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Asus EAX1600XT Silent/TVD/256M/A Videocard Review
Asus EAX1600XT Silent/TVD/256M/A Videocard Review - PCSTATS
As an incentive to move towards the more advanced PCI Express technology, virtually all manufacturers are releasing the coolest graphics cores and technologies almost exclusively in PCI Express flavours.
 78% Rating:   
Filed under: Video Cards Published:  Author: 
External Mfg. Website: ASUS May 18 2006   C. Sun  
Home > Reviews > Video Cards > ASUS EAX1600XT Silent/TVD/256M/A

Radeon X1600 XT Graphics Core

The Radeon X1600 XT core contains 157 million transistors, and a good portion of those circuits are dedicated to the task of rendering 12 pixel and 5 vertex pipelines. The memory controller is 256 bits in width. To save on power, the EAX1600XT Silent core supports dynamic voltage control as well.

While the Asus EAX1600XT Silent/TVD/256M/A is technically ATI CrossFire compatible, to take advantage of this you'll need CrossFire friendly motherboard and a master Radeon X1600 videocard to pair it with. Given that neither of these criteria are especially abundant, it's almost a moot feature.

Assuming you are able to go the CrossFire route, Super AA modes 8x, 10x, 12x and 14x AA options will be available. Additionally, three rendering modes - Alternate Frame Rendering, Supertiling and Scissor - are ripe for the selecting also.

The Radeon X1600 XT VPU technically supports HDMI and HDCP to some extent, but from what we can gather this doesn't necessarily add up to a high definition videocard. There is no HDMI jack on the EAX1600XT Silent videocard.

While the X1600 XT core is capable of processing HDCP signals, ATi leaves it up to third party manufacturers to actually include the external encryption chip. If you want high definition output for next generation video displays, better make sure the videocard you're buying is HDCP compliant and not just HDCP ready. ATi validates this 'choice' by simply stating that there is no commercially available HDCP content (as of this writing). It seems like a cop out to me.

Makes you wonder how the overclocking will go on this Asus EAX1600XT Silent/TVD/256M/A doesn't it? Overclocking is up next, so let's dispense with the spec-no-lingo and sort that out.

experts tip: directx drivers

within directx there are many different standards and a gamer must keep up to date if they want to take advantage of all the latest features. for instance, fear requires not just directx 9.0c but it also requires the runtime package from august 2005 (not included in the dx 9.0c installer). to make sure your directx is up to date visit the microsoft's DirectX site every few months. If you see something new, download the latest runtime packages - they're usually located at the bottom of this page in the "What Others Are Downloading" section.

Comments and Feedback? Suggest a Tweak.

Radeon X1600XT Overclocking Tests

Overclocking Results:
stock overclocked
GPU (Core) Speed: 587 MHz 691 MHz
Memory Speed: 693 MHz 765 MHz
If you're new to Overclocking and not sure what to do, check out these two excellent Guides for some pointers:
Overclocking the CPU and Memory
Overclocking the Videocard

The Asus EAX1600XT Silent/TVD/256M/A is the second Radeon X1600 XT videocard that PCSTATS has tested recently and if you recall, the PowerColor X1600 XT Bravo did not overclock very well. With that in mind, I didn't know what to expect with the EAX1600XT Silent but was hoping for a better experience than last time. Let's begin...

As usual we started with the core first, it is clocked at 587 MHz by default. Increasing the core speed in PowerStrip 3-5 MHz at a time, the Radeon X1600 XT VPU broke the 600 MHz barrier without much difficulty. Continuing to push the VPU harder, the Asus EAX1600XT Silent broke 631 MHz where the PowerColor videocard fizzled out at. A core speed of 650 MHz also came and went without much difficulty, and in the end the top speed the Asus videocard would run atwas 691 MHz. The core would run as high as 715 MHz without any artifacts, but anything above 691 MHz would cause the system to reboot periodically so we settled for 691MHz which was stable.

Next up was the 1.4ns rated Infineon GDDR3 memory (693 MHz by default). The memory on the Asus EAX1600XT Silent/TVD/256M/A was much better than on the PowerColor card, and it overclocked quite well. Things were pretty uneventful till the memory hit the 765 MHz mark. Anything higher than this caused spontaneous reboots, which is odd since memory pushed too hard usually just artifacts. In any case, that's a pretty healthy increase. Both the X1600XT core and Infineon memory had no issues running at their respective maximum overclocked speeds.

Prelude to Benchmarks

The details of how the Asus EAX1600XT Silent/TVD/256M/A test system was configured for benchmarking; the specific hardware, software drivers, operating system and benchmark versions are indicated below. In the second column are the general specs for the reference platforms this Radeon X1600 XT based videocard is to be compared against. Please take a moment to look over PCSTATS test system configurations before moving on to the individual benchmark results on the next page.

PCSTATS Test System Configurations
test system reference system
processor:

amd Athlon64 4000+

Clock Speed:

12 x 200 MHz = 2.4 GHz

Motherboards:

Asus A8N-SLI Premium (NF4 SLI)

Videocard: Asus EAX1600XT Silent/TVD/256M/A

Asus EAX1900XTX/2DHTV/512M/A
MSI RX1800XT-VT2D512E
Gigabyte GV-RX18L256V-B
ATi Radeon X850 XT PE
MSI RX800XT-VTD256E
ATi Radeon X800 XL
PowerColor X700 PRO
MSI NX7900GTX-T2D512E
Asus EN7900GT TOP/2DHT/256M/A
MSI NX7800GTX-VT2D512E
MSI NX7800GTX-VT2D256E (Single Mode)
MSI NX7800GTX-VT2D256E (SLI Mode)
Asus EN7800GT 2DHTV/256M/OSP/A (Single Mode)
Asus EN7800GT 2DHTV/256M/OSP/A (SLI Mode)
MSI NX6800GT-T2D256E
MSI NX6600GT-TD128E (Single Mode)
MSI NX6600GT-TD128E (SLI Mode)

Memory:

2x 512MB OCZ Gold GX PC3500 DDR

Hard Drive: 74GB Western Digital Raptor WD740
CDROM: AOpen Combo 52x
PowerSupply: PC Power & Cooling TurboCool 510 SLI
Heatsink: Athlon64 4000+ Reference Heatsink
Software Setup:

Microsoft WindowsXP SP2
nVIDIA Forceware 6.70
nVIDIA Forceware 84.21
ATI Catalyst 6.2

Benchmarks:

3DMark05
3DMark06
AquaMark3
FarCry
Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
Doom 3
FEAR
Quake 4
X3: Reunion

AA+AF Benchmarks
FarCry
FEAR
Doom 3

< Previous Page © 2023 PCSTATS.com Next Page >

 

Contents of Article: ASUS EAX1600XT Silent/TVD/256M/A
 Pg 1.  Asus EAX1600XT Silent/TVD/256M/A Videocard Review
 Pg 2.  — Radeon X1600 XT Graphics Core
 Pg 3.  Benchmarks: 3DMark05, 3DMark06
 Pg 4.  Benchmarks: AquaMark3
 Pg 5.  Benchmarks: FarCry
 Pg 6.  Benchmarks: Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
 Pg 7.  Benchmarks: Doom 3
 Pg 8.  Benchmarks: Quake 4
 Pg 9.  Benchmarks: FEAR
 Pg 10.  Benchmarks: X3: Reunion
 Pg 11.  Advanced Benchmarks: FarCry, Doom 3
 Pg 12.  Conclusion: Mainstream Gaming at Moderate Resolutions

 
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