Product Listing

HIS Radeon X1800 XT 512MB OC Edition

By Vincent Chang - 22 Jan 2006

Conclusion

Conclusion

The performance of the HIS Radeon X1800 XT 512MB OC Edition certainly fits our idea of speed. The higher clock speeds puts it on par with the other overclocked Radeon X1800 XT cards tested so far. Just by looking at the raw scores, it is actually the fastest, albeit by the slimmest of margins. Anyway, gamers are unlikely to tell the difference between these overclocked cards. Suffice to say that the HIS card is fast enough to play all the games available now and in the near future. The architecture of the Radeon X1800 actually means that much of its potential has not been fulfilled in game implementations so far. Therefore, if you are looking for a premium Radeon X1800 XT 512MB, the HIS is one of the cards to consider for its top-drawer performance.

The HIS Radeon X1800 XT OC Edition does not have a Turbo Mode like some of its other graphics products. Instead it has been slapped with the OC Edition tag and overclocked by default.

The downside of the card is the fact that it uses the default cooler provided by ATI. This large, noisy cooler barely manages to keep the overclocked HIS card below 90 degrees and we wished that HIS had tried to integrate its successful and cool IceQ coolers for this OC Edition. At least that could have improved on the modest overclocking that we managed for the HIS. More importantly, it would have been less of a torture on our ears. This wasn't helped by HIS' addition of the relatively (in gaming years) ancient Dungeon Siege game. Not everyone would appreciate the games included in such bundles but we think HIS should have paired its high-end ATI card with a game that could utilize its capabilities fully and show off its graphical prowess.

Finally, we come to the price and availability of the HIS Radeon X1800 XT 512MB OC Edition. Unfortunately, we do not have the estimated retail price of this special version though one would expect to pay more for the default overclocking present for this card. With Radeon X1800 XT cards no longer as rare as they once were, you should be able to find these cards quite easily. For the OC Edition however, it may be in limited quantities so it could take some legwork or finger work to find the best deal online or off.

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