its in the mix of all the rest. 3D is ok at stock but is the loudest fan/noise ( other than the lame seeks of the raptor). The card runs much cooler when set to 44% fan, by as much as 15c. 44% is way louder than anything in my box. But as all comp noises i get used to them and hope the next upgrade wont be louder... Some posters i think are just to old to notice due to hearing loss...lol

 

Uhm, not positive here, but I'm pretty sure this is not true. 3dB is twice the noise power, but as for perceived loudness, my recollection is that it doubles for ~10db SPL increase. (and not intending to pick on ya Mendel.)

 

Thanks for correcting him.

 

Hmm, well... It's quite possible that I either remember it wrong or have been tought it wrong in my sound physics classroom then.

It seems I might have to grab a book or two and educate myself about sound properties again. Or maybe I should check some audio forums... umh, anyways...

Thanks for correcting me. It would have been unfortunate if I kept running around with my misconceptions like that.

 

You just got them mixed up mate.

 

My XT is no louder, than my 2xGTX's with Silencers on them. I cant tell a difference. It has yet to spin into high gear, other than on startup. I havent played more than about 10-15 mins either yet though at a time. But it has not kicked into 2nd gear, let alone 3rd yet.

 

It'll matter more if the noise it produces is high-pitched (more whine than drone), and IIRC HOCP described it as such (plus, it uses the clear plastic that SPCR has said is more brittle and thus noisier than the semi-transparent kind on the original Arctic Coolers). Noise of a higher pitch may not make it through your case as easily as that of a lower pitch, but if it's noisy enough, it'll get through anyway. I'm looking at you, Quantum Fireball Plus LM, you whiny brute. I'm guessing the X1800/1900 cooler is noisy enough that no regular case will stop it, tho.

Sorry if that's pedantic. Noise is noise, and if your previous card was quiet in the same circumstances your X1900 is now loud, then you're right to complain. Hopefully someone at ATI is listening (har har).

 

thanks, it looks like a good upgrade, except for price. They are £350-£400 over here. I paid £279 for my 6800GT, £260 for my 9700Pro - both within a month or two of launch, I just bought an Xbox 360 Premium so the upgrade will have to wait. Hopefully there will be quiter models by then as well

 

The more i play with my X1900Xt the more i love it.

Pure powah!

I hope G71 sucks, cause i'd hate to upgrade until vista.

 

Why would it matter. However good or bad it is your card will remain the same.

 

If the G71 is better I'll take that X1900 off yours hands for say....$200.

 

Right then, it's a few days late but I was too busy playing a few games of hockey and then actually playing games over the weekend to sit down and write a review.

I think first I will address the main issues of the card that people want to hear about; noise and heat. As has been covered, on a cold boot the card spins up to max rpm for a second or two, which is a bit of a shock. However, the card then settles down to a low speed and it is not too bad. I have used ATITool to set fan speeds that are dependent on temperature and up to 60 degrees the fan is set to spin at 27% of it's maximum rpm. At this speed there is noise but it seems to be more motor noise than that of rushing air. It is certainly louder than an Arctic Silencer but it is not an obtrusive noise, especially compared to the stock fan on a 6600GT.

Whilst in Windows, the card seems to stick in the low 50's, typically 51 or 52 degrees. This is about 10 degrees higher than what my 6600GT with Arctic Silencer used to idle at and is better than I was expecting. However, when you do start a game the temperature picks up very quickly. The type of game you are playing has a massive influence on what temperature the card reaches. For instance Civilisation 4 and UT2004 stresses the card much less than Far Cry, which in turn stresses it less than FEAR. Trying to see the maximum temperature of the card is quite tricky, as ATITool only shows 30 degrees and 90 degrees on the temperature graph but I would estimate that it is certainly in the 80's, which is awfully hot. My Arctic Silencer cooled 6600GT used to reach up to 65 degrees under load.

As stated previously, I have custom fan speed settings that are dependent on temperature and I think that they set up 5% every 5 degrees from 60 degrees. Therefore, over 60 degrees the fan runs at 32%, over 65 degrees it runs at 37% etc. I will confirm the exact settings tonight if I have time around hockey practice. I think I has only hit an annoying gear once or twice whilst playing a game, which would be round about 50-60% I think.

Of course performance of the card is phenomenal, as well it should be for £350. I am able to play every game at 1280x1024 with everything maxed (including 16x HQ AF), apart from Quake 4 (I think I have ecountered the UQ bug). FEAR is the game that taxes my system the most, although I think that only having 1Gb of RAM is what is hurting the most, as I get little hitches when entering new rooms.

I think that is about it really, I only have one question about the card. In ATITool it shows the default speeds as being 500/600. I assume that this is the 2D speed settings and that it ramps up to 625/1??? when a game is started? It would be nice if it showed both 2D and 3D speeds.

 

trinibwoy:

This is a screenshot I took a couple of months ago right outside of ironforge on my 7800gtx using 16xAF and 16x AA mode (using rivatuner). It should be 4xSS and 4xMS if I remember correctly.




Would you mind posting a similar screenshot using all of the high quality settings on your x1900xt? The x1900xt should be much faster, but I'm curious to see how the highest possible quality settings on both cards compare to each other.

Thanks,
Nite_Hawk

 

In my antec sonata case there is one 120 mm fan that spins fairly fast and the PSU venting air. But intake is much more restricted at the front. On my 9800 pro with an arctic silencer(1?) the card runs extremely hot when the fan is on low because it has to work against a large low pressure in the case(actually turning the fan off would probably cool it better than low speed(it is that bad!)). Opening the case it will cool perfectly fine on low, close it again and it will run extremely hot. Removing the bracket things on a few unused PCI slots doesn't help that much.

So basically I run it on high speed which is not much better than the default sink. In that light it might just be as well to run it inwards to avoid incompatibillity with cases that have poor air intake.

 

Sure. But having the best card is good for my e-pen0r.

But i don't think G71 is a threat. It's probably just a 90nm G70@650 MHz.

 

Interestingly enough, the fans on the two X1800 XTs I have in CrossFire mode do not really spin up unless I'm using SuperAA modes. This is with EQ2, which is really the only game I play for any length of time these days.

 

watercool that x1900xt and those sound issues will go away.

A little off topic, but how high can the x1900s overclock with stock fan/heatsink?

 

BTW...I went ahead and watercooler my X1800XT......and it's really quiet now!

Highest temp now, after hours of play, is 53C........

The thing is that it's all relative. The loudest card I've ever had was, believe it or not, Sapphire X700Pro 128 meg. The little fan on that thing screamed....that god for cheap AC Silencers......... And yes...at my age I'll be the first to admit my ears arn't what they used to be....too much loud rock and roll!