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Liquid Cooled X1900 XTX Card Reviewed

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the big-barrel-of-oil-so-much-more-fun dept.

An anonymous reader writes "TrustedReview's Andrew Miller has posted a review of the new liquid cooled Radeon X1900 XTX card. There have been a few reviews floating around based on engineering samples of this product, but it sounds like the actual card turned out to be quite a sight to behold." From the review: "If you are seriously considering buying an X1900 XTX, then it is well worth paying the extra money for this card as the noise reduction is dramatic. The extra performance is just an added bonus. However, the 7950 GX2 is simultaneously faster and quieter for the same money. The X1900 XTX on the other hand has the option of HDR and FSAA as well as the possibility of running in Crossfire (assuming you can get hold of a similarly cooled master card).

12 of 126 comments (clear)

  1. Shocking metal nips. by LordOfTheNoobs · · Score: 3, Funny

    As you can see, he was truly shocked.

    / probably at his sweet new ability to render metal nips
    // i believe these figures from the article specify metal nipple rendering in the tera-nip range.
    ///totally sweet

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    They're there affecting their effect.
  2. Re:But. . . by mattmacf · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't mean to sound trollish (ok, maybe just a bit), but given ATI's track record, I doubt there's a reliable Windows driver for this card. And in all seriousness, what would you need to run in Linux that requires such a high end video card. Personally, I think it's just a bit overkill for Tux Racer.

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    I only mod funny =D
  3. Assuming... by knifeyspooney · · Score: 5, Funny

    assuming you can get hold of a similarly cooled master card

    Indeed, my MasterCard will need some cooling off time after I purchase one of these babies.

  4. Re:But. . . by Mike+Savior · · Score: 3, Informative

    Doom 3, Unreal Tournament, CS (via wine), games that run in cedega.. there might not be a slew of games for Linux and I know I'm missing some, but there are great ports out there that the troll community just likes to ignore for their own sake.

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    space is pretty cool.
  5. Mainstream liquid cooling. by A+Nun+Must+Cow+Herd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'd rather see such cooling techniques used to make silent mid-range cards with good performance, rather than having it only available with hideously expensive high end cards.

  6. Re:No HDR/FSAA on 7950 GX2 - crap! by imboboage0 · · Score: 4, Informative

    I believe it was in reference to running both HDR and AA at the same time. I don't know if this has been resolved since last I checked, but that was the advantage to having ATI as far as I could tell.

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    Honesty may be the best policy, but by process of elimination, dishonesty is the second best policy.
  7. Just ignore ATI by idonthack · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Any time I look at buying a card, ATI gets completely ignored because Nvidia's Linux support is so much better.

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    Why is it that when you believe something it's an opinion, but when I believe something it's a manifesto?
  8. Re:But. . . by mcpkaaos · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is there a usable Linux driver

    As long as you plan on staying with Xorg 6.8.x, you should be fine. Anything greater and you might be one of the many, many people (myself included) who suffer hard lock-ups when X shuts down or you switch VTs while X is running. I have tried many combinations of kernels and versions of fglrx against a couple versions of Xorg (6.8.2 and modular), and only 6.8.2 was stable. YMMV, but this has been a fairly common issue for a number of folks. Although this makes it sound like Xorg is the problem, I don't believe it is. IIRC, someone over at the Gentoo forums traced it to a call made within the driver.

    I've since given up on running modular X with my ATI card and chose to mask it until my next upgrade (which will be NVidia, no doubt). It's been a month or two, so this may have been fixed (though I doubt it). If anyone has an update on that, please do tell.

    Good luck. :)

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    It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
  9. Not liquid cooling, but... by Rob+Simpson · · Score: 4, Informative
    Well, there are a bunch of low to mid-range cards from ASUS and Gigabyte which use big heatsinks and heatpipes for passive cooling, the fastest of which (that I am aware of, anyway) is the Asus EN7800GT Top Silent. Unlike the water-cooled card, these are actually silent, instead of just having a much quieter fan, though I suppose most people will be happy as long as their card doesn't sound like a jet engine.


    Here are links to the company websites, look for "Silent-Pipe" or "Silent" in the name...
    http://www.giga-byte.com/Products/VGA/Products_Lis t.aspx?VenderType=ATi&BUSType=PCI-E&BUSSpeed=16
    http://www.giga-byte.com/Products/VGA/Products_Lis t.aspx?VenderType=NVIDIA&BUSType=PCI-E&BUSSpeed=16
    http://usa.asus.com/products2.aspx?l1=2&l2=8
    http://usa.asus.com/products2.aspx?l1=2&l2=6

  10. Energy consumption by tsa · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I always wonder what the energy consumption for water cooling is compared to air cooling. Does anyone know anything about that?

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    -- Cheers!

  11. The Playstation 3's price is outrageous... by vijayiyer · · Score: 4, Funny

    So I'll get a video card instead.

  12. It's a fairly trivial difference by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 3, Informative

    Water cooling pumps don't need a lot of wattage to run, neither do air cooling fans. In general water cooling probably uses slightly more power since usually the water cooling radiator is air cooled, so you've fans and a pump. However it's just not a significant amount of power next to the other draws in the system.

    Rememeber all the power is needed for is moving things around, either air or water. There's not a compressor or anything.