Around
September last year, we had an influx of high performing mid range
graphics cards based on ATI R4xx series cores, boxed and labled
as X800GT and X800GTO. This was a good thing for all concernced
as ATI and the card manufacturers were able to sell on less than
perfect GPU's as well as sell on excess stock of X800 series GPU's.
These cards were sold at a relatively inexpensive price point
but came with a high performance level for that price point. There
was also the possibility that lucky card owners could flash the
BIOS on their cards to 'unlock' the pixel pipelines on their card
and get a full fledged XT or XL. It was good for consumers and
it was good for ATI and the card manufacturers.
Makes
sense to do it again then doesn't it. The X1800 series has been
superceded by the X1900 series but there are still plenty of X1800
GPU's around that either didn't make the grade or are simply excess
stock. Enter the X1800GTO, a card based on the X1800 series R520
core clocked at 500MHz and with a 256bit memory bus for the 495MHz
(990MHz) clocked memory.
HIS
have a long standing list of cards that they have sold/sell that
can overclock out of the box under warrenty with their supplied
iTurbo
software. Usually these cards feature an uprated cooling system
as well. HIS have updated to the new IceQ 3 cooling system to
couple with their X1800GTO solution dubbed the HIS
X1800GTO IceQ3 Turbo so lets get a good look at it.
Specifications
| HIS
X1800GTO IceQ3 Turbo |
- Powered
by ATI Radeon X1800GTO - 520MHz (BIOS)
- 256MB-256bit
8 channel GDDR3 memory - 1GHz(BIOS)
- 12
Pixel shader processor
- 8
Vertex shader processor
- 8
Geometry Pipelines
- Ultra-threaded
SM 3.0 Engine
- 512-bit
Ring-bus
- ATI
Avivo™
- High
Precision Architecture
- CrossFire™
Support
- PCI
Express® x16 lane native support
|
12
pixel pipelines are enabled on the card as well as 8 vertex
units. The Core on the X1800GTO cards are clocked at 500MHz,
but from HIS you have the core clocked at 520MHz. The memory
is clocked at 500MHz. Just to make it clear; this card is not
supplied with the iTurbo software but comes overclocked out
of the box.
The
box artwork for the HIS X1800GTO IceQ3 Turbo makes a large change
from previous designs, although the same amount of information
we have come to expect from HIS is still adorned around the
box; from specifications and features to what's included, you
can easily see what you are getting. You can even see the card
itself, or at least the large IceQ3 cooler.
Inside
you can see at a glance that this is a very complete package;
the same platinum pack from previous cards can be found. Five
disks are at the bottom of the box; 2 CD's for the full driving
game Flatout, One CD for the stereo version of PowerDVD 6, One
CD for the drivers (including a link to download the latest
ATI driver) and utilities, One DVD with full versions of Dungeon
Siege, Power Director 3 SE Plus, Power2Go 4, 3dAlbum PicturePro
and Trial versions of various games such as Half Life 2, Rollercoaster
Tycoon 3, Tribes Vengeance and other games and applications.
There
is a lot of cabling and other connections in the box; an S-Video
lead, a Composite lead, a VIVO adapter, an HDTV Component adapter
and a 4pin Molex (with pass thru) to a 6pin PCIe Graphics power
connecter. The card is a dual DVI card so HIS also include two
DVI to VGA adapters for those folks with dual monitors that use
15pin D-sub connections and a PCI grill bracket to let the IceQ3
exhaust hot air out of the case.
HIS
have a multi-language manual included and also a little sheet
to explain how to change the card's Video in/out capabilites
from it's default NTSC to PAL. Also included, and new to the
usual package is a foil HIS 'Power Up!' case badge.
So
that's the entree, if you still have room it's time to tuck
into the main meal; the card itself. Like most HIS IceQ cards,
it's the cooler that dominates and draws your eye first. You
can also see that this is a large card lengthwise and a dual
slot card as well.
