Thoughts, HEXUS.awards, HEXUS.where2buy and HEXUS.right2reply
Like it or not, a new wave of content protection is on the verge of being inside every computer, media player and display device. Not to worry though, it'll stop us all from stealing, which can only be good, right? So, if you're upgrading the way of HDMI/HDCP equipment, and you're going to hook up your media centre to that equipment, you'll be needing something like one of the two cards reviewed today, if you want to be assured that your content will play back properly.
Both of GeCube's SKUs come with enough of a bundle to get you set up, so if you've been itching to use that HDMI port on your new telly, with one of these cards you can. Better still, with 512MiB of frame buffer through HyperMemory, there should be more than enough room for Vista's Aero Glass GUI on that big display, should you choose to build yourself a media centre around it, when it comes out.
Performance-wise the X1300 doesn't offer up all that much. It's simply not got the power to do a particularly good job of games. The X1600 was slower than the other cards we tested in its class. However, it was able to provide playable framerates most of the time, generally showing itself to be a more capable card than its little brother.
On the video side of the table, there's the X1000 series' support for Avivo to consider. That delivers a helping hand in processing H.264, MPEG-4 and other video formats, which could be quite handy as HD content starts to become more readily available.
Both cards come with a 2 year warranty, which we feel is reasonable. The cards should be available at the close of the month, by which time pricing should be around £70 and £95 inc. VAT for the X1300 and X1600, respectively. For an extra 25 quid, the X1600 has a lot more going for it in terms of performance.
All things considered, both cards on test have passed through the HEXUS.labs successfully. However, we feel it's a little too early to give any recommendations towards HDMI/HDCP cards like this, until we've seen a few more and discover just how deeply the technology will penetrate the market. That said, if we had to choose one of these two cards, unless we were on a real budget, it'd definitely be the X1600.
HEXUS Awards
GeCube X1600 256MB DDR2 HyperMemory 512MB, HDMI / HDCP, Slim Edition
HEXUS Where2Buy
We'll update this as the cards become available.
HEXUS Right2Reply
At HEXUS.net, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any of GeCube's representatives choose to do so, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.
