About a month ago we reviewed the Sapphire AGP version of the X1950Pro. The focus of the review was on how well the card compared to a PCI-E version of the same card. The results were surprising as there was literally no difference between the two bus types. This time around we'll be focusing more on how far we can actually push the AGP card. While 1600x1200 is enough for most, it can't hurt to see if an AGP card can handle a game running at 1920x1200. After all, one of the main arguments against AGP is the (so called) limited bandwidth.

If you take a look at the CCC picture above you might notice that something is missing. Indeed, the Overdrive tab is nowhere to be seen. We were surprised by this, as every X1950Pro card we tested so far (both AGP and PCI-E) had the Overdrive tab enabled. While there are other ways of raising the GPU frequency it would have certainly be nice to be able to do it the “legal” way. The sample board we reviewed housed 256Mb of GDDR3 memory, which could prove a problem with high resolutions and AA being used at the same time, not to speak about the high-res textures some of the latest games use. Other than the above mentioned differences the card is the same as the Sapphire board we reviewed, with the GPU running at 580Mhz and the memory ticking away at 689Mhz.

As the above picture clearly shows, the cooler installed on the card is made from copper. The back of the packaging states that the cooler is a state-of-the-art single slot, low noise cooling solution. While this may sound like something a “suit and tie” may come up with, it is actually very close to the truth. The cooler is almost inaudible and taking up only one slot (the AGP one obviously) makes it perfect for cases where space is in short supply. Although first impressions can be deceiving the initial impression we got was extremely positive.

We were surprised when we noticed that the card doesn't use two molex connectors but instead relies on a standard PCI-E power connector. Thinking it through we can see this a smart design decision, as most PSU's released in the recent years have a PCI-E power cable so it might as well be used. Users with older power supplies can alternatively use the included molex to PCI-E converter which requires two free molex connectors.

The output connectors on the card are standard fare, that being two dual-DVI connectors and a HDCP capable TV-out plug. As expected for an X1K series card it supports AVIVO which enables it to accelerate video decoding.

The box art on this package is one of the best we have ever seen. It just screams “high performance”. Unfortunately the contents are rather disappointing. Besides the card you only get a 3 page quick-setup booklet, the driver CD, one (!) DVI-to-VGA converter, a component cable and the molex-to-PCI-E converter. All in all you won't really miss anything, but getting a few extras would have been nice.