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[nextpage title=”Introduction”]

Radeon X1600 XT is ATI’s latest mid-range graphics chip. Today we will review HIS Radeon X1600 XT IceQ Turbo with 256 MB and we will compare its performance to other members of the Radeon X1000 series, to previous ATI chips and also with competing products from NVIDIA. Its main advantage over competing products is its cooler design, which blows hot air out of the computer case and thus preventing your PC from overheating.

Figure 1: HIS Radeon X1600 XT IceQ Turbo.

Radeon X1600 XT runs officially at 590 MHz and accesses its memory at 1.38 GHz (22.08 GB/s), 128 bits per clock cycle. The funny thing about this particular model is that HIS announces it as being a “Turbo” model, running at 600 MHz with its memory running at 1.4 GHz, as you can see in Figure 2. First, these figures are very close to the original specs set by ATI. Second, we run PowerStrip software and this program told us that our VGA was running at 587.25 MHz with is memory running at 693 MHz x 2 (1,386 MHz) – i.e., the official specs. Third, to make it funnier, HIS’ non-Turbo model is announced as using the official specs, as you can see here (compare to HIS Radeon X1600 XT IceQ Turbo official specs). Ok. Turbo and non-Turbo are exactly the same board, however the Turbo version comes with HIS’ iTurbo overclocking utility. So, it isn’t factory-overclocked.

Figure 2: Label found on HIS Radeon X1600 XT IceQ Turbo box.

If you want to learn more about ATI’s Radeon X1000 series and its difference from previous ATI products, read our article on this subject.
 
You can see in our tutorial “ATI Chips Comparison Table” the difference between this new chip and the other chips from ATI, while on our tutorial “NVIDIA Chips Comparison Table” you can compare it to its competitors from NVIDIA.

Let’s now take a closer look at the Radeon X1600 XT IceQ Turbo from HIS.

[nextpage title=”HIS Radeon X1600 XT IceQ Turbo”]

You can check HIS Radeon X1600 XT IceQ Turbo on Figures 3 and 4.

Figure 3: HIS Radeon X1600 XT IceQ Turbo.

Figure 4: HIS Radeon X1600 XT IceQ Turbo, back view.

As we mentioned before, the main advantage of HIS IceQ models is the design of their cooler, which blows hot air produced by the video card out the computer case – and later copied by Sapphire. Also, it is sensitive to UV light, so it will grow if you have an UV lamp inside your case.

We disassembled the video card heatsink to take a look, see Figures 5 and 6. While the heatsink from ATI’s reference model is fully made of copper, the heatsink used on HIS model is entirely made of aluminum. It is actually made by Arctic Cooling (https://www.arctic.ac).

Figure 5: Heatsink detached from the video board.

Figure 6: Video card without its cooler.

As you can see in Figure 6, HIS added passive heatsinks on the top of each memory chip, feature not provided on ATI’s reference model. If you compare Figure 6 with Figure 4 from our ATI Radeon X1600 XT reference board review, you will see that this video card uses exactly the same design as the reference board.

We couldn’t remove the passive heatsink from the memory chips. As this board follows the reference design from ATI, we guess that it uses four GDDR3 512-Mbit 1.2 ns chips from Samsung (K4J52324QC-BJ12)to give it 256 MB of video memory (512 Mbits x 4 = 256 MB). These chips can run up to 1.6 GHz. Since this video card accesses the memory at 1.38 GHz, there is almost 16% headroom for memory overclocking inside the memory’s specifications. But of course you can try overclock it over its specs. So, in theory this video card has good overclockable memories.

This board also comes with one S-Video cable, one Composite Video to S-Video adapter and one Component Video adapter.

