How do I determine which ATI display card is the newer type and more powerful?

Question

I have seen many ATI display cards with confusing numbers and terms in their product name. Such as X1950XT, X1900XT, X1600PRO...

What does these "XTX", "XT" etc means? And is it true that the display card is more powerful with the higher numder indicated in their name? Such as 1950, 9800?

And what's difference between ATI radeon and fireGL?

Answer 1

Troy is totally and absolutely wrong.

Anyway, let me try to explain the numbering. The current generation ATI cards, the X1000s, have three levels, low end, medium, and high end. The X1300s are low, the X1600s are medium, and the X1900 are high. In previous generations, they did not make things as simple, but to make it simple almost anything in the X1000 generation would be faster than a 9800.

The letters basically make it better. A GT is better than plain, a Pro is better than a GT, an XT is better than Pro, and XTX is better than XT.

Something ending in 50 is better than the same thing without the 50, so X1950 is better than X1900, etc.

But what happens when you get something like an X1900XT versus an X1950Pro. On one hand XT is better than Pro, but 1950 is better than 1900. The results can vary but in this case, the X1900XT wins out. But it is best to compare the two side by side, which can be done here:http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php

Lastly, FireGL are workstation cards meant for professional use in graphics design. They are of little use to regualr computer users or gamers.

Answer 2

I disagree with Troy, memory is not as important as core clock speed , memory bus interface like 128 bit versus 256 bit and the number of pixel pipelines. For the cards you listed the 9800 is a old card about 3 years old. The 1950xt is better than the 1900xt and the 1900xt is better than the 1600pro. For ATI cards XT singnifies it is better than pro or no letter cards ...example 1900xt is better than 1900 or 1900 pro.

Answer 3

This is simple, just goto http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html
As for the workstation card goto
http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/06/16/opengl_workstation_graphics/

Answer 4

the most important thing to look at when looking for a video card is the ammount of memory it has and the type of memory (ex. ddr, ddr2).........the size ranges from tiny 32mb to 1gb and higher....and obviously the more memory the better your graphics will be...

Answer 5

ok