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Graphics Card Comparison 3
Click here for Graphics Card
Comparison 1
Click here for Graphics Card
Comparison 2
This is the third page of graphics card comparisons as you can see
things in the graphics industry move fast, with new cards coming onto
the market all the time. This time We look out for better technologies,
more efficient workings as opposed to a fantastic increase in core and
memory speeds. Also the two companies ATI especially have realised cards
in families, and then sub series of these families to create a market
where there is a graphics card available for every budget. The X1000
series as shown below currently has 7 graphics cards available at
various prices. Allowing you to choose either a budget, mainstream or
power card and then there is a top and bottom of each.
Below as usual we have the comparison table showing you the
specifications of the most recent cards.
|
GFX Card |
Clock Speed |
Memory Speed (DDR) |
Memory Bus Width |
Memory Size |
Memory Bandwidth |
Fill Rate Pixels/s |
Price |
| X1300 |
450Mhz |
500Mhz |
128-bit |
128
/ 256Mb |
8Gb/s |
1.8
Billion |
Compare |
| X1300 Pro |
600Mhz |
800Mhz |
128-bit |
256Mb |
12.8Gb/s |
2.4
Billion |
| X1300 Hyper Memory |
450Mhz |
1Ghz |
128-bit |
32(128) Mb |
16Gb/s |
1.8
Billion |
| X1600 Pro |
500Mhz |
780Mhz |
128-bit |
128
/ 256Mb |
12.5Gb/s |
6
Billion |
Compare |
| X1600 XT |
590Mhz |
1.38Gh |
128-bit |
128 / 256Mb |
22.1Gb/s |
7.08 Billion |
| X1800 XL |
500Mhz |
1Ghz |
256-bit |
256Mb |
32Gb/s |
8 Billion |
Compare |
| X1800 XT |
625Mhz |
1.5Ghz |
256-bit |
256 / 512Mb |
48Gb/s |
10 Billion |
| X1900 XT |
625Mhz |
1.45Ghz |
256-bit |
512Mb |
46.4Gb/s |
10 Billion |
Compare |
| X1900 XTX |
650Mhz |
1.55Ghz |
256-bit |
512Mb |
49.6Gb/s |
10.4 Billion |
| Geforce 7600 GS |
400Mhz |
800Mhz |
128-bit |
256Mb |
12.8Gb/s |
4.48 Billion |
Compare |
| Geforce 7600 GT |
560Mhz |
1.4Ghz |
128-bit |
256Mb |
22.4Gb/s |
6.72 Billion |
Compare |
| Geforce 7800 GS |
375Mhx |
1.2Ghz |
256-bit |
256Mb |
38.4Gb/s |
6.4 Billion |
Compare |
| Geforce 7800 GTX |
430Mhz |
1.2Ghz |
256-bit |
256Mb |
38.4Gb/s |
6.88 Billion |
Compare |
| Geforce 7800 GTX 512 |
550Mhz |
1.7Ghz |
256-bit |
512Mb |
54.4Gb/s |
13.2 Billion |
| Geforce 7900 GT |
450Mhz |
1.32Ghz |
256-bit |
256Mb |
42.2Gb/s |
7.2 Billion |
Compare |
| Geforce 7900 GTX |
650Mhz |
1.6Ghz |
256-bit |
512Mb |
51.2Gb/s |
10.4 Billion |
| Geforce 7950 GTX2 (dual core) |
500Mhz (x2) |
1.2Ghz (x2) |
256-bit (x2) |
512Mb (x2) |
76.8Gb/s |
16 Billion |
Compare |
As you can the raw figures
show a distinct difference between the top power cards and the budget
cards. Even though the core speeds are not that much different the end
result of pixel pushing power and memory bandwidth have huge
differences. One reason for this is the budget cards have gone back to a
128-bit memory interface. The other is the massive difference in memory
speed. Remember though that fast memory is expensive and will show on
the price of the card.
Now lets have a look at the
pixel and vertex pipelines and texture units.
| GFX Card |
Pixel Pipelines |
Texture Units |
Vertex pipelines |
Notes |
| X1300 |
4 |
4 |
2 |
The X1300 is the budget card of the X1000 family of cards from ATI.
The interesting card out of the three here is the HyperMemory card.
