ATI Graphics Buyer's Guide Spring 2006, Part 1

HIS Radeon X1600 XT ITurbo IceQ

This card's designation contains two peculiarities. The first is the "iTurbo" moniker, which denotes higher clock speeds. Its default frequencies are 587/1386 MHz (GPU/memory), but when the iTurbo overclocking utility is activated, the board can be overclocked to 600/1404 MHz, literally with a single click.

The second special characteristic is the IceQ cooling solution, a two-slot silent cooler that pairs lower temperatures than the stock cooler with lower noise levels. On the front of the card's box, HIS promises that the cooler reduces heat by 11°C while operating at less than 20dB(A). Indeed, the fan is practically silent. Warm air is expelled at the back of the case through a little grille that comes with the card. The long cooler covers both the graphics chip and the memory modules. The board supports Pixel Shader v3.0 and HDR rendering with simultaneous anti-aliasing. From a performance perspective, the X1600 XT is just over a third slower than the X1800 XL, meaning it is just fast enough for the current crop of complex 3D games.

The HIS Radeon X1600 XT iTurbo IceQ sports two digital DVI- connectors and a Video-out jack for S-Video or HDTV.