Sapphire RADEON™ X1950 PRO, (256 MB) PCI Express Video Card

What a card.... Decided to buy a pair and crossfire link them. This is very easy to do with the internal connector ribbons supplied. The software is very easy to operate and is just a case of reading and checking boxes. Crossfire does give you fantastic screen resolution, but just make sure your lcd monitor is up to the job, most 17" are 1028 by 1024 and 20" are 1600 by 1050.. crossfire can produce alot better than this. Also, SLI motherboards do not support crossfire..! Make sure you get one that does.. ASUS do one that gets great reviews..Hope this helps.

Sub Vender: Sapphire
GPU Manufacturer: ATI
Model: Radeon X1950 Pro

VRAM: 256MB GDDR3 (256bit)
RAMDAC: 400MHz
GPU Speed: 580MHz
Shader processors: Vertex: 8 / Pixel: 36

Available for: PCI Express and AGP

The X1950 Pro was a fantastic gaming GPU that offered very high performance. Its in the high end range and is part of ATI's R1K series.

This card's sub vendor Sapphire, is a very reliable vendor and know for quality their version of the X1950 Pro is no exception.

Sapphire recommends a 450 Watt PSU. The PCI Express version requires your PSU have a 6-pin power connector whereas the AGP version requires you to have 2 free 4 Pin molex connectors. You should also make sure that your PSU has a good amount of amps on the 12v rail(s).

The X1950 Pro will easily play games such as prey, doom 3, COD2, CS: Source half life 2 etc At very high resolutions with performance features enabled. But will also play alot of modern games
including FIFA 2010, Bioshock, COD4, Dead space and Left 4 dead. Its certified for Windows vista premium and works well with the OS.

Considering how cheap this card can now be bought for its a real budget card that offers high end features. Although it cannot compete with the latest high end cards it can still outperform some modern mid-range cards including many from the 4k series and is fairly even with the 4550 (they tend to outperform each other in different areas) however (on ebay) the X1950 Pro is alot cheaper.

This card is perfect for a budget system if you're prepared to include a good quality PSU in your build, especially since these perform well when in a crossfire configuration, which could be done very cheaply if you purchase from ebay.

This card is quite large and would not suit a small form factor or micro ATX case as it would be very cramped air circulation would not be ideal. As with all high performance cards cooling is something that should be considered carefully. Although sapphire's stock cooler is good if you are planning to overclock your graphics card you should definately upgrade to a high performance cooler. But even when using at stock speeds you should have good air circulation in your case.

Good specification to include this card in: (low - mid budget)
CPU: AMD Athlon X2 4800+
RAM: 2GB DDR2 667MHz
PSU: Good quality 500W PSU with 35A on the 12v rail

DDR2 667MHz is a good price vs performance RAM type to go with. Overall you could include this card in a new build a probable pay more for your cpu and motherboard.

As reliability goes this card is very reliable, one of the reasons it was so popular. However as previously mentioned power usage is high considering the age of the card.

One of its minus points is that its a direct X 9c card. Many people say this isn't a problem however it is if you like playing the latest games as more and more are requiring direct X 10 cards to run quality features.

In conclusion this card still has a lot of life in it and can still handle alot of modern games and delivers a high standard in quality in all the classics. If you're looking for a budget card and aren't too worried about direct X 10 and have a good quality PSU i would choose this over a newer card.

Great comms and the item was exactly as described and delivered quickly without any hassle. Thank you very much

This Product is great I purshed it because I already had one of these now I can make it Crossfire Mode for Brilliant Gaming Picture. This card is very good value for money & two can to put together to make 1 top of the range card