The SAPPHIRE Radeon X1950 PRO AGP - Will it fit in a Shuttle G2? at eJoneClicks.com

The SAPPHIRE Radeon X1950 PRO AGP - Will it fit in a Shuttle G2?

Published by eJone 1 year, 8 months ago in Click Tech, Click Facts Tags: agp, ati, case, G2, pro, radeon, sapphire, SB65G2, sff, shuttle, X1950, x1950pro, xpc.

The new Sapphire Radeon X1950 Pro AGP became available in UK online stores just before Christmas and I was lucky enough to be able to grab hold of one. It may be a blessing to those who are not ready yet to move on to the PCI-Express platform. That may sound fine and dandy to those with a tower or desktop system, but what about Small Form Factor (SFF) owners, namely the Shuttle XPC?

In my previous post, my initial research led me to believe that the Leadtek WinFast 7600GT AGP would be the best solution for my Shuttle SB65G2 (with a G2 case). With the release of the Sapphire X1950 Pro AGP at only £30.00 extra, the answer has never been clearer. However, with it’s length almost covering an A4 sheet and the presence of two molex connectors, I was worried that I may have made the wrong choice. Have I?

Well if you haven’t noticed the pictures already, you can see that I’ve successfully fitted the Sapphire X1950 Pro into my Shuttle G2 case. I’d like to point out an important fact here:

IT IS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO FIT THIS CARD INTO A SHUTTLE G2 CASE.

If it’s impossible, how the heck did I do it? Before I give out my little secret, let me tell you how I wept and wept and wept when my attempts at trying to fit this card into my Shuttle kept ending in vain. There was absolutely no way it would get in. It was just too long and too big. It took me a while to realise that I could possibly unscrew the motherboard off and move the AGP slot slightly forward to allow the card to get in. That didn’t work as well since the backplate end was not going into the case bottom slot. It then occured to me that I should take the backplate off. So off comes the standoffs and backplate… voila! It went in!

With the huge card in place now (don’t forget to put the backplate back on), putting the Shuttle back together was very difficult since the only opening left was from the top (left side blocked by the Sapphire X1950 Pro AGP and right side blocked by the Shuttle power supply). It took me a while to properly plug the cables back in the drives.

With everything plugged back in, my next concern was whether the card would actually work with my SB65G2’s 200W PSU. A quick press of the power button and… it came to live!!!

A quick download of the latest Catalyst drivers and a restart later, I was ready to put the card to the test.

Running with an Intel Prescott 3.4GHz @ 3.65GHz (216MHz FSB) with 2Gb Kingmax SuperRam PC3200 Dual Channel memory. Here are some benchmark scores (click the scores for details):

3DMark03 = 15082
3DMark05 = 8183
3DMark06 = 4423

This card absolutely rocks! Just look at the 3DMark scores above! I haven’t encounter any problems so far (running for almost a week now). A word of advice, I think the 200W power supply won’t be enough for the Sapphire X1950 Pro AGP. Shuttle owners might want to invest in the 300W PC50 to give it more juice, eventhough it’s still way below the 450W that was recommended by Sapphire. I have no idea what the implications are after prolonged use.

I think this one’s definitely a keeper. Wouldn’t you agree?

P/S: There is a thread going on at Sudhian.com forum with different people reporting their experiences in fitting a Sapphire (and other makes) X1950 Pro AGP into various Shuttles. The ones that have been confirmed are the following Shuttle XPC models:

SB65G2 (yours truly, needed backplate off before fitting)
SN95G5 (user removed card holding bracket at the top)
SB75G2 (user removed card holding bracket at the top)
SK43G (direct fit, no modding)
SK21G (direct fit, no modding)
SN45G (direct fit, no modding)
ST20G5 (direct fit, no modding)

I will update the list as more confirmation is given.

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35 Responses to “The SAPPHIRE Radeon X1950 PRO AGP - Will it fit in a Shuttle G2?”

