Overclocking
Now on to the fun part of the review, overclocking
the video card. HIS makes the claim that the card is already
slightly over the stock settings, which they did by raising
the core 25MHz. Lets see what kind of cooling this card
offers and how far it will overclock.
We can see as is pretty normal
for HIS, the cooler is very large but surprisingly not heavy
at all, unlike the copper heatsink on the Asus x800XL we compared
it to. The ram-sinks are held on by thermal tape so we
couldn't remove them very easily.
Looking at the overclocking results
I was a little disappointed, as the core only went up another
33MHz and the memory 60MHz(120DDR). This represents a ~5%
increase in the core clock and a ~10% increase in the memory clock
speed. One very nice thing though was the temperatures even
at this increased speed. The core never went over 56ºC
which is quite a nice result as many cards routinely reach the
70ºC and higher mark under
load. The card is also very quiet in use, as I didn't realize
the computer was on in my new Athlon 64 board until I saw the
fan spinning.
System Setup
| CPU: |
Intel
Pentium IV 520 2.8E (14*200MHz)
|
| Motherboard: |
Asus P5LD2-Deluxe
|
| Memory: |
2*512MB Crucial PC2-6400,
2*512MB SyncMax 533Express |
| Hard
Drives: |
40GB
Maxtor IDE, 5*250GB WD SATA (RAID5)
|
| Video
Card: |
HIS
X1650Pro IceQ Turbo Dual DL-DVI - 625/700MHz - 658/760MHz |
|
Asus
Extreme AX800XL-2DTV - 398/490MHz |
| Operating
System: |
Windows
XP Professional Service Pack 2 w/Direct X 9.0c |
| Drivers: |
HIS
ATi Catalyst 6.7 and ATi Catalyst 6.8 |
| Cooler: |
Zalman
CNPS7700-AlCu |
| Case: |
Generic
ATX Case |
| Power
Supply: |
Ultra X-Finity 500 Watt |
| Software: |
Fraps
2.5.3 |
|
| Direct
X Benchmarks: |
Serious
Sam 2 Demo - Self
Demo |
FEAR - Built In
Demo |
|
Half
Life 2: Lost Coast -
Tech Report Demo |
|
| OpenGL
Benchmarks: |
Quake
4 1.3- Self Demo |
|
All
our tests were run at 1024*768 and 1600*1200 with 4x AA and
16X anisotropic filtering both enabled and disabled. The
x1650 wasn't detected by the Catalyst 6.8 drivers so we used
the 6.7 drivers for its testing while using the 6.8 drivers
for the x800XL. The overclocked version of the x1650 was
only tested in the more demanding settings, 4x AA and 16X anisotropic
filtering at both resolutions.
The Quake 4 demo was recorded in the first
level, as you leave for initial area, and covers both outdoor
fighting as well as indoor areas. The F.E.A.R demo was the
built in performance demo included with the game, and the basic
settings are shown here. Serious Sam 2 Demo was recorded
just after the initial staging area of the demo, in a mostly closed
in area with many enemies as is standard for Serious Sam, the
settings used are located here. Half Life 2: Lost Coast
was used as I don't have Episode 1, but this is pretty close.
The demo used is from Tech Report, and covers most of the initial
area in the map, and we used the settings shown here. So
lets see what this new mid-range card can do.
Game Tests - Quake 4
First lets take a look at our only OpenGL
based game, in Quake 4. Based off the Doom 3 engine this
game has some definite high quality graphics, or we wouldn't use
it for testing, so lets see what the results are:
|
1024 NAA - Results (In FPS)
|
Minimum |
Average |
Maximum |
| Asus Extreme AX800XL: |
29 |
52.5 |
94 |
| HIS x1650 Pro: |
36 |
57.59 |
136 |
We can see that the HIS card
does better than the Asus card in this test. Most of the
difference comes in the first four seconds of the test, where
the HIS card goes to its maximum of 136fps while the x800 has
a 40fps lower maximum, which alone is a 1fps difference in the
average frame rate. Both cards can be considered very
playable in this resolution as they don't go under 35fps apart
from the initial 29fps from the x800XL. Lets turn up the
quality settings a to see if there is a wider difference between
the cards.
|
1024 AA - Results (In FPS)
|
Minimum |
Average |
Maximum |
| Asus Extreme AX800XL: |
33 |
54.69 |
122 |
| HIS x1650 Pro: |
35 |
56.57 |
126 |
| HIS x1650 Pro 658/760MHz:: |
34 |
56.93 |
128 |
Here we can see what appears
to be a CPU limited result for the most part. Strangely
enough the average results are higher than the tests without
AA and anisotropic filtering at this resolution. Again
all three cards are playable with frame rates under 40fps only
occurring for 2-4 seconds per card in the entire test.
The graphs are fairly identical during the second half of the
test, which equates to the outdoor portion of the test, thus
most of the differences occur in a more confined rendering area.
Lets see if the past two results continue with the resolution
bumped up to 1600*1200.
|
1600 NAA - Results (In FPS)
|
Minimum |
Average |
Maximum |
| Asus Extreme AX800XL: |
36 |
55.14 |
127 |
| HIS x1650 Pro: |
27 |
51.70 |
104 |
The tables seem to have changed
from the 1024*768 results, as the x800XL is in top spot by a
4fps margin. This could be a result of higher fillrate
and memory bandwidth, as the x800 has a 256bit bus compared
to the 128bit bus of the x1650 series. However besides
this the cards both are playable at this setting, which is pretty
good for a mid-range card. Lets see if adding some enhancements
will bring both cards to their knees.
|
1600 AA - Results (In FPS)
|
Minimum |
Average |
Maximum |
| Asus Extreme AX800XL: |
23 |
42.8 |
95 |
| HIS x1650 Pro: |
24 |
45.02 |
78 |
| HIS x1650 Pro 658/760MHz:: |
22 |
46.52 |
78 |
Again just like at 1024*768
the results are very close, the only difference is the average
frame rate has dipped about 10fps on average between the cards.
None of the cards dips below the 20fps mark at all and for most
people they should find this game playable at this resolution,
which is a very nice thing to be able to say about any mid-range
card. But before we hand out any medals, lets see how
it does in the newer DirectX 9c (PS3/VS3) based games.
NEXT