[nextpage title=”Main Specifications”]

• Graphics chip: Radeon X1600 XT running at 590 MHz.
• Memory: 1.2 ns 128-bit 256 MB GDDR3 memory from Samsung (K4J52324QC-BJ12), running at 1.38 GHz.
• Bus type: PCI Express 16x.
• Connectors: Two DVI and one mini-DIN for S-Video and Component Video output.
• Number of CDs that come with this board: 5.
• Games that come with this board: Dungeon Siege 1.1 (full), Flat Out (full), Act of War: Direct Action (demo), Axis&Allies (demo), Half-Life 2 (demo), RollerCoaster Tycoon 3 (demo) and Tribes: Vengeance Single (demo).
• Programs that come with this board: iTurbo overclocking utility, PowerDirector 3 SE Plus, Power2Go 4 and other trial software.
• More Information: https://www.hisdigital.com
• Average Price in the US: We couldn’t find this product listed on North American price comparison websites, but we could see Radeon X1600 XT models from other manufacturers being sold on the USD 167-USD 200 range (ATI suggested price for Radeon X1600 XT with 256 MB models when it was launched was of USD 249).

[nextpage title=”How We Tested”]

During our benchmarking sessions, we used the configuration listed below. Between our benchmarking sessions the only variable was the video card being tested.

Hardware Configuration

• Motherboard: DFI LAN Party 925X-T2 (Intel 925X, Sep. 20th, 2004 BIOS)
• CPU: Pentium 4 3.4 GHz LGA 775
• Memory: Two 512 MB DDR2-533 CM2X512-4200 CL4 from Corsair memory modules
• Hard Drive: Maxtor DiamondMax 9 Plus (40 GB, ATA-133)
• Screen resolution: [email protected] Hz

Software Configuration

• Windows XP Professional installed using NTFS
• Service Pack 2
• Direct X 9.0c
• Intel inf driver version: 6.0.1.1002
• ATI video driver version: 4.10 (6.14.10.6483)
• ATI video driver version: 4.12 (Radeon X850 Platinum Edition)
• ATI video driver version: 5.3 (Radeon X800 GT)
• ATI video driver version: 5.9 (Radeon X800 GTO)
• ATI video driver version: 6.1 (Radeon X1600 XT from HIS)
• ATI video driver version: 8.173 beta (Radeon X1000 series)
• ATI video driver version: 8.203.3.0 (Radeon X1900 XTX)
• NVIDIA video driver version: 66.93
• NVIDIA video driver version: 77.72 (GeForce 7800 GTX)
• NVIDIA video driver version: 78.02 (GeForce 7800 GT)
• NVIDIA video driver version: 81.98 (GeForce 6800 GS)

Used Software

• 3DMark2001 SE
• 3DMark03 Business 3.50
• 3DMark05 Business 1.10
• Doom III
• Far Cry 1.3

We adopted a 3% error margin; thus, differences below 3% cannot be considered relevant. In other words, products with a performance difference below 3% should be considered as having similar performance.

[nextpage title=”3DMark2001 SE”]

3DMark2001 SE measures video card performance simulating DirectX 8.1 games. It is a very good software to evaluate the performance of games from previous generation, programmed using DirectX 8. In this software we run six tests. We run the software in three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32, first without antialising and with no frame buffer, then we put the antialising at 4 samples and triple frame buffer. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to note that ATI chips can run at 6x antialising. Since NVIDIA chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialising to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our bechmark, allowing direct comparison between them.

You may be asking yourself why we added an old program in a review of a latest generation video card. To us, as important to know the performance of a video card with the latest games is to know its performance in an older game. That’s why we kept this software in our methodology.

