Pixel-Churners: A round-up of Radeon 9700 PRO cards

HIS Excalibur Radeon 9700 PRO

HIS, established in 1987, stands for "Hightech Information System LTD." The company is based in Hong Kong. HIS used to produce many cards based on NVIDIA chips, but switched camps, like Hercules and Gigabyte, after the GeForce3 generation.

Only the small sticker on the VGA-out reveals who the manufacturer is.

Except for the HIS sticker on the VGA-out, the Excalibur 9700 PRO is identical to the ATi reference card. HIS ships the board with a 1.80 m S-VHS and composite cable with an adapter and a DVI-VGA adapter to connect a second CRT monitor. A manual offers a quick introduction to installing the hardware and software.

The back of the card.

HIS also chooses not to include ATi's MultiMedia Center, and bundles the card with the DVD player PowerDVD XP 4.0 from Cyberlink. The software package is rounded off with the video-editing software PowerDirector 2.1VE from Cyberlink and the game Ballistics. The board also comes with Hydravision.

  • Plus points:

  • Cyberlink Power DVD XP
    Hydravision
    Gaming bundle: Ballistics
    Manual