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Conclusion

It seems not long ago that we were just finishing up our X1000 series preview, and in truth it hasn't been long at all. ATI has managed to release yet another flagship card in as little as 3 months time - the X1900XT combines high end power with a high end price tag. 48 pixel shaders, high clock speeds, and a very hungry 150W power draw come together in a package that ATI expects will retake the performance crown.

Our aim for these previews has always been to share some of the technical background as well as look into some of the real world performance. From a technical standpoint the X1900 card is very impressive and features some innovative performance enhancements. As we can see from the actual test results the new R580 performs well, with 3DMark and Doom 3 showing the biggest gains and with CoD2 showing an impressive performance lead over the 7800 GTX 512MB. What the X1900 XT lost in Fill Rate, was made up with Pixel and Vertex Shader Performance. ATI's OpenGL performance has been getting better and better this past half year, both with driver updates and now the new R580 core yielding huge gains on what is traditionally NVIDIA's main claim to fame.

Overall the X1900 results place it firmly in a strong performance position. Even our small subset of tests show the X1900 XT and 7800GTX 512MB vying for the top spot with neither being a clear winner across the board. In some cases we see that the X1900 is not much faster than the X1800, which could be due to the beta versione of the drivers, but it did perform good overall and offers a very strong alternative to NVIDIA's top of the line 7800GTX 512MB cards. Clearly ATI has a strong product offer in the X1900 XT, however we must note that the performance results we got were not as exciting as we had hoped, and we look forward to future improvements as the drivers mature.

From an availability standpoint, ATI is quick to point that this is not just a paper launch of the X1900XT and X1900 XTX. As you read this today you should be able to find product available at e-tail and also at select store shelves. The $549 and $649 prices of the XT and XTX, respectively, make these the most expensive gaming cards available today, however, those who are hungry for dual card gaming power capable of handling SuperAA, HDR, and ultra high resolution gaming will likely know already that NVIDIA's current 7800GTX 512MB cards are hard to come by. With its performance and hopefully with good availability, the X1900 will be appealing to many enthusiasts.

What's next for us is to continue playing with the card. More benchmarks and XTX results await, and with those, hopefully a bigger picture on the X1900 will be seen. We received the card only a day before the launch date and this made benchmarking a rushed affair. In spite of this we are filled with optimism that with the R580 ATI has added yet another major thorn in NVIDIA's side.