Overclocker Cafe - H.I.S. Excalibur X600 XT VIVO Limited Edition

H.I.S. Excalibur Radeon X600 XT - VIVO Limited Edition

What you get:

In addition to the card itself, there are several other notable items included in the package. Among these are the DVI to VGA adapter, S-Video cable, composite cable, and what appears to me to be an HDTV connector.

The software bundle includes, in addition to the driver CD, the complete Counter Strike: Condition Zero two CD game, a 5-in-1 game CD, Video Studio 7 and the Picture EZ 3.1 CD which is part of the Limited Edition package which normally runs $40 by itself.

The Card

Like most every other ATi based card out there, the Excalibur X600XTis based on a bright red PCB. What struck me the most, was how very close in appearance to the HIS 9600XT it looked.

And in fact, the cards are similar in more ways than just appearance. While the two cards are built around different GPU cores, they both employ four pixel pipelines, DDR1 graphics memory with support for SmartShader 2.0 and SmoothShader 2.1.

The visual differences are most notable with the GPU heatsink. Though the heatsink uses the same basic design, gone is the blue HIS log and replaced with raised stamped lettering.

And yes, HIS has retained their trademark ICE blue LED fan for the sink adding some flash to the card.

Another way in which HIS differs from other ATi based card producers is their inclusion of memory heatsinks on the midrange cards. As you can see, aluminum sinks are placed on the memory on both sides of the card to aid in heat dissipation and increase the potential for overclocking.

Since this is the VIVO edition, you gotta have the ATi Rage Theatre chip to give you that video goodness.

And of course none of that fancy chips and heatsinks do any good without the connections for your monitor.

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