The HyperMemory card gives you DDR memory @1Ghz but only comes with
32Mb onboard. You can have upto 128Mb using system RAM. This card is
priced the lowest out of the three due to this. It can however push
the same amount of pixels than the standard X1300 and has the same
clock speed. |
| X1300 Pro |
4 |
4 |
2 |
| X1300 Hyper Memory |
4 |
4 |
2 |
| X1600 Pro |
12 |
4 |
5 |
The Mid-range card in the X1000 series is the X1600. You see two
different types here, the Pro and the XT version. The XT version has
a higher clock speed but the real extra comes from the increased
memory speed which is 600Mhz faster than the X1600 Pro. The downside
to this card could be that it only carry's 4 texture units for its
12 pixel pipelines. This could hamper the texture rate in some
games. |
| X1600 XT |
12 |
4 |
5 |
| X1800 XL |
16 |
16 |
8 |
The flagship of the X1000 series is the X1800 XT. This card was
given everything. 16 pipes, 16 texture units and a whopping 1.5Ghz
memory speed. The X1800 series features a ring bus memory controller
using a 512-bit internal bus and an ultra-threaded shader engine |
| X1800 XT |
16 |
16 |
8 |
| X1900 XT |
16 |
16 |
8 |
The X1900 increases the number of pixel shaders to 24. This not only
makes texture shading quicker, it also takes some of the
arithmetical calculations. The X1900 can then take even more load of
the CPU |
| X1900 XTX |
16 |
16 |
8 |
| Geforce 7600 GS |
12 |
12 |
5 |
Brought in to take over from the ever popular Geforce 6600GT card,
the Geforce 7600 series offers to cards aimed at giving the best
performance you can get for the mainstream budget. |
| Geforce 7600 GT |
12 |
12 |
5 |
| Geforce 7800 GS |
16 |
16 |
6 |
Since the release of PCI express, AGP uses have been getting a raw
deal. The Geforce 7800 GS brings the top graphics cards back to the
AGP bus |
| Geforce 7800 GTX |
24* |
24 |
8 |
Unlike ATI, Nvidia released these two cards quite a way apart from
each other. The Geforce 7800 GTX was no slouch but after ATI ramped
up the stakes Nvidia came out with the Geforce 7800 GTX 512. It
doesn't just have 512Mb of memory as opposed to the 256Mb in the
original but its core design has been revamped and the clock and
memory speeds have been hiked to 550Mhz and 1.7Ghz
respectively |
| Geforce 7800 GTX 512 |
24* |
24 |
8 |
| Geforce 7900 GT |
24 |
24 |
8 |
The Geforce 7900 series or the G71 GPU, has the same basic
architecture as the Geforce 7800 series or the G70 but with some
technical tweaks to the vertex units, the SLI engine and the ROP's
just to make the cards that bit more efficient. And as always a bump
up on the clock and memory speeds over the 7800 GTX |
| Geforce 7900 GTX |
24 |
24 |
8 |
| Geforce 7950 GX2 |
24 x 2 |
24 x 2 |
8 x 2 |
The Geforce 7950 GX2 is essentially a set of Geforce 7900 cards
fused together in a dual core setup to fit into a single PCI slot.
What we have here is SLI on a single card |
One thing you may notice is
this generation and the last generation of graphics cards have left
behind the idea of having more than one texture unit per pipeline. The
idea of applied dual textures in one pass must of proved either to
difficult to keep the costs down or simply wasn't as efficient as simply
adding more pixel pipelines. I would say its the latter looking at the
massive 24 pipes that is incorporated into the Geforce 7800GTX. * Although the Geforce 7800 has 24 pixel pipelines, it does only have 16
pixel outputs, so pixels per cycle is actually 16. All data here has been researched but may contain errors and some
specifications can change at manufacturers discretion. If you plan to
purchase any of these cards, the retailer will have the exact specs of
the card you want to purchase. Should you find any errors that need
correcting please contact us and we will be happy to correct the
information written here.
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Jargon
Clock Speed - The clock
frequency of the main GPU on the graphics card
DDR
- Double Data Rate. Technology used to double the rate at which data can
be transferred. Achieved by using the peak and trough of a signal to
carry data.
Memory Bandwidth - The amount of
data that can be transferred across the memory Bus per second
Memory Speed - The frequency of the
main memory
Pixel Pipelines - Part of the
graphics card that renders pixels and adds textures to them. More pixel
Pipelines means more pixels can be rendered per clock cycle
RAMDAC - Random Access Memory
Digital to Analogue Converter
SDR
- Single Data Rate
More explanations at
the
Jargon Dictionary
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