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1 Ant Jan 6th, 2007 at 11:16pm

THANK YOU SO MUCH for this information! I’m also SB65G2-User. And unfortunately owner of a XFX 7600GT AGP… ;o(( I’m not quite sure, whether I understood your statement: Finally, Did you have to take out the MoBo or was it ok just to take out the backplane? Thanx in advance. Andreas, Germany
2 eJone Jan 7th, 2007 at 2:14pm

Hi Ant! I’m glad you find it useful. When I first did my research, the 7600 GT was the best option, but then the X1950 Pro came out! So I got that one instead.

I took out the screws to the motherboard and slide it forward slightly to allow the X1950 Pro to get in but that was not enough. I then unscrewed the X1950 Pro’s backplate/bracket off which then allowed me to slide the card in. Then I just slide the backplate back into place.

Hope that’s clearer for you.
3 InnocentCriminal Jan 11th, 2007 at 3:45am

Yeah, we rule! XD

These cards own! I just can’t wait to WC mine.
4 Christopher Curwen Jan 29th, 2007 at 1:22am

I was tempted to get this Card but ended up with the 7800GS with 24 Pipelines

I was Surprised to see my 3dmark03 Score was Higher by 3000

but my 3dmark05 was about 90 Less and same with 3dmark06

So i think your Card is Bottlenecking someware..

I am on a P4 3.0Ghz Overclocked to 3.6Ghz
800Mhz Bus
1.5Gb DDR Ram at 400Mhz
and Obviously Gainward Nvidia Geforce 7800GS 24p 8 or 7v no sure on that bit lol..
5 eJone Jan 30th, 2007 at 12:12am

The Gainward 7800GS+ Bliss is still the fastest AGP card in my opinion. I had my eyes on that as well. Unfortunately, it’s a 2-slot solution and won’t fit in my Shuttle case
6 SerialExp Feb 4th, 2007 at 1:01pm

Great article eJune!

I’m ready to order the x1950 for my SK83G ^_^
Just a question still keeps popping into my mind, is the stock cooling very noisy?

right now I have simple 6800, which is…. twice as noisy as the shuttle by itself, and 3 times as irritating. So was wondering….

cheers!
7 eJone Feb 8th, 2007 at 9:52pm

Hi SerialExp and thanks for dropping by! As far as my ears are concerned, the stock cooling on the Sapphire X1950 is fairly quiet but definitely not silent. I should think it would definitely be a lot quieter than your 6800 since the X1950 runs a lot cooler. Hope this helps!
8 Patrix Feb 19th, 2007 at 1:21am

Hi, this might be unrelated but can you tell me how did you insert Google ads below the title of the post? Where and in which template did you add the code?

I have been trying to do this in my K2 theme as well but they get plastered all over the front page as well and not just when you open single posts. I have been able to do it in non-K2 themes but doesn’t work for K2 themes. Thanks.
9 Name Feb 23rd, 2007 at 3:04am

found your site to be a great resource! i upgraded my video card to a x1950 (from a 9800pro). i have a shuttle (sb62g2) and i had to take off the backplate before it fit. works wonderfully!

for those who are worried about power supply… my system was NOT stable with my aging 250W (PC40) power supply. it’d run for a few hours before it’d crash (generally when stressing the video card with Oblivion, F.E.A.R., etc). other things in my system: dvd-rw, 7200 rpm sata drive, and a pci fan. the shuttle has been pretty much on 24/7 for the last 2.5 years.

i’ve since upgraded the power supply to a 300W (PC50). it seems to be stable. installation of the new power supply wasn’t too bad; i didn’t have to remove the x1950. phew!
10 Name Feb 27th, 2007 at 11:19pm

Just to follow up - the crashes I got also exist with the 300W power supply, which leads me to think that it’s a heat issue. Time to figure out how to lower temps on my shuttle..
11 LudoMC Mar 24th, 2007 at 5:05pm