The
IceQ3 cooler sports a (UV reactive) label in the usual blue
and silver HIS design. The fan is a little different from previous
HIS coolers in that it is bi-directional and sports a jeweled
ring edge to the top intake. The GPU is the main item that is
cooled using a combination of old fashioned air movement over
a copper block and a new style sintered powder wicks heatpipe
which moves the initial heat away from the core.
The
Ram is cooled with matching copper heat sinks, the upside being
that heat from the Ram cannot add to the heat of the GPU and increase
the work for the main cooling. The downside is that the ram is
no longer actively cooled, although GDDR3 runs pretty cool anyway,
for general use it won't be an issue; it might restrict overclocking
a little but we shall find out later.
On
the opposite side to the exposed heatpipe you can see the wiring
for the fan, sleeved in the usual HIS manner although this card
has a white sleeving as opposed to the black sleeving used in
previous cards.
The
specifications for the X1800GTO state a 5 phase power setup
but HIS have opted for a 6 phase design which could be good
for core overclocking. Also of note is that copper sink across
the rear power setup. The mosfets however are still exposed.
You can also see the usual 6pin PCIe power socket at the rear
of the card.
Turning
the card around to the IO panel we find 2 Dual Link DVI ports
with a central VIVO socket. The rear of the card is pretty uneventful
although we can see the HIS branded X brace to help distribute
the weight of the cards cooler.
The
start of the meal was good and the main course has certainly
whetted our appetite, lets move on to desert; Testing.
Test
Setup
MSI
K8N Diamond Plus, AMD X2 3800 (2.0GHz), 2 x 512MB Corsair 3200XL
Pro (2-2-2-5), 2x 80GB Maxtor 7200 SATA's, Windows XP w/SP2
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. A 7600GT and an
X1800XL will be used to compare. The monitor used is a Dell Ultrasharp
2005FPW 20" Widescreen LCD and widescreen reolutions will
be added to the list of possible screen size choices.
Test
Software will be:
Doom
3 - Making good use of the BFG, rocket launcher and plasma
gun (the most graphically intense weapons), we'll be kicking ass
on the Enpro level and trying not to let the robot score all the
points
Quake
4 – New to our test suite is the latest FPS shooter
from iD. A demo of multiplayer deathmatch action was used in combination
with FRAPS to ascertain game performance. We held our own (Ed
– you got owned again didn't you) against our enemies
on the q4dm1 multiplayer level.
Half
Life 2: Lost Coast – A short 10 minute game demo utilizing
HDR in the Source engine, Lost Coast requires you to have a recent
card to see all the visual goodness. Starting at the bottom of
the stairs, we worked our way up to the chapel above, shooting
the combine on the way and admiring the view.
F.E.A.R.
– Certainly not the prettiest game in the bunch used here,
but if you want a good scare then this game can provide it. The
lighting and shadows (if you have a machine capable of it) all
add to the atmosphere. We ran around part of interval 03, after
escaping the fire in the warehouse.
Battlefield
2 - We tested the gameplay on the Songhua Stalemate map with
15 bots. This map features a lot of greenery and water areas,
as well as lots of hills and buildings which makes the fighting
tight and the views expansive, all of which gives your graphics
card a challenge.
Tomb
Raider: Legend – The latest Tomb Raider game with its
support of next generation content such as HDR and parallax mapping
can be a real frame rate killer. Let's go climb a mountain and
see how our card performs against Lara.
Need
for Speed: Most Wanted – NFS: MW features a lot of
particle effects and reflective surfaces, along with an HDR filtering
effect that provides some very nice visuals. We tricked a Lamborghini
Murciélago and went for a blast around town avoiding the
traffic and police.
The
driver settings were manually configured for Anti-aliasing and
Anisotropic Filtering (on or off), and set to "Quality".
All games were set to their highest playable game settings for
best possible image quality unless otherwise stated.
Since
this is a HIS
Turbo Edition card, you get a card which comes already overclocked
out of the box. Speeds are increased from 490/990 to 520/1000.
NEXT
