When both ATI and NVIDIA released their latest VPU/GPU
chipsets last Summer, it marked a drastic improvement over their
previous chipsets in terms of image quality and performance. Being
able to run games at 1600x1200 with everything on (at playable
framerates) was a fantasy for most gamers prior to this release
and both companies were able to deliver the tech, albeit in small
numbers for people who actually wanted to buy the hardware. That
is of course, a debate for another day.
The X850 series of VPUs is not the revolution that
the X800 series was, and more of a late Winter refresh of existing
technologies. Outside of the clock speed difference, you will
not find any changes technology wise between the X800 and X850.
Availability is still a question, but today we'll be checking
out a retail edition of the HIS
X850XT PE IceQ II video card.
The HIS X850XT PE IceQ II Dual DVI VIVO 256MB
PCIe
The HIS X850XT PE IceQ II Dual DVI VIVO 256MB PCIe (referred
to as the HIS X850XT-PE for the rest of this review) arrived in
a windowed box that clearly displays the IceQ II cooler. The only
indication that this is a Platinum Edition card is the product
sticker on the box as the product logo itself just says X850XT.
Other than the card, you'll find some video cables (S-Vid, composite,
and video-in), as well as a manual, driver CDs and two DVI-to-VGA
adapters. There is also the required power dongle which draws
power from one Molex source and adapts it for the 6-pin PCI Express
connection on the card. The other end of the dongle can be used
for any other item such as a fan, hard drive or optical drive.
If you have a meager PSU, we do suggest leaving this spare connection
unused.
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The HIS X850XT-PE is based on ATI's reference design (a Made
in Canada sticker is present on the back of the card) and
features an Arctic Silencer 5 cooler silk-screened with HIS' artwork.
The VPU is clocked at 540MHz and the memory is clocked at 590MHz.
As with the reference VPU, the card features 16 pixel pipelines
with hardware support for DirectX 9B and Shader Model 2.0.
The cooler extends about one inch past the rear
of the card, so for those of you with tight cases take note. The
card still 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 x16 PCIe 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. The
fan does not feature a LED light as previous HIS cards we've used,
but it is UV ready for those of you who are equipped with UV CCFLs.
On the rear of the card, there is a large heat plate
that aids in the cooling of the rear ram modules. Compared to
ATI's card, I found the plate much cooler to the touch which isn't
too surprising given the size. Having never used an Arctic Silencer
before, I was curious how loud the fan would be as it's a lot
bigger than ATI's stock fan (it is rated at less than 20dB). Surprisingly,
it seemed to be about the same in terms of noise (so, it's relatively
quiet), and it doesn't have the annoying loud spin up the ATI
stock fan has when the PC is powered on for the first time.
For your input and output options, moving from left
to right is the first DVI connection, followed by the video-in
and out, and the second DVI connection. CRT users need not worry
as mentioned earlier, two DVI adapters are included. 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 5.4.
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. We will also
provide some numbers from "traditional" benchmarking
using timedemos and scripts. ATI's own X850XT-PE and an ASUS AX800XT
will be the comparison hardware.
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 (on or off), and set to
"Quality". All games were set to their highest allowable
game settings unless otherwise noted. The comparison hardware
will be the ASUS
Extreme AX800XT and ATI's Radeon X850XT-PE. We'll be sticking
with 1600x1200
No AA/AF through all the tests, as we've already tested
1280x1024 and various levels of AA/AF in our ATI X850XT-PE review.
Doom 3 - High Quality
| Cards
- Resolution - AA/AF |
Min
|
Max
|
Ave.
|
| HIS
X850XT-PE 1600x1200 No AA/AF |
42
|
63
|
58.29
|
| ATI
X850XT-PE 1600x1200 No AA/AF |
32
|
63
|
57.33
|
| AX800XT
1600x1200 No AA/AF |
27
|
63
|
56.93
|
Given that the card is based on ATI's reference design, you won't
find any tangible difference between the two cards. Even at 1600x1200,
the X800XT still plays quite well in Doom 3.
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