The PowerColor Radeon X1950 PRO 256MB

We were expecting to receive the reference model from PowerColor, hence it was a surprise to find that the PowerColor was using a third party cooler from Arctic Cooling for its Radeon X1950 PRO. The cooler was the new two-slot Accelero X2 from the renowned cooling specialist and while its height and thickness was perhaps more than we expected, there was no doubting its pedigree. We were glad to report that the PowerColor Radeon X1950 PRO is pleasantly silent, though whether you will want to give up an expansion slot for it is another matter. Since we have not tested the reference cooler yet, we can't tell if the Accelero X2 will be a marked improvement over the default and hence worth the sacrifice. Nevertheless, we believe that there is probably some merit in this choice of cooler given the reputation of Arctic Cooling and until we get our hands on a reference card, we can only speculate as to its overall efficacy.

Arctic Cooling provides the thermal expertise to ensure that this will be a cool and quiet Radeon X1950 PRO. Note that this is not the default cooler found on the ATI reference card.

The PCB looks quite different from the older Radeons. For one, it looks less packed.

As for the need for a third party cooler, perhaps the reason lies in the slightly overclocked core that we found on the PowerColor. According to ATI, the core clock of the Radeon X1950 PRO is fixed at 575MHz while the memory clocks are at 1380MHz DDR. For the PowerColor, its core is a bit faster at 595MHz, but the memory modules remain at the standard frequencies. From our experience, a minor leap in core clock is not that effective so while you can expect slightly higher scores on the PowerColor, the impact will likely be limited. Meanwhile, there are also 36 pixel shaders on the Radeon X1950 PRO like its Radeon X1900 GT predecessor, 12 less than that on the Radeon X1950 XTX. Of course, the clock speeds of the Radeon X1950 PRO are much slower than the flagship Radeon so there will be quite a large difference in performance between them. Squarely, the new Radeon X1950 PRO aims to be a more enticing Radeon X1900 GT, being more competitively priced for a similar performance envelope.

It's a huge chunk of aluminum and copper that bumps the requirements of the Radeon X1950 PRO requiring two expansion slots, which is no different from the many other high-end Radeons.

The secret beneath that giant sized cooler - three heat pipes.

After all the ruckus about the lack of true HDCP support on graphics cards from both ATI and NVIDIA some time ago, both companies have gradually introduced this feature in their high-end offerings. The Radeon X1950 PRO falls in that category and HDCP support is present on all these cards. Whether you will really make use of them is debatable, since the availability of high definition content and the other supporting components, like a display with HDCP support, is still not prevalent. However, for a card that should last you till the DirectX 10 cards are mature, it is appropriate that it should have that feature and together with the built-in VIVO functionality on the PowerColor, makes this a very versatile card. As usual, ATI's Rage Theater ASIC is there to make the VIVO work and this is a feature that you are unlikely to find on the standard NVIDIA graphics card.

The position of the 6-pin Molex power connector has been adjusted but the relatively empty PCB is the big change here. It's a direct result of the die shrink and a more optimized core requiring less power than the older Radeon X1900 GT brother, thus a renewed PCB (albeit unfortunately not any shorter).

HDCP support and dual-link DVI outputs. In other words, all you can expect from a high-end graphics card now.

PowerColor usually provides a decent bundle along with its graphics cards and here, we found a full suite of CyberLink DVD utilities and the usual graphics drivers. Since the official drivers from ATI will not recognize the Radeon X1950 PRO at the moment, we recommend that you don't lose the driver CD. We also found a very comprehensive selection of cables and accessories in the package. ATI cards have usually featured more cables than its equivalent NVIDIA counterpart but even then, it was more than we expected. Most of these cables are related to the VIVO functionality on the card so we predict that most Radeon X1950 PRO cards should have all or almost all of the accessories we found below:

1 x DVI-to-VGA adaptor
6-pin Molex power connector
S-Video extension cable
Composite extension cable
9-pin mini-DIN to Component dongle
9-pin mini-DIN to S-Video/Composite dongle
Quick Installation Guide
Driver CD
CyberLink DVD Solution (including PowerDVD, PowerProdcuer, Power2Go, PowerDirector, MediaShow, MusicMatch)

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