Review: Complete ATI Radeon X1600 Roundup - Got £100 for a card? Read this!

Thoughts and HEXUS.right2reply

We've look at various aspects of the card, so let's close with an overview of our favourites based on those criteria, then try our best to settle on an overall favourite.

Performance

This one's tough. Do we go for performance outright, or performance given the core in use? Using either approach, it's going to be an HIS card that gets the finger. It's only fair to judge based on outright performance really, so the HIS X1600XT IceQ Turbo takes the crown. However, all other cards do a good job, and at that oh so LCD-friendly 1280x1024, with 4xAA and 8xAF, you should be able to play most games happily. If framerates get a little rough around the edges, you can always turn the IQ settings down a little (which, ironically, may make the edges rough...)

Cooling

Having tested only a few for cooling performance, of those we found Sapphire's X1600XT Ultimate Edition to be the best. ASUS has a nice setup too, but there's no fan so it really does depend on case conditions. The coolers on HIS's cards are well tried and tested, having proven themselves on graphics cards for some time now, but they do take up two slots. If you can put up with a little more noise, which most of us can, then a single-slot actively-cooled HSF might be a better option for those who like all of their expansion slots available, in which case we've proven MSI's RX1600XT-T2D256E is up to the task. PowerColor's and GECUBE's should do just fine, too.

Value

For value, we've got to consider bundle, capabilities, price and warranty. PowerColor's card sports VIVO capabilities and component output cabling while maintaining a competitive price. It doesn't have the best games bundle, but it's good value. So too is ASUS' offering; although there's no component video cable, there is passive cooling for the price of a fan-cooled model, along with a 3-year warranty. Either are good value, but cater to slightly different needs.

If you're not interested in VIVO, then there's one clear winner for value. The HIS X1600Pro IceQ Turbo manages well on its X1600Pro GPU and 128MiB of memory, and comes with a quiet cooler for a superb price. It's just not quite as future-proof as the rest, but it's value makes up for it. Conversely, HIS's X1600XT Turbo is just too expensive to justify it's small speed boost.

Overall

All cards completed our tests satisfactorily, so the reality is you're not likely to go wrong buying any of them. So, readers, you have the luxury of choice. Purchase any of the cards we've tested and you'll be able to play games at a good resolution and with good image quality - there's lots of fun to be had hovering around the £100 mark.

Ultimately, though, we have to sing the praises of HIS X1600Pro IceQ Turbo for its excellent value. Save yourself around twenty quid, plump for an overclocked X1600Pro instead of X1600XT and you're laughing. If VIVO's a must, then PowerColor just about wins it for us, with ASUS a close second. Sapphire has a nice cooling solution too, but no VIVO, compensated by a nice bundle.

So, pick which aspects you need, there's at least one card in this round-up that'll have them.

HEXUS Awards

All cards tested proved themselves up to the task of mainstream gaming, so all passed the HEXUS.labs testing regime.

But on top of that, we can give out one further award. For most criteria, it was too close to call to give out an award, but for value for money, there can be no doubt about the superior product. Congratulations to HIS.

HEXUS Right2Reply

At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company's representatives choose to do so, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.