Introduction Hightech Information System Ltd was
established in 1987 and is currently one of the largest graphics card companies
in Hong Kong. Most of us in the US have never heard of HIS, however,
although that should change this year. Today, I'll be looking at the 128MB
version of the HIS Excalibur Radeon 9600XT. I'd like to take this opportunity to
thank Peter Yeung of HIS for providing the card for this review.
Specifications First off, let's take
a look at the specifications HIS has posted on their website for the
Excalibur Radeon 9600XT:
Graphics Processor
Powered by ATI RADEON™ 9600 XT Visual Processing Unit
500MHz Graphics Engine Clock
Memory Configuration
128/256MB DDR memory
128-bit memory interface
RAMDAC
Dual integrated 10-bit per channel palette DACs operating at up to 400MHz
Bus Interface
AGP 8X / 4X
Connectors
On board 15-pin VGA connector for CRTmonitor
On board S-Video connector for TV-Out
On board DVI-I connector for Digital Flat Panel
External DVI-I to VGA adapter for Secondary CRT monitor
Independent resolutions and refresh rates for any two connected displays
Drivers Included
Windows® XP
Windows® 2000
Windows® ME
System Requirement
Intel® Pentium® 4/III/II, Celeron™, AMD® K6/Athlon® or compatible with AGP
4X (1.5V), 8X (0.8v) or Universal AGP 3.0 bus configuration (4X/8X)
128MB of system memory
Installation software requires CD-ROM drive
DVD playback requires DVD drive
Take another look at the clock speed of the graphics chip. That's not
a misprint, that really says 500MHz! That is a higher clock than the Radeon
9800XT! That's due to the 0.13 micron process and low-k dielectric used in the
manufacturing of the 9600XT video processor. If ATi slaps that process
on the 9800XT, it will positively smoke anything currently on the market!
What you don't see listed there is the clock speed of the memory on
this card. Rather than keep you in suspense, I will tell you now that the memory
comes clocked at 325MHz, which gives you an effective clock speed of 650MHz!
That's like overclocking a standard 9600XT's RAM by nearly 10% before you even
get the card installed.
If you have any questions or comments regarding this review, please post them
in this thread in our forums.
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