HIS Excalibur X800 XT

The Excalibur X800 XT IceQ II is based around ATI's Radeon 420 core; the company's most advanced graphics technology for the home PC. Unlike its predecessor, the R360, this runs at 520MHz and has a higher transistor count, so more calculations can be performed simultaneously.

The X800 XT has four 64bit memory controllers and 16 pixel pipelines, double the number found on previous generations.

Some may argue that Nvidia's Geforce FX 6800 Ultra is a better option - it uses the same number of pixel pipelines and is compatible with the forthcoming DirectX 9.0c specification. ATI has ignored this for now and installed its 3Dc compression technology, which allows for complex graphics with less of a strain on the resources.

In tests, ATI seems to have its priorities right. The Excalibur's 3Dmark03 score of 11,681 was marginally lower than the last 6800 Ultra card we reviewed, but it's the fastest we've seen in real-world tests. Under Far Cry, the X800 XT chip notched up 64.91 fps, some 9fps more than the Nvidia card and frame rates stay high as resolutions are scaled up.

The X800 is highly distinctive. HIS says its enormous heatsink and fan produce 40 per cent less noise and 30 per cent better cooling than ATI's standard reference design. All users will benefit from its quiet operation, and enthusiasts could extend the capabilities with overclocking. With outstanding performance at a good price, this card is hard to beat.

Contact: Ebuyer 0870 467 0753
www.ebuyer.com
www.hisdigital.com

Specifications:

• Graphics core: 256bit
• Memory interface: 256bit
• 16 parallel pixel pipelines
• 256MB (560MHz) GDDR3 memory
• 520MHz VPU