Hi,

thanks for the article. I’m also currently searching a new video card for my SN95G5 to replace my aging Radeon 9800Pro!
I’ve seen you said that someone succeed in putting this X1950 in a SN95G5 but what about the power supply? The Shuttle’s site says that the SN95G5 is not compatible with the PC40/PC50 (250/300W) power unit and I don’t know if my 240W power unit will be enough..??
Thanks for any info you could give me so I can change my GC.
12 eJone Mar 24th, 2007 at 10:21pm

It’s a bit of a hit and miss. I personally have no problems running it on my SB65G2 with it’s standard 220W PSU. Shuttle PSUs are of the highest quality and should be able to take it.

As you can see in the comments by Name, he thought there was an issue with his PSU, but have further narrowed it down to a possible heat-related issue instead.

If you ask me, as long as you’re not overloading your SN95G5 i.e. just one optical drive and one hard drive, the 240W PSU should be just fine.
13 LudoMC Mar 24th, 2007 at 11:24pm

Thanks,
I’m anyway still also hesitating between this one and the Leadtek. Why did you take this one as you said the Leadtek was probably better? Just because the X1950 was out later and you had problems finding the Leadtek?
Anyway, good site and great articles. It really helps me constructing my own choice.
I think that for the moment I will go for the Leadtek, which is probably smaller (helping then for heating problems maybe) and needs probably less juice also (perhaps helping for stability).
Thanks again!
14 LudoMC Mar 25th, 2007 at 12:07am

Me again
Did you have some echoes on the MSI NX7600GT ?
Seems great also, don’t really know the details about it but seems to be approximately the same specifications as the Leadtek. Did anyone hear abour it?
15 eJone Mar 25th, 2007 at 12:12am

The Leadtek 7600GT in my opinion is better than the 6800XT and the 7800GS from the power consumption and performance side of things.

At only £30 extra, the X1950 Pro 512Mb is a lot better than the 7600GT in terms of performance. It was a risk I was willing to take as I wanted an investment that would last me for at least another two years.

The Leadtek 7600GT is still a very good card, as you noticed from my research. It’s easier to fit in a Shuttle as well, and the drivers are stable. I think this goes for any brand of the 7600GT AGP.

If you’re in a tight budget then go for it. Otherwise if you can afford it, I would still highly recommend the X1950 Pro.
16 Christopher Curwen Mar 25th, 2007 at 11:22am

Ill add some on to that about Specification
the 7600GT which i have aswell
u get a 3d mark score of 12000 on 2003
the 7800GS & the X1950 is 18000
But as the 7800GS dosent fit in a Shuttle the X1950 is well worth it.. even if its Tight as hell to get in..

Main thing is the 7600GT & the X1950 Despite there Powerdifferences both perform well with Vista and thiese new games that feature HDR
Also good AA FPS loss no more than 4 FPS Lost
17 LudoMC Mar 25th, 2007 at 10:33pm

Hmmm, just ordered it
I’ll tell you if I succeed in putting it in my XPC.
Thanks again for the advices.
18 Ken Mar 28th, 2007 at 8:07pm

Well anything to do with crashes etc will be down to the power supply.
This card needs a lot of AMP’s… wattage is not important, but the manufacturer put down a minimum of 450W power supply as this should in theory have the 30amps required to feed the card.

Different power supplys have different outputs and a lot of manufacturers jiggle the numbers around to make them look impressive by putting a large wattage number on the box.
You should spend no less than £10 per 100 watts, so if you find a 500w psu for less than £50 its probably crap!
whats important here is that the 12volt Rail pushes out 30amps… dosent matter what the wattage is. if it has more than one 12v rail then the sum of those rails should be no less than 30amps as they will share the load between them.

The writer of this post must have a damn good quality psu if its giving that card enough juice and its only 300watts, but it is possible… dosent mean that anyone with a 300watt psu is gonna have the same results though.

