drvarunmehta
Wise Old Owl
MSI Radeon X1600 Pro
Specifications
GPU Clock 500 MHz
Pixel Pipelines 12
Vertex Shaders 5 (v3.0)
Pixel Shaders 1 (v3.0)
Memory Bus Properties
Memory Size 256 MB
Bus Type DDR2
Bus Width 128-bit
Real Clock 392 MHz
Effective Clock 784 MHz
Bandwidth 12.3 GB/s
Just for reference, a 6600GT has the same GPU clock speed (500 MHz), 8 pixel pipelines (4 less) and 1000 MHz memory clock speed (about 200 MHz more).
Features
Supports DirectX 9.0c (Shader model 3)
Supports OpenGL 2.0
AVIVO
WMV and H.264 hardware acceleration
Crossfire ready
TV out
DVI and analog connectors
Box contents
MSI Radeon X1600 Pro
Driver CD
Quick installation guide
Manual
Component video cable
DVI to VGA convertor
Colin McRae Rally 2005 (full DVD version)
Installation
The card was safely placed in an antistatic bag. Installation was quite easy. I placed the card firmly in the PCI express slot and locked it in place using the retention mechanism. The card dosen't require any additional power than that supplied by the PCI express slot.
It was immediately detected on booting up and I installed the supplied drivers.
Performance
I don't have many new games that would stress the card so I had to make do with demo versions from the Digit CD.
NFS Most Wanted
1024x768x32
All settings to max
4x AA
4x AF
27 fps
Really fast load times and no slowdown even with several cars on the screen at once.
Far Cry
1024x768x32
All settings to high
4x AA
4x AF
44 fps
The environment effects looked awesome in this. Frame rate was still good after enabling AA/AF.
Call of Duty 2 Demo
1024x768x32
All settings to max
4x AA
27 fps
Load time was very quick and the game runs smoothly at max settings. The smoke and particle effects look amazing.
Brothers in Arms Earned in Blood Demo
1024x768x32
All settings to max
4x AF
HDR enabled
No AA: 26 fps
With 4x AA: 16 fps
The game dosen't run that smoothly with all the eye candy turned on, but disabling either AA or AF increases the fps to a playable 25. The game looks beautiful with HDR enabled. Not much performance loss on enabling it either.
Serious Sam 2 Demo
1024x768x32
All settings at medium
no AA/AF
HDR and Bloom enabled
42 fps
The game crashed everytime I enabled AA, but it worked great with HDR and Bloom. Could be a problem with the demo itself since there's no reason for this game to stress the card so much when newer games run so smoothly.
Age of Empires III Demo
1024x768x32
All settings to high
No AA
HDR enabled
20 fps
More than enough for a RTS. Enabling AA made it a little jerky without any visible improvement to the image quality.
FEAR Demo
1024x768x32
All settings at medium
2x AA
39 fps
FEAR looks like a slideshow at the highest settings with 4x AA and AF. Decreasing all settings to medium makes the game run really smooth (and it looks good too). If you have to run this game at max visual detail, then the X1600 Pro isn't enough.
Quake 4 Demo
1024x768x32
All settings to max
4x AA
Outdoors: 21 fps
Indoors: 41 fps
Don't know why but the frame rate came crashing down in outdoor environments. The game was still smooth to play though. Good to see the card perform well in OpenGL too.
Verdict
It was a big leap in performance for me from using onboard graphics to this card. Finally ATI implemented Shader model 3 in their cards so we can enable some of the eye candy found in newer games (HDR, Bloom etc.)
It performs better in most games than a 6600GT and costs about the same. I got it from abroad for about Rs. 6000/- so it was really worth it for me. I'm not aware of what the price is in India but it should be about the same as a 6600GT. It's not lacking in terms of features either with TV out, DVI, AVIVO and hardware accleration of H.264 content. But if you have a 6600GT or better, then stick to your existing card as buying this won't get you any additional performance.
Specifications
GPU Clock 500 MHz
Pixel Pipelines 12
Vertex Shaders 5 (v3.0)
Pixel Shaders 1 (v3.0)
Memory Bus Properties
Memory Size 256 MB
Bus Type DDR2
Bus Width 128-bit
Real Clock 392 MHz
Effective Clock 784 MHz
Bandwidth 12.3 GB/s
Just for reference, a 6600GT has the same GPU clock speed (500 MHz), 8 pixel pipelines (4 less) and 1000 MHz memory clock speed (about 200 MHz more).
Features
Supports DirectX 9.0c (Shader model 3)
Supports OpenGL 2.0
AVIVO
WMV and H.264 hardware acceleration
Crossfire ready
TV out
DVI and analog connectors
Box contents
MSI Radeon X1600 Pro
Driver CD
Quick installation guide
Manual
Component video cable
DVI to VGA convertor
Colin McRae Rally 2005 (full DVD version)
Installation
The card was safely placed in an antistatic bag. Installation was quite easy. I placed the card firmly in the PCI express slot and locked it in place using the retention mechanism. The card dosen't require any additional power than that supplied by the PCI express slot.
It was immediately detected on booting up and I installed the supplied drivers.
Performance
I don't have many new games that would stress the card so I had to make do with demo versions from the Digit CD.
NFS Most Wanted
1024x768x32
All settings to max
4x AA
4x AF
27 fps
Really fast load times and no slowdown even with several cars on the screen at once.
Far Cry
1024x768x32
All settings to high
4x AA
4x AF
44 fps
The environment effects looked awesome in this. Frame rate was still good after enabling AA/AF.
Call of Duty 2 Demo
1024x768x32
All settings to max
4x AA
27 fps
Load time was very quick and the game runs smoothly at max settings. The smoke and particle effects look amazing.
Brothers in Arms Earned in Blood Demo
1024x768x32
All settings to max
4x AF
HDR enabled
No AA: 26 fps
With 4x AA: 16 fps
The game dosen't run that smoothly with all the eye candy turned on, but disabling either AA or AF increases the fps to a playable 25. The game looks beautiful with HDR enabled. Not much performance loss on enabling it either.
Serious Sam 2 Demo
1024x768x32
All settings at medium
no AA/AF
HDR and Bloom enabled
42 fps
The game crashed everytime I enabled AA, but it worked great with HDR and Bloom. Could be a problem with the demo itself since there's no reason for this game to stress the card so much when newer games run so smoothly.
Age of Empires III Demo
1024x768x32
All settings to high
No AA
HDR enabled
20 fps
More than enough for a RTS. Enabling AA made it a little jerky without any visible improvement to the image quality.
FEAR Demo
1024x768x32
All settings at medium
2x AA
39 fps
FEAR looks like a slideshow at the highest settings with 4x AA and AF. Decreasing all settings to medium makes the game run really smooth (and it looks good too). If you have to run this game at max visual detail, then the X1600 Pro isn't enough.
Quake 4 Demo
1024x768x32
All settings to max
4x AA
Outdoors: 21 fps
Indoors: 41 fps
Don't know why but the frame rate came crashing down in outdoor environments. The game was still smooth to play though. Good to see the card perform well in OpenGL too.
Verdict
It was a big leap in performance for me from using onboard graphics to this card. Finally ATI implemented Shader model 3 in their cards so we can enable some of the eye candy found in newer games (HDR, Bloom etc.)
It performs better in most games than a 6600GT and costs about the same. I got it from abroad for about Rs. 6000/- so it was really worth it for me. I'm not aware of what the price is in India but it should be about the same as a 6600GT. It's not lacking in terms of features either with TV out, DVI, AVIVO and hardware accleration of H.264 content. But if you have a 6600GT or better, then stick to your existing card as buying this won't get you any additional performance.
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