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ATI X800 XL Shootout
[Abstract]
High End Value for the DollarWhen ATI upgraded their RADEON X800 series of graphics card last December with the introduction of the RADEON X850 series, most of the attention was focused on the ...
[Content] PCDigitalMobileGame
HIS X800 XL IceQ II Turbo
Our initial expectations of the HIS X800 XL IceQ II Turbo were extremely high when we first saw the product. Remember, this card uses the same superb cooler as that found on the faster HIS X850 XT IceQ II Turbo (which incidentally garnered our 5 star award here). The HIS X850 XT IceQ II Turbo we reviewed was a monster when it came to overclocking so we were hoping for a repeat performance from its lesser cousin.
The HIS X800 XL IceQ II Turbo. |
At first glance, the attention grabbing cooler will surely be the talking point. |
HIS uses an excellent cooler from Arctic Cooling though it does take up an extra slot. |
Here's what you will see at the back of the card. The aluminum retention bracket provides much needed cooling for the rear memory chips. |
Before we get to that, let us review the features found on this card. The HIS X800 XL IceQ II Turbo comes clocked at the standard 400/980MHz found in most RADEON X800 XL cards. But as its name suggests, there is a Turbo Mode available which boosts the card's VPU and memory frequencies to 432/1000MHz. This Turbo speed setting is certified by HIS and end users are covered under the warranty terms should the card be damaged or found incapable of running in Turbo Mode. We noticed a performance gain of 3 ?4 % in 3DMark03 when Turbo Mode was enabled; here are the results of a Turbo boosted HIS X800 XL IceQ II Turbo compared to its default settings.
The outstanding cooler that returned one of the lower temperatures in our test is in fact Arctic Cooling's ATI Silencer 5, which HIS re-branded it as IceQ II in its feature list. It is an efficient, quiet cooler and HIS has added a personal touch by making it UV sensitive, meaning it will glow in ultraviolet light. As for the overclocking capability of the HIS X800 XL IceQ II Turbo, we managed to achieve a stable clock speed of 440/1200MHz. This placed the HIS X800 XL IceQ II Turbo among the best in this shootout category. Credit must also be given to the cooler for making the HIS the coolest among all the cards. The only downside to this great cooler is its large size as it takes up an extra PCIe slot (and we recommend yet another slot for some clearance). HIS has included a decent software bundle of games and content applications. The choice of games can certainly be improved but all the necessary cables and accessories are present, so there?s really not much for us to find fault with:
DVI-to-VGA adaptor
S-Video extension cable
9-pin mini-DIN to Composite cable
9-pin mini-DIN to HDTV (component cable dongle)
Driver CD
HIS X800 XL User Manual
Flat Out
Dungeon Siege 1.1
PowerDirector 3 SE Plus
Power2Go 4
3D Album PicturePro
iTurbo Overclocking Tools
From left to right: S-Video extension cable, 9-pin mini-DIN to Composite cable, 9-pin mini-DIN to HDTV dongle and a DVI-to-VGA adaptor. |
We leave you with a final glance of the HIS X800 XL IceQ II Turbo. |
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