ATI Radeon X700 Pro Roundup --- TheThirdMedia Hardware

HIS RADEON X700Pro IceQ Turbo VIVO ?Part 1

As usual, HIS sent us their top product for evaluation out of the four RADEON X700 PRO varieties in their lineup. As the "IceQ" naming suggests, the card was outfitted with Arctic Cooling's heatsink and fan solution for extreme cooling, but without the associated noise levels of high-end coolers. The HIS RADEON X700Pro utilized Arctic Cooling's older VGA Silence (Rev.3), which was still an efficient and quiet cooler, albeit consuming the adjacent slot due to the overly huge aluminum heatsink and a fan unit that's 70mm in diameter. There's always a cost involved for a cooler with high cooling capacity that is also extremely quiet. Besides monetary concerns, it's the increased size of the cooler that is a direct result of the two desired properties. While the RADEON X700 PRO VPU is no oven to really warrant an Arctic Cooling solution, it's a good avenue to reduce your overall system temperature since heat output by the card is channeled out of the system.

This is the mighty HIS RADEON X700Pro IceQ Turbo VIVO graphics card. The cooler is reactive to ultra violet light and has a cool blue glow if you have UV CCFL tubes installed within your chassis

Besides a UV reactive cooler, there are four super bright LEDs directly below the fan unit and these are sure to add some color to your casing internals ?especially one with a see side panel window mod.

You'll have to open the adjacent expansion bracket cover of your casing so that the heat output of the card gets channeled out of the system. Quite a 'thick' card, wouldn't you say so?

Underneath the behemoth cooler, an ATI Rage Theater assists the card in VIVO functions.

The rear view of the card shows the securing brackets for the Arctic Cooling VGA Silencer unit. Also notable is the use of RAMsinks for all memory parts on the card.

Another focal point of this HIS model is the turbo mode operation that boosts its clock speed from 425/860MHz to a whopping 460/960MHz. The best part is that you can safely use this mode without any consideration because the guarantee for the HIS RADEON X700Pro IceQ Turbo VIVO endorses this mode. Overclocking beyond that of course voids all warranty and you are on your own. HIS provides an in-house developed utility whose console facilitates old school overclocking, activate/deactivate the turbo option and as well as relaying temperature and fan speed status. Dubbed as the HIS iTurbo (and yet another gadget/tool following the Apple naming phenomenon), the below screen capture displays its main console. The one-touch turbo mode can be activated by a mere click of the "iTurbo" button found on the left corner of the interface.

This is the HIS iTurbo's main interface when launched. Currently, all settings are at defaults.

With the turbo mode enabled (as depicted by the "iTurbo" button lighted blue), clock speeds increase to 460/960MHz and fan speed jumps to 100%. Despite the increase in fan speed, we are glad to report that it is still a very quiet card. Additionally when turbo mode is enabled, the super bright LEDs under the fan glow even more intensely and act as a visual indicator signaling the mode of operation.

Here are the utility's options and preferences settings tab.

With the Turbo mode enabled, you can easily expect a 10% speed gain over competing cards that are clocked at 425/860MHz. This makes the HIS RADEON X700Pro IceQ Turbo VIVO the fastest guaranteed RADEON X700 PRO graphics card off the shelf. The performance graph below easily sums up this paragraph:-



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