HIS Radeon X1800 XT ITurbo -Overclocking And Heat

The default clock speeds are given as 594/693 MHz (GPU/memory) in the driver's "information center". The overclocking presets in the overdrive tab of the driver read out as 695/792 MHz. These settings are pre-selected by HIS and correspond to the figures quoted on the iTurbo sticker on the package. In order to overclock the card, the automated clock configuration utility must first be run. In our tests, the utility was unable to return a result even after 30 minutes, so we manually aborted the configuration routine; however, the suggested settings already squeeze a lot of performance out of the chip. The memory speed shown in the screenshots refers to the physical speed. Since the card uses DDR RAM, the numbers are doubled in the technical specifications.

The card runs very hot, idling at 61°C in 2D mode. Under extended 3D load, the chip got as hot as 91°C. However, the powerful fan copes with these effortlessly, albeit while making quite a bit of noise.