At a resolution of 1024×768 without any image quality enhancement, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 5.84% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 10.27% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 13.24% faster than ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, 20.72% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 36.43% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 39.53% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600 and 57.18% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, ATI Radeon X1600 XT and HIS Radeon X800 GTO.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 16.66% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 15.28% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 10.85% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 8.97% faster and NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 6.72% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 7.52% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 9.31% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 20.77% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 48.24% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 49.94% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 78.46% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1600 XT and ATI Radeon X1900 XTX.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 24.46% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 23.45% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 18.88% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 16.94% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 15.15% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 9.06% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 8.30% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 6.98% faster and HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 4.46% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 4.02% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 11.80% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 19.33% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 57.24% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 75.22% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 111.68% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 40.31% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 36.07% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 33.31% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 29.11% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 27.35% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 17.83% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 16.47% faster, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 15.72% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 8.99% faster and HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 8.80% faster.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 3.40% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 19.40% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 37.72% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 67.52% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 82.35% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600 and 98.29% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GTO and HIS Radeon X800 GT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 27.66% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 25.33% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 20.83% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 17.99% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 12.63% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 5.57% faster, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 4.29% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 3.54% faster and ATI Radeon X1600 XT, which was 3.40% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 8.40% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 27.80% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 55.93% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 93.81% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 121.56% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600 and 132.88% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GTO and HIS Radeon X800 GT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 44.41% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 37.64% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 34.52% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 27.74% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 21.64% faster, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 19.80% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 12.80% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 12.52% faster and ATI Radeon X1600 XT, which was 3.22% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 22.84% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 55.88% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 128.56% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 153.73% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 212.05% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 122.45% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 100.43% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 99.37% faster, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 93.48% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 88.91% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 77.30% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 45.46% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 43.42% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 36.83% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 31.07% faster, Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, which was 16.27% faster and ATI Radeon X1600 XT, which was 3.65% faster.

was beaten by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 14.97% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 3.59% faster and ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 3.04% faster.

[nextpage title=”3DMark03″]

3DMark03 measures performance by simulating games written to DirectX 9, which are contemporary games. We run this program in three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32, first without antialising and anisotropic filtering, and then configuring antialising at 4x and anisotropic filtering also at 4x. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to note that ATI chips can run at 6x antialising. Since NVIDIA chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialising to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our bechmarks, allowing direct comparison between them.

At a resolution of 1024×768 without any image quality enhancement, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 13.43% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 25.26% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 38.94% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 88.53% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 121.37% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 163.49% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1600 XT and HIS Radeon X800 GT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 81.05% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 71.05% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 64.19% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 50.58% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 43.84% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 39.88% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 23.50% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 22.82% faster and HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 4.65% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 12.05% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 26.50% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 38.54% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 91.32% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 126.39% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 170.00% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 105.17% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 92.72% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 80.81% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 62.46% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 57.65% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 52.37% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 30.54% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 29.77% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 10.39% faster and HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 3.99% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 11.38% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 31.23% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 38.44% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 92.98% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 142.52% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 187.59% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1600 XT and HIS Radeon X800 GT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 126.01% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 108.03% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 95.96% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 90.05% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 69.18% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 62.75% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 38.24% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 36.13% faster and HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 14.94% faster.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 14.80% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 38.30% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 40.57% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 101.64% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 143.90% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 186.44% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 141.42% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 129.18% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 107.07% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 94.47% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 87.67% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 69.09% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 44.30% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 42.67% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 13.39% faster and ATI Radeon X1600 XT, which was 3.82% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 4.14% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 42.09% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 47.47% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 47.65% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 141.75% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 167.88% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 198.60% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 161.59% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 150.07% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 113.68% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 100.30% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 89.03% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 73.47% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 42.91% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 38.85% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 9.48% faster and ATI Radeon X1600 XT, which was 3.54% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 39.84% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 41.77% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 49.04% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 149.17% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 249.59% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 274.12% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 206.84% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 187.77% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 140.25% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 129.50% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 126.92% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 96.33% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 57.01% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 50.88% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 20.79% faster and ATI Radeon X1600 XT, which was 3.79% faster.

[nextpage title=”3DMark05″]

3DMark05 measures performance by simulating DirectX 9.0c games, i.e., using the new Shader 3.0 model. This programming model is used by Far Cry game and other games to be launched in the future. This new programming model is used by GeForce 6 and 7 series from NVIDIA and Radeon X1000 series from ATI.

We run this program in three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32, first without antialising and anisotropic filtering, and then configuring antialising at 4x and anisotropic filtering also at 4x. This improves the video quality but lowers the performance. We were willing to see how much performance we lost by putting the VGA to run at the maximum possible image quality. It is important to note that ATI chips can run at 6x antialising. Since NVIDIA chips cannot run at this configuration, we had to use 4x antialising to use a configuration that is valid to all video cards included in our benchmark, allowing direct comparison between them.

