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The RADEON X1950 GT in the 256 MB version currently retails for less than US$ 150.- and at that price, it is an extremely competitive solution, especially since it allows for a powerful Crossfire configuration – with the earlier mentioned caveats about Vista and the current drivers.

For most of the consumers, the question will come down to a decision between two 1950 GTs or else one X1950 XT or Pro card that are still retailing for about twice as much. Which solution offers the better bang for the buck? Especially when it comes to running at high levels of filtering in form of AntiAliasing or Anisotropic Filtering?

The Bundle

Sapphire ships the RADEON X1950 GT in the environmentally incorrect clear plastic box inside a brown cardboard box inside the white glossy box featuring the silver android posing as Bruce Lee's sister with the cutaway window to allow the sneak preview on the card itself. The bundled hardware includes one power-adapter cable, an s-video to composite adapter, one s-video to HDTV dongle, two DVI-I to VGA converters and one s-video cable and the Crossfire bridge.

In terms of documentation, Sapphire includes the printed multilingual manual, which is essentially useless other than providing a disclaimer against physical mal-installation of the graphics card. For further information, the manual refers to the included driver and documentation CD, which contains a quite extensive manual of the RADEON X1950 series – the fact that the GT version is not covered does not really matter since the individual accessories are extensively covered and the principles of operation are the same. Covered topics span include anything from Crossfire to HDTV including audio volume adjustment within Windows.

Rather than sampling the Sapphire Download DVD with its overpriced “discounted” games, Sapphire actually supplies Electronic Art’s Just Cause as a free game. Additionally, a copy of Cyberlink’s PowerDVD is included.

The driver CD included Catalyst Version 7.1 – at shipping time the latest release - but for any user a visit of ATI’s website should be mandatory to get the latest update. As mentioned, the drivers included on the CD do not work correctly in Vista, but there is a chance that the Catalyst Control Panel will install with the result that it creates errors since the only version that is “compatible” with the X1950 GT is that for Windows XP – and that version “has known compatibility issues with Vista”. Unfortunately, it also refuses to uninstall in Vista.

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