Overclocking
It appears ATI has forgone the overdrive tab in favor of the OEM's applying performance as they see fit. This only makes sense as who knows better than the OEM as to the actual chipset used, whether its reference or higher grade.
HIS bundles iTurbo with some of their current ATI offerings as a separate install and it can either be run at startup or as you need it (note that if it is not running, you are not overclocking). iTurbo allows you to monitor your hardware, temperature and fan speed, but unfortunately it does not give that information when minimized to the system tray; you must maximize it to see what the temperature is. To overclock, you simply click the “iTurbo” button and the software will clock your VPU and GDDR3 memory to a stable level. HIS iTurbo will show the memory speed either in actual MHz or DDR terms (540MHz or 1080MHz DDR). Many OEM versions I have seen are very conservative with abilities similar to this but HIS appears to be quite aggressive. Thankfully, they have built a product that allows them to be.
When I click on iTurbo, it jumps the VPU to 540MHz (notice anything familiar with that number? Can you say X850XT-PE?), memory is advanced to 1180MHz (slightly higher than X850XT-PE speeds). Over the course of the 2 weeks I have been testing the HIS X850XT and iTurbo, it is consistently able to clock to these levels. The memory has the ability, with the iTurbo software, to clock to 1190MHz, the VPU maxes out at 540MHz. There was only one time out of about 12 that I could not get a stable run at 1190MHz on the memory. The VPU overclocks to 540MHz automatically, so there is nothing I can do with iTurbo to go beyond that.
My only beef with iTurbo is the fact that the one that shipped with my review was Version Beta 1.0, I looked all over the HIS website and found nowhere I could download an updated version, or any version at all. That said, for beta software, I've had no problems with it during testing.
To attempt achieving a higher overclock on the VPU, I installed ATI Tool. Unfortunately, every time I went to test or modify any setting, the screen went into an array of pretty vertical colors, with the only way to recover being a reboot. Even so I was able to test the iTurbo settings using ATI Tool which has a nice section that checks for artifacts and reports the results to you.
Next I went for Rage3D, which promptly told me the X850XT series is not supported. At this point, it appears as though iTurbo is your best bet, although I am sure there will be tools to follow if you need to surpass PE frequencies.
Since we want to test one OpenGL and one DirectX game in overclocked mode, we chose Half-Life2 and Doom3. We used Benchemall for the overclocking tests because we want them to be as similar as possible for direct comparison. As always, overclocking can damage your equipment and your use of the included HIS software is at your own risk.
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520/1080
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540/1190
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Doom 3, 1280x1024
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63.50
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65.60
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Half Life 2, 1280x1024
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34.82
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35.12
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As you can see, there is only a slight improvement using these benchmarks with these modern games. Half-Life 2 gave us a modest 0.84% increase, while Doom 3 managed a 3.31% increase, almost matching the VPU increase of 3.8%. At the end of the day, you have to make the decision on whether to overclock or not yourself, so it's going to come down to you deciding if you need those extra frames. With that said, I have a little more confidence in the ability of the HIS X850XT IceQ II Turbo to deliver constant overclocking without damage to the hardware using the iTurbo software, some of the reasoning behind this thinking is that after an hour of overclocking and benchmarking this is how things looked.
Final Words
My main concern when initially taking on this review, was that I didn't want to sound like a school girl who just saw her first, well, you know. I have to admit, the makes me giddy. The games that I play have been given a new life. I didn't include it in my review, but even Quake 3 seems a little crisper (especially at 6xAA 8xAF).
The X850XT is absolutely a powerful reference card, but you already knew that. The HIS adaptation of the X850XT is more than well done, it borders on ingenious. Simple, yet extremely effective silent cooling, give you stable overclocks to the levels of the Platinum Edition without even a 2nd glance. Simple inclusions such as a UV aware enclosure to give you that sparkle if that's what you desire, but then not to include lights and therefore not force you to live with it if you don't. Add to that a range of adapters that could make your day and a Dual DVI output launch this card to the top of the pile, especially when you consider the price differential for that Platinum Edition card next to it.
HIS has done the unthinkable, they have wrapped leading edge technology with a common sense approach. They have given you the necessary tools to show it off, yet empowered you to choose not to. Whether it is a Cadillac (flare) or a Mercedes (classic) is up to you, though it is nice to know that under the hood humms a Ferrari.
Pros: Near silent during day to day operation even when overclocked, Performance on par with Platinum Edition, Simple yet ingenious airflow / cooling design, Instant stable Overclocking using iTurbo, Looks good behind that windowed side panel, lit or unlit, Dual DVI output, HDTV adapter included (among others)
Cons: Takes up two slots, Tough to remove due to size (though, why would you remove it?), Not a great “included” software package for a premium card, No upgrade (or any other version for that matter) of iTurbo could be found
Bottom Line: HIS have wrapped leading edge technology with a common sense approach. They have given you the necessary tools to show it off, yet empowered you to choose not to. Whether it is a Cadillac (flare) or a Mercedes (classic) is up to you, though it is nice to know that under the hood humms a Ferrari.
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