Retail X700 Pro Roundup

HIS

UPDATE: The card we recieved from HIS was apparently an engineerig sample. The final version of this board does have the thermal sensor on board. The fan switch is also not included in the shipping product, but is software controlled via their overclocking software which the X700 Pro IceQ will ship with. This just adds to the list of features that make the HIS card more attractive than the rest of the cards in our roundup.

The Radeon X700 Pro IceQ from HIS is a huge card. Strapping an arctic cooling solution on an X800 seemed obvious to me, but I didn't quite understand the attraction of this one until I plugged it in and could barely make out the fan noise. This part is quiet and can get even less noisy (there is a low/high switch on the back that controls fan speed).

The IceQ promises to remain cool, which we have no doubt that it does. Though we wish we could verify just how cool it keeps the chip, especially with the virtually silent design.

The downside to this part will be the price premium. This was the only part that came with an HDTV dongle, and the cooling solution doesn't come for free. We also received VIVO with our part, though that is listed as an option on the box So it may or may not be included in your retail package (read the details closely before buying).

HIS offers an "iTURBO" version of this part as well. It comes with overclocking software, which can overclock safely to a preset 460/960, among other things.

The oddity of the HIS part is that it didn't overclock as well as our other two 256MB X700 Pro parts. Just goes to show that cooling isn't everything when it comes to overclocking.