At a resolution of 1024×768 without any image quality enhancement, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 8.16% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 14.09% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 22.89% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 70.03% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 70.86% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 86.58% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 188.48% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 242.43% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 259.49% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1600 XT and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 47.18% faster, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 42.29% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 38.35% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 31.87% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 29.26% faster and ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 16.81% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 7.40% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 15.61% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 26.00% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 78.52% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 91.43% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 105.52% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 219.46% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 286.73% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 305.44% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

A HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1600 XT and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 66.56% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 62.46% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 50.85% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 38.09% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 36.85% faster and ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 17.85% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 7.44% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 16.28% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 36.67% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 85.63% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 90.21% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 162.74% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 251.80% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 307.99% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 369.07% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 96.12% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 76.51% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 61.73% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 44.11% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 44.08% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 18.37% faster and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 4.03% faster.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 7.30% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 8.62% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 12.69% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 77.87% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 93.28% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 208.47% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 282.47% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro, 324.60% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600 and 339.65% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 70.98% faster, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 69.19% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 52.44% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 47.96% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 40.03% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 25.21% faster and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 3.48% faster.

To run at 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements on 3DMark05 the video card must have at least 256 MB of memory, because of that some video cards couldn’t run this test. Here HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 8.29% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 11.21% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 28.09% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 86.70% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 99.81% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 300.37% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 453.36% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1600 XT and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 104.39% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 87.87% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 61.31% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 52.88% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 45.07% faster and ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 25.29% faster.

To run at 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements on 3DMark05 the video card must have at least 256 MB of memory, because of that some video cards couldn’t run this test. Here HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 9.39% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GTO, 15.75% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 15.85% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 32.80% faster than HIS Radeon X800 GT, 88.28% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 105.48% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 339.22% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 658.65% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 141.71% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 104.41% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 62.54% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 61.11% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 44.80% faster and ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 28.53% faster.

[nextpage title=”Doom 3″]Doom 3 is one of the heaviest games available today. As we’ve done on other programs, we ran this game at three resolutions: 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32. This game allows several image quality levels and we’ve done our benchmarking on two levels, low and high. We ran demo1 four times and wrote the obtained number of frames per second. The first result we discarded at once, since it is far inferior than the other results. This happens because at the first time we run the demo the game must load all textures to video memory, fact that doesn’t happen from the second time we run the demo on. From the three results left, we consider as our official result the middle result, i.e., we discard the highest and the lowest values. Curiously almost all times the values obtained at the second round on were the same.

A very important detail that we must mention is that Doom 3 has an internal FPS lock: it is only capable of generating 60 frames per second, even if your board is able to produce more frames per second than that. This is done in order to make the game to have the same “playability” sensation independently from the video card installed on the PC. This lock, however, is disabled in the game benchmarking mode.

For further details on how to measure 3D performance with Doom 3, read our tutorial on this subject.

At a resolution of 1024×768 without any image quality enhancement, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 18.88% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 22.18% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 113.92% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 162.30% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 46.29% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 45.08% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 42.97% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 42.36% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 42.36% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 38.28% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 27.84% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 25.11% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 16.64% faster, XFX GeForce 6600 GT, which was 14.83% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 5.45% faster and XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), which was 3.78% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 18.77% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 21.04% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 126.02% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 176.88% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 111.96% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 106.32% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 104.06% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 97.52% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 82.39% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 74.94% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 72.91% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 71.11% faster, XFX GeForce 6600 GT, which was 35.21% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 24.38% faster, XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), which was 13.54% faster and HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 5.64% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 18.11% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 22.75% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 138.93% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 195.28% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1600 XT and HIS Radeon X800 GT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 176.68% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 158.15% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 147.60% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 143.45% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 105.75% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 102.56% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 101.60% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 99.36% faster, XFX GeForce 6600 GT, which was 46.65% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 24.28% faster and XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), which was 17.57% faster.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 19.84% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 24.02% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 117.27% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 163.76% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 57.78% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 56.29% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 54.97% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 52.65% faster, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 51.99% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 47.02% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 38.41% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 35.26% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 22.19% faster, XFX GeForce 6600 GT, which was 17.22% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 8.44% faster and XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), which was 8.28% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 19.77% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 23.35% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 123.91% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 174.67% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 130.10% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 118.93% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 115.29% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 110.44% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 89.81% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 80.58% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 79.37% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 75.73% faster, XFX GeForce 6600 GT, which was 34.71% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 27.67% faster, XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), which was 15.53% faster and HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 7.77% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 20.00% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 24.48% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 158.62% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 191.26% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT and ATI Radeon X1600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 194.67% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 166.33% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 152.67% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 150.67% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 104.67% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 103.67% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 102.00% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 101.00% faster, XFX GeForce 6600 GT, which was 44.67% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 25.67% faster and XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), which was 17.67% faster.

