Overclocking - iTurbo
We have already gotten into iTurbo with other reviews, but a quick recap; all of the HIS Turbo edition cards come supplied with HIS' overclocking software called iTurbo. iTurbo will sit in your tray and can be set to apply your overclocked settings upon windows startup.
The GUI for it is quite attractive and while at first glance it appears to be very basic, there quite a few options in there to play with, from adjusting the polling rate to enabling various different monitoring functions. It's not quite as good as some third party software for overclocking but this comes with the card, is easy to install and of course has the all important iTurbo button. Now while you can overclock with any other software you like, the iTurbo software will with one click apply preset overclocked settings to your card that are covered by HIS' 2 year warranty. You can of course go higher although the lucky ones among you may find that the iTurbo software won't go high enough on the scales.
Overclocking - Results
As has been seen in the review, the HIS X800GTO IceQ II Turbo 256MB comes out of the box at standard speeds for both the core and the memory. However with the iTurbo software you can get a warrantee overclock of 500/1000 but of course we had to push things higher. The memory used on this card is 1.6ns Samsung memory rated for 1200MHz, and sure enough we had no problems running at this speed. It was at this point we had to switch from the iTurbo software to RivaTuner, since the iTurbo software was maxed out at 1200MHz. Final maximum for the memory was a rather nice 1253MHz, a 273MHz increase form stock.
We didn't have as much luck on the core however, with a final maximum overclock of just 515MHz. As we often say, when it comes to overclocking your mileage may vary between products and even individual cards; as shown here today. Looking around the web we can see much better overclocks on the core but such is the luck of the draw. Temperatures, even when overclocked, never went over the 55C mark and the IceQ II cooling solution that HIS have used is very quiet indeed. How did this effect overall gaming performance?
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Avg FPS
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Standard 400/980
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41.76
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iTurbo 500/1000
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44.41
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Overclocked 515/1253
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46.09
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Half Life 2 performance wasn't a stellar increase but it is much larger than we have seen with other midrange solutions. For this particular setup, we are knocking on 6800GT/X800XL territory and well within 6800/X800Pro territory.
Final Words
We have always found graphics cards to be pretty good and the HIS X800GTO IceQ II Turbo 256MB is no exception. In this case, HIS have done extremely well in putting out a card that has incredible performance for the money (around $180 US mark). The standard performance is great but coupled with the HIS iTurbo software and settings, you get a hell of a lot of bang for your buck.
Doom 3 Performance is good when standard and very good when you overclock. 1280x1024 is an easy enough resolution to run with the HIS X800GTO IceQ II Turbo 256MB, but with the iTurbo overclocked settings you can also add in a little AntiAliasing and Anisotropic filtering.
Half Life 2 also played well at 1280x1024, and even allowed for 4x AntiAliasing, 8x Anisotropic filtering although this was at the overclocked speeds. Even without the overclock you can run well enough at 1024x768 4x AntiAliasing, 8x Anisotropic filtering which provides a beautiful image quality.
FarCry was another game that played well at 1280x1024 with graphic enhancements. Overclocking netted us playable 1600x1200 performance.
Battlefield 2 performance was ok for 1024x768 and overclocked can just about be pushed to 1280x960.
Need for Speed: Underground 2 benefits from AntiAliasing and Anisotropic filtering as well as high resolutions. Again the HIS X800GTO IceQ II Turbo 256MB came through.
While our max overclocking of the core came in at only 15 MHz over the iTurbo software, that's still a maximum overclock of 115MHz extra over defaults. The R480 based core does well enough at these speeds as our testing has shown. The memory overclocked much higher, although considering that HIS have used 16ns Samsung memory this isn't such a surprise. With defaults of 980, iTurbo at 1000MHz and a maximum memory overclock of 1253 on our sample, the overclocking performance was enough to make me wonder why anyone would ever turn off the iTurbo function.
The Package, the Cooling, the Noise level, the Overclocking and the Performance, all add up to equal a card that is fantastic value for money. Obviously the core architecture has been superseded now, but considering that with the right settings you can get near X800XL/6800GT performance and certainly well into and over 6800 performance, for the money you won't find better. If midrange/mainstream prices and cards are what you are after, stop looking and go buy an .
Pros: Great performance, Warranted overclock via supplied software, Quiet cooling, Inexpensive, Dual Slot UV Reactive cooling, Decent package and extras
Cons: None really
Bottom Line: Midrange price, High performance. That's the HIS X800GTO IceQ II Turbo 256MB. You get a hell of a lot of bang for your buck with this card.
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