1. Foreword. The First Impression.
2. Cooling System. Basic Components.
3. Setting Up and Overclocking.
4. Synthetical Tests (3DMark 2001SE and 2005).
5. Direct3D Games (Far Cry, Serious Sam 2).
6. OpenGL Games (Quake 4, Prey).
7. Conclusions.

Well, Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro has left many contradictory impressions. It's a fast video card which can extend life of a good AGP based system for a couple more years. In a matter of fact, it offers good to very good performance even for the hardest game modes tested. Beyond doubt it's faster significantly than the primary NVIDIA powered competitor — BFG GeForce 7800GS OC, with or without overclocking. This card has been able to deliver performance comparable to shown by the leader at 1024x768 with trilinear filtering only. However, it's no way a slow solution, and owners of GeForce 7800GS AGP cards should remain satisfied with their silicon horses for some more time. On the other hand, there are some serious quality related issues with Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro. In particular, the card is non-overclockable almost completely. There is a 1-year manufacturer's warranty, but beware.
 
In general, Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro doesn't appear to be tough enough to handle the games tested at acceptable frame rates. Of course, if the reader feels comfortable while playing at 1024x768 with no anti-aliasing enabled and has some plans to replace this card with something more powerful in a while, or even to change the whole configuration in favour of PCI Express, such a purchase may sound reasonable. However, it also appears not much faster than considerably older Sapphire Radeon 9600XT. You can imagine what could happen if some top performance ATI video card of the past such as a Radeon 9800XT or X850XT has been tested instead. Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro wouldn't feel comfortable with such a comparison most likely. The author hasn't got much to say about Sapphire Radeon 9600XT. It has been a good performer in the not so distant past, and it hasn't been expected to leave Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro in the dust indeed. Anyway, you cannot demand much from this card.
 
The author thanks to:

• Sapphire Technology and personally to Konstantin Martynenko for both Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro 512Mb AGP and Sapphire Radeon X1600 Pro 256Mb AGP;
   
• BFG Technologies and personally to Michael Proshletsov for a BFG GeForce 7800GS OC 256Mb AGP.