[nextpage title=”Far Cry”]

Far Cry is a game based on the new Shader 3.0 (DirectX 9.0c) programming model available on series 6 and 7 from NVIDIA and series X1000 from ATI graphics chips. We’ve updated the game to version 1.3.
 
As we’ve done on other programs, we ran this game at three resolutions, 1024x768x32, 1280x1024x32 and 1600x1200x32. This game allows several image quality levels and we’ve done our benchmarking on two levels, low and very high. To measure the performance we used the demo created by German magazine PC Games Hardware (PCGH), available at https://www.3dcenter.org/downloads/farcry-pcgh-vga.php. We run this demo four times and made an arithmetical average with the results. This average is the result presented in our graphs.

This game has a very important detail in its image quality configuration. Antialising, instead of being configured by numbers (1x, 2x, 4x or 6x) is configured as low, medium or high. The problem is that on NVIDIA chips both medium and high mean 4x, while on ATI chips medium means 2x and high means 6x, making the comparison between ATI and NVIDIA chips completely unfair. Because of that we configured antialising at 4x and anisotropic filtering at 8x manually at the video driver control panel.

For further details on how to measure 3D performance with Far Cry, read our tutorial on this subject.

At a resolution of 1024×768 without any image quality enhancement, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 6.15% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 7.51% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 7.52% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 9.28% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 10.26% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 11.23% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 17.38% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 20.34% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT and 28.94% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X800 GT, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., HIS Radeon X800 GTO, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, ATI Radeon X1600 XT and ATI Radeon X1900 XTX.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 without any image quality enhancement, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 5.16% faster than MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, 5.76% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, 6.35% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 6.96% faster than ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, 9.74% faster than NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, 10.15% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 18.96% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 57.19% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT, 59.57% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600 and 92.09% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., HIS Radeon X800 GT, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, ATI Radeon X1600 XT and Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 without any image quality enhancement, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 8.31% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 12.51% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 33.00% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 86.81% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 97.89% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT and 142.33% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 21.30% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 20.21% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 19.80% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 17.66% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 13.14% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 12.50% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 11.76% faster, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 10.53% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 8.40% faster and NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 7.82% faster.

At a resolution of 1024×768 enabling image quality enhancements, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 15.55% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 22.91% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 26.58% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 98.77% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 130.52% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 151.07% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 62.83% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 62.70% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 61.91% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 61.15% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 60.21% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 50.31% faster, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 47.50% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 44.38% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 34.01% faster and HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 16.51% faster.

At a resolution of 1280×1024 enabling image quality enhancements, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 20.25% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 31.33% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 37.18% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 125.02% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 139.65% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 148.97% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 122.00% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 109.76% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 106.43% faster, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 102.27% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 100.32% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 97.85% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 58.68% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 51.96% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 35.06% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 13.33% faster and ATI Radeon X1600 XT, which was 4.95% faster.

At a resolution of 1600×1200 enabling image quality enhancements, HIS Radeon X1600 XT was 20.04% faster than Sapphire Radeon X700 Pro, 22.99% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 GT, 39.33% faster than XFX GeForce 6600 256 MB (which is factory-overclocked), 112.94% faster than Albatron GeForce 6600, 198.76% faster than Sapphire Radeon X600 Pro and 242.65% faster than ATI Radeon X600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to ATI Radeon X1600 XT.