I ordered my card last night from overclockers.co.uk, not putting it into a shuttle though… and I have also ordered a 600watt powersupply to go along with it.
Its arriving on saterday and will be a fine upgrade from my X700 le crapulent card
Cant wait!!!
19 FatBaldBoy May 29th, 2007 at 1:56pm

Hi,

Two questions if you don’t mind.

1. Is the card still running okay with your 200W psu
and
2. Can you manuall adjust/control the fan speed of the card?

Mant thanks!
20 FatBaldBoy May 29th, 2007 at 1:56pm

Hi,

Two questions if you don’t mind.

1. Is the card still running okay with your 200W psu
and
2. Can you adjust/control the fan speed of the card?

Mant thanks!
21 Ken May 29th, 2007 at 2:37pm

hey FatBaldBoy,

I have one running in my box at the moment and it will definately not work with a 200watt power supply. It has very specific power requirements, namely 30amperes on the 12volt rail which you only going to get from a very good powersupply of around 500w and greater.
Even some well known 500w brands dont have enough juice for this card, so make sure you get a power supply that meets the standard or you are just going to have endless grief.

Sapphire has a very useful forum with all of the information on it here:
http://www.sapphiretech.com/en/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=4

just do a search for X1950 agp and youll find a lot of users with power supply problems, getting the card only to have it not work as their PSU isnt good enough.

A lot of other users have bought this card and run into problems with their machines booting up but no video signal (power supply) and games crashing etc…
this is all down to the power requrirements and although you may get the card to work for a little while on an incorrect power supply, eventually either the card or the PSU will break down.

I got this card a few weeks back along with an OCZ GameXstream 600watt PSU and its working amazingly (also dropped in 2GB of DDR400 ram)
this is with my old P4 3.0ghz.. now im playing all the latest titles in full resolution (1440 X 900 on my lcd) with all the goodies turned on max!
(Halflife 2, Battlefield 2142, Battlefield 2, Oblivion, Dark Messiah etc..)

I would highly reccomend it, but make sure you get the right power supply to run it or you gonna kick yourself!
22 FatBaldBoy May 29th, 2007 at 2:58pm

Hey Ken,

I guess I knew that would be the answer…

I have the same SB75g2 used as the basis for this original blog post and the highest W psu I’ve seen to fit it is only 300W (P50).

I was hoping that I could perhaps eek a year or two more out of the thing. Looks like eBay might be getting the Shuttle rather than me getting the card.

Shame.

Anyone know of any sites where you can search for cards based on psu avaialble?

This site is good, but doesn’t do the psu search thing…
http://www.gpureview.com/database.php?PHPSESSID=7f04c659a609c1ed3ac077ff640457fd

Thanks again.
23 Antbandit Jun 2nd, 2007 at 1:38pm

Finally got my Sapphire X1950Pro 512 MB for my SB65G2 with P4-3400. 194 Euro. Some results:

ATI Radeon 9800 Pro, 128 MB !!!XP!!!
3dMark 2001 15213
3dMark 2003 5774
3dMark 2005
3dMark 2006

Nvidia Geforce 7600 GT, 256 MB RAM !!!XP!!!
3dMark 2001 18453
3dMark 2003 11788
3dMark 2005 5643
3dMark 2006 2826

ATI Radeon X1950PRO, 512 MB !!!VISTA ULTIMATE!!!
3dMark 2001 16009
3dMark 2003 13719
3dMark 2005 6025
3dMark 2006 3733

So watch out: I’ve compared XP and VISTA with different graphics cards! As I’ve heard, Vista takes about 30% of your graphics card’s capacity!
24 eJone Jun 10th, 2007 at 1:50pm

Wow that certainly is very interesting indeed. Thanks so much for sharing that with us Antbandit! Looks like I might just keep XP as my gaming rig
25 Juan Jul 19th, 2007 at 3:44pm

