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.
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.
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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.
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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.
NEXT
