Up until recently, high-end, let alone upper mainstream cards have been rather scarce. Both ATI and NVIDIA have placed a great deal of focus towards PCI Express and at least as far as some chipset builders are concerned, AGP is dead. NVIDIA's nForce 4 of all flavours, VIA's K8T890 and Intel's 915/925 and higher chipsets are all PCI Express x16 graphics only, and unfortunently for the end user, many of the newer features outside of PCIe are found only on these boards.

In terms of the graphics interface, does PCI Express really offer more than AGP? In theory, yes, as there is more available bandwidth, and some technologies, such as SLI, are only found on PCIe boards. However, benchmarks and game developers have demonstrated that at this present time, there is no real tangible benefit from moving from AGP to PCI with clock speeds being equal in a single card environment. A recent poll on Valve's Steam site shows that the majority of users are still using AGP based boards, so there is a market for AGP cards.

The HIS X850XT IceQ II Turbo is the first of what we would consider "high-end" AGP cards to make its way into our labs. According to HIS, the X850XT IceQ II Turbo is faster than their PCIe counterpart, though we'll be testing those claims later in the review.

Specifications
" Over 160 million transistors " Up to sixteen parallel pixel pipelines " Six parallel vertex processing engines " 256-bit quad-channel GDDR3 memory interface " PCI Express® x16 lane native support	" " " " "

The HIS X850XT IceQ II Turbo

The HIS X850XT IceQ II Turbo (referred to as the HIS X850XT for the rest of this review) arrived in a windowed box that clearly displays the IceQ II cooler. The box features the same artwork found on their other X850 based products with the exception on a sticker indicating it is an AGP part. Other than the card, you'll find some video cables (S-Vid, composite, and video-in), as well as a manual, driver CDs and one DVI-to-VGA adapter. There is also the required power dongle which draws power from one Molex source and adapts it for the 6-pin AGP power connection on the card.

The HIS X850XT is based on ATI's R481 VPU reference design and features an Arctic Silencer 5 cooler silk-screened with HIS' artwork. The VPU is clocked at 520MHz and the memory is clocked at 540MHz (1080MHz effective). As with the reference VPU, the card features 16 pixel pipelines with hardware support for DirectX 9B and Shader Model 2.0. Other than the interface, there is ZERO difference between the AGP and PCIe versions of the card (not counting the specification differences between the AGP and PCIe architecture of course). On the rear of the card, there is a large heat plate that aids in the cooling of the rear ram modules.

The cooler extends about one inch past the rear of the card, so for those of you with tight cases take note. The card requires two slots in the case which will pretty much rule out the use of the card in most Small Form Factor PCs with the AGP slot near the edge of the motherboard. The fan works the same way as ATI's fan where it draws the air from inside the case and exhausts it out through the rear of the computer. As with all of HIS' new cards, the fan does not feature a LED light, but it is UV ready for those of you who are equipped with UV CCFLs.

We've had some experience with the Arctic Silencer on some of HIS' previous cards and found them to be fairly quiet. It is rated at less than 20dB, and though we don't have any sound meters it's volume is about the same as ATI's stock cooler. There's a steady hum while it's in operation, but unlike the ATI stock cooler, there's no loud spin-up on boot. The only issues with the cooler are the same ones we've noted in the past where the size of the Arctic Silencer makes it difficult to disconnect the AGP power connection as well as unhooking the AGP retention clip if your motherboard is equipped with one.

For your input and output options, moving from left to right is the VGA connection, followed by the video-in and out, and the sole DVI connection. Just above these connections is the grill plate used by the cooler to exhaust the warm air.

Test Setup

Soltek SL-K8T890Pro-939: Athlon 64 3500+, 2 x 512MB Corsair XMS3200 ProSeries DDR (2-2-2-5), ATI Radeon X850XT-PE, 160GB Seagate 7200.7 SATA, Windows XP w/SP1, Catalyst 5.5.

Soltek SL-K8T890Pro-939: Athlon 64 3500+, 2 x 512MB Corsair XMS3200 ProSeries DDR (2-2-2-5), ATI Radeon X850XT (PCIe), 160GB Seagate 7200.7 SATA, Windows XP w/SP1, Catalyst 5.5.

MSI K8T Neo2: Athlon 64 3500+, 2 x 512MB Corsair XMS3200 ProSeries DDR (2-2-2-5), HIS Radeon X850XT, 160GB Seagate 7200.7 SATA, Windows XP w/SP1, Catalyst 5.5.

ASUS A8N-SLI Premium: Athlon 64 3500+, 2 x 512MB Corsair XMS3200 ProSeries DDR (2-2-2-5), MSI NX6800GT, 160GB Seagate 7200.7 SATA, Windows XP w/SP1, Catalyst 5.5.

We'll be using FRAPS to record framerates in all our tests, playing the game as anybody would (trying to stay alive), firing weapons, dodging attacks and so on. Unlike our past video game tests, all benchmarks will be done with the audio "on", as we're trying to illustrate real gaming experiences, and I doubt any of our readers mute the audio during gameplay. ATI's own X850XT-PE, X850XT and a MSI NX6800GT will be the comparison hardware, all running on PCIe boards.

Test Software will be:

Doom 3 v1.1 - Making good use of the BFG, rocket launcher and plasma gun (the most graphically intense weapons), we'll be killing demons on the Enpro.

Far Cry v1.3 - Another graphically intense shooter, we'll be fighting baddies in the Rebellion level.

Unreal Tournament 2004 v3355- We'll be playing some bot deathmatch (31 bots in all) on the Compressed map.

Half-Life 2 - This game needs no introduction, as anyone who picked up a $500 video card in the last 6 months probably did so for this. We'll be playing the D3_C17_12 map (Follow Freeman).

The driver settings were manually configured for AntiAliasing and Anisotropic Filtering (off), and set to "Quality" via the video driver's control panel. All games were set to their highest allowable game settings unless otherwise noted. The comparison hardware will be the ASUS Extreme AX800XT, an ATI Radeon X850XT, an ATI Radeon X850XT-PE and MSI's NX6800GT (all PCI Express cards). We'll be sticking with 1600x1200 No AA/AF through all the tests, as this was the highest quality setting that allowed playable framerates.

Doom 3 - High Quality

Cards - Resolution - AA/AF	Min	Max	Ave.
HIS X850XT 1600x1200 No AA/AF	35	66	57.09
ATI X850XT 1600x1200 No AA/AF	34	63	56.82
AX800XT 1600x1200 No AA/AF	27	63	56.93
ATI X850XT-PE 1600x1200 No AA/AF	32	63	57.33
MSI NX6800GT 1600x1200 No AA/AF	22	63	50.03

All the ATI cards are within percentage points of one another, though I was a little surprised to see the X800XT outpace the 6800GT since Doom 3 typically favours NVIDIA hardware in benchmarks. Then again, we're testing actual gameplay and we can see that the AGP based HIS X850XT nearly keeps up with the PCI Expressed based X850XT-PE.

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