I LOVE YOU!!! MY SN95G5 WILL LIVE AGAIN!!!
26 ant Jul 20th, 2007 at 10:21am

Tell us why!!??
27 Andy_D Oct 16th, 2007 at 7:16pm

I fitted my Sapphire x1950 to a SB62G2 with a 250W silent PSU and a drilled out backplate. Thanks for confirming what I already did to my beloved shuttle, I’ve had serious power supply issues with this card (it currently refuses to run Bioshock) and am thinking of going back to a Geforce 7600GT. The SATA ports are completely blocked and there is no way on earth this card is getting enough current. I even tried hooking up both 12v rails!!! (Not a good idea btw)

Thanks for posting though, good to see people as silly as me!
28 ant Oct 16th, 2007 at 7:25pm

I forgot to say that I installed a 300 Watt Shuttle Power Supply.
29 Ken Oct 16th, 2007 at 8:30pm

Hey Ant,

You definately should use different rails on a multirail unit.
Each rail has a maximum allowed current of 18A on a multirail unit… if you only use one rail you will be giving it far to little power.

Having said that, your 300w psu is no way going to give enough to run it in 3D mode as it requires so much juice!
30 ant Oct 16th, 2007 at 8:44pm

?? Sorry, you got the wrong addressee?? Since the 1st day in May, the 1950 Pro and my 300 Watt Shuttle-PSU work perfectly smooth…
31 Christopher Curwen Oct 17th, 2007 at 11:46am

Hello again
ive not posted in a while

I aint sure if there is PCI-E Shuttles
if there is then a 8600GT, GTS Etc will be Mint
Prefferd 512MB version
single slot etc same grunt as a 7800GS and X1950Pro
but way better at HD Lighting

But there will be a New 8800 Coming out called the 8800GT
this card will be a Single slot solution but im Prity sure that would
be Uber Tight to fit in a Shuttle
thats if u got PCI-E
and a 8800 will run on a 8x-16x slot a 8600 can run on a 4x-16x

Thats all for now

Chris
32 Chris Curwen Oct 17th, 2007 at 11:47am

Hello again
ive not posted in a while

I aint sure if there is PCI-E Shuttles
if there is then a 8600GT, GTS Etc will be Mint
Prefferd 512MB version
single slot etc same grunt as a 7800GS and X1950Pro
but way better at HD Lighting

But there will be a New 8800 Coming out called the 8800GT
this card will be a Single slot solution but im Prity sure that would
be Uber Tight to fit in a Shuttle
thats if u got PCI-E
and a 8800 will run on a 8x-16x slot a 8600 can run on a 4x-16x

Thats all for now

Chris
33 Oddworld22 Jan 2nd, 2008 at 2:28am

That’s crazy that the card runs on a 200 watt PSU, and I go and buy a 550 Watt PSU and my computer will freeze up on desktop before even being able to load a game up. I’m running 34 amps to the card, could it possibly be faulty? I tried everything except a higher amperage PSU and the problem still stays.
34 Cap'n USA Mar 26th, 2008 at 8:12am

Very informative. I know that I’m basically patching an old system but my SB65G2 still is my baby. I’m only running a gig of ram and 2.8 proc. Just curious about a few things… Just bought a pc50 power supply and am trying to decide whether or not to grab the ati 3850. Any suggestions about the card? I was running a 9800 pro then to an x 1600 pro. Now that I’ve read this, there is hope for pushing the absolute limits in my shuttle by upgrading ram, proc, and vid card without having to switch over to a pci express. Yeah I know! I’m old school here. Any thoughts?
35 Cap'n USA Apr 6th, 2008 at 3:37am

Quick update… I went with the viper X1950 pro. Safe side. 2 gigs crucial 3200 ram. And finally a 300W silentx by shuttle. Now just debating the upgrade for the proc. Now debating the proc.