Warning: Don't Buy a Sapphire X1950 Pro

ruleworld

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Jan 22, 2007
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agp or pci-x, these card has overheating and many other problems. the frame rate is good for most games but it can hardly run heavy load games more than 10 minutes. the cards shuts itself when temperature reaches 65 degrees C, making system effectively hang. you have no option but reboot.
it cannot complete company of heroes performance test.
 

ira176

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Mar 19, 2006
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Yes these cards run a little warm, but I believe that it's partially user fault if they overheat. I've seen a number of gripes on newegg.com. I am running crossfired Sapphire x1950pro pci-e in my system. At idle these cards run at about 45c and after hours of gaming, about 72c (with no stability issues or artifacting issues). I made good air cooling a priority. I bought a Thermaltake Aguila case, with two 120mm fans, one in the back, and one in the front. This case also has a side vent for fresh cool air. I also took some time to clean up the cable clutter by wrapping dr. cable around a group of wires and move them to the side of the case. I am using a Zalman CNPS 9500 cpu cooler which helps push cpu heated air right toward the rear exhaust fan, and out the back of the case. I also leave pleanty of room around the sides of the case to allow that cool air an easy path in. Check all of these first, then if your problems continue, it may be hardware related.
 

jt001

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Is this a known problem or just in your experience? I don't think they would sell something with issues like that. I almost bought one of those and I started kicking myself for not getting it but I feel better now.

BTW PCI-X is a server socket used mostly for RAID cards and NIC's, what you're referring to is PCI-e.
 

minim3

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well my msi flavor is idling @42*C and full load@60ish *C.
but the cooling solution is the ati's reference single slot hsf.
 

unsmart

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It's a some what know problem. I was looking in to this card and found that sapphires forum was full of black screening complaints. Most where from OCing but many where at stock running under load. The issue is with the power regulators over heating not the core form what I've read. This also prevents any real OCing an volt modding. If you look at sapphires x1950pro extreme it has a large heat sink over the Vreg.
 

Finlander

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Jan 26, 2007
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I recently purchased that particular card for my system as it seemed like a good deal, and an upgrade from my X800GTO. I can honestly say I have had no problems with it. I have an AOPEN case, not fancy at all, have two stealth 80mm case fans, and I run ATITOOL so that if the card goes past 50 degrees C, the fan will go to 100%. Some may say that is loud, but when I play games, I don't hear it anyway. I play Company of Heroes at max settings and it runs very well, no heating problems like some of you have described. Perhaps try ATITOOL to control the speed of the fan?

By the way, I like the idea that it is a single-slot cooling solution. But, the true test will come this summer when the ambient room temperature goes up.

Hope you get the issues solved quick and to your satisfaction.
 

enforcer22

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All i can say is get betetr cooling i have a 1900xtx which clock speed wise is pretty simler if not the same other then ram. and under full load i get maybe 64c. Yeah the cards run hot but what do you expect its a high end card thats been pushed to its limits.
 

enforcer22

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,Rainbow six Vegas all set to max settings).
You're a fuking liar.

if its not more graphic intence then oblivion with 1 gig of graphical addons i dont doubt it since i can play oblivion in 1920x1200 with everythign cranked to absolute max at 50 frames.
 

bigsby

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Jan 13, 2006
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Say again about that testing thing!

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that...

Sorry. What I meant is that you said the the sapphire x1950 pro they sent me for testing. I was wondering how you get to do that.

Cleeve actually works at Toms Hardware. He's done quite a few articles.

Also, the AMD 1900 series generally run quite hot, with some of the X1900XTXs running at 90 degrees Celcius at load. They are designed to handle temperatures that hot, and start throttling back at 110 to 120 degrees Celcius, so 65 isn't that hot. Graphics cards very often run 65 to 70 degrees at load normally, they're designed to be able to run hotter than a CPU.
 

The_OGS

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Jul 18, 2006
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ruleworld has made his 'statement' :eek:
He's not interested in our questions, heheh. Well he's not replying anyway!
Maybe his case is hot and his PSU is wimpy...?
Regards
 

Acethechosenone

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I was wondering that won't a graphics card runnning 70 Celcius affect the overall motherboard/cpu, isn't that bad? Even though the components are designed to run at those temperatures I can't help but feel that it increases the chance of malfunction.
 

3Ball

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Hey Enforcer22, I just noticed you said you were in the 60's during load. I have an Antec P-180 Case and my CPU temp while at load is around 54 degrees C, so I dont think my case cooling is to terrible, but I have an Arctic Cooling Accelro X2 on my X1900XTX and the ATI CCC shows me at 88 - 92 degrees C during load, and has done that for a year now and I have never had any problems, so I am just curious is to if that is the same program you read your temps with and if you use stock cooling or not?

Best,

3Ball
 

ALANMAN

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Aug 14, 2006
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always said

people with under 50 posts....are not to be fully trusted


Probally a paid Nvidia shill

YES, Nvidia paid me to say that I own a X1950 XT and it's the best $250 that I've ever spent. :roll:

Seriously tho, I've never had a problem with my card (exept on BF2, i get slight artifacts on first load up of a map, but I think it's a driver issue cuz it only lasts about 15 seconds). Tempature-wise it has never acted up, even before using ATI tray tools to crank the fan speed.
 

enforcer22

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Yes i sue stock cooling and i use the drivers to read my gpu temp.. my cpu only runs about 30 some c during load though. didnt mean to be confusing about which i was tlkaing about. Sometimes it gets in the 40c rang. I have a lian li case from my sig and its pretty decked out with fans. i drilled a 120mm in the side for a bit more ar flow also.