HIS Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by ATI Radeon X1800 XT, which was 199.25% faster, ATI Radeon X1900 XTX, which was 185.68% faster, ATI Radeon X1800 XL, which was 147.13% faster, MSI GeForce 7800 GTX, which was 141.88% faster, ATI Radeon X850 XT P.E., which was 125.77% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, which was 117.94% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GS, which was 66.24% faster, NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT, which was 42.76% faster, HIS Radeon X800 GTO, which was 41.80% faster and HIS Radeon X800 GT, which was 15.49% faster.

[nextpage title=”Conclusions”]

In our review of the Radeon X1600 XT reference card manufactured by ATI, we came to the conclusion that “it is hard to describe Radeon X1600 XT since from our results it looks like a completely schizophrenic graphics chip”, and one thing that could explain the odd behavior of Radeon X1600 XT would be the driver we used, that was still a beta version.

With Radeon X1600 XT from HIS we used the latest official stable driver from ATI (Catalyst 6.1) and still the results were absolutely the same: the model from HIS achieved exactly the same results (the be honest, ATI reference card was slightly faster one some tests, but the advantage of this card was below 4%, so we must consider that there is no significant performance difference between them).

It is faster than mid-range chips like GeForce 6600 GT, Radeon X600 XT and Radeon X700 Pro, but when compared to GeForce 6800 GT, GeForce 6800 GS, Radeon X800 GT and Radeon X800 GTO it is a mess.

On 3DMark03, which is based on Shader 2.0 (DirectX 9.0), GeForce 6800 GT was between 22.82% and 57.01% faster, GeForce 6800 GS was between 23.50% and 50.88% faster and Radeon X800 GTO was up to 20.79% faster than Radeon X1600 XT. Radeon X1600 XT achieved a performance similar to HIS Radeon X1600 XT under this software, with a slight advantage of up to 4.14% on some tests.

On 3DMark05, which is based on Shader 3.0 (DirectX 9.0c), Radeon X1600 XT was between 7.30% and 15.85% faster than GeForce 6800 GT and achieved a performance similar to GeForce 6800 GS on almost all tests, but on 1600×1200 with image quality settings enable Radeon X1600 XT was 15.75% faster. Radeon X1600 XT was between 12.69% and 36.67% faster than Radeon X800 GT and between 8.62% and 16.28% faster than Radeon X800 GTO.

On Far Cry, Radeon X1600 XT was faster at 1024×768 and 1280×1024 with no image quality settings enabled than GeForce 6800 GT and GeForce 6800 GS. On these resolutions it achieved a performance similar to Radeon X800 GT and Radeon X800 GTO. On other video configurations, however, GeForce 6800 GT was between 7.82% and 51.96% faster, GeForce 6800 GS was between 11.76% and 66.24% faster, Radeon X800 GT was between 8.40% and 16.51% faster and Radeon X800 GTO was between 19.80% and 41.80% faster.

On Doom 3, excluding 1600×1200 with and without image quality settings enabled, where it achieved a performance similar to Radeon X800 GT, Radeon X1600 XT was beaten by GeForce 6800 GT, GeForce 6800 GS, Radeon X800 GT and Radeon X800 GTO in all our tests.

So, excluding 3DMark05, the “old” Radeon X800 GTO is faster than the new Radeon X1600 XT! You may think that’s because 3DMark05 is Shader 3.0. Can be, but how to explain the better performance of Radeon X800 GTO on Far Cry, a Shader 3.0 game?

O.k., let’s assume that Radeon X1600 XT is really the best Shader 3.0 mid-range graphics chip, but how about the other kind of games? What is the point of having a terrific Shader 3.0 performance while its performance on all other kind of games is lower than its competitors?

If you compare pricing, it is even more insane: models based on Radeon X1600 XT with 256 MB can be found between USD 167 and USD 200, while a Radeon X800 GTO with 256 MB is being sold today between USD 185 and USD 210.

So unless you run exclusively DirectX 9.0c (Shader 3.0) games (which we think is quite improbable), Radeon X800 GTO is a better choice than Radeon X1600 XT.