HIS Excalibur X600 XT VIVO Edition

The Card

Video cards	HIS X600 XT PCIE	ATI Radeon 9600XT
Code name	RV380	RV360
Chip technology	256 bit
Process technology	0,13 mkm low-k
Transistors	~77 mln	~75 mln
Memory bus	128 bit (DDR)	128 bit (DDR)
AGP bus	PCI-Express x16	AGP 1x/2x/4x/8x
Memory	128/256 MB
Chip clock speed	500 MHz	500 MHz
Memory speed	378 MHz (756 DDR)	300 MHz (600 DDR)
Pixel pipelines	4	4
Textures per pipeline	1	1
Textures per texture unit	16	16
Vertex shader version	2.0	2.0
Pixel shader version	2.0	2.0
DirectX version	9.0
Antialiasing modes	Multisampling Maximum 6x	Multisampling Maximum 6x
Anisotropic filtering	2/4/8/16x	2/4/8/16x
Memory optimization	Hyper Z III+	Hyper Z III+
Optimizations	SmartShader 2.0 SmoothVision 2.1	SmartShader 2.0 SmoothVision 2.1
Q-ty of monitor outputs	2
Integrated RAMDAC	2 x 400 MHz

As we can see by this chart, architecturally, the X600 XT is just a “freshened-up” conversion of the AGP 9600 XT for the new PCI-E slot. The main difference can be found in the Memory speeds. The HIS card runs at 756Mhz DDR, while the older 9600XTs run at 600Mhz DDR. So it has a little extra boost in performance to try and tempt everyone who is thinking about switching to a PCI-E graphics based system.

HIS has implemented the standard outputs, VGA & DVI, for this card. Dual VGA can be used with the included DVI-to-VGA adapter. The only thing that is not standard is the VIVO port in the middle where you can use the supplied VIVO cable to have Video-In/Video-Out.

X600XT iCooler	9600XT Turbo iCooler

HIS is also known for their iCooler Technology. HIS introduced the original iCooler on their 9600XT Turbo implementation. Today we see basically the same heat sink, but with a slight variation in the top cover. This updated iCooler is also a little quieter by being rated at <24 dB.

The last thing to mention is that HIS is using Hynix memory (HY5DU283222 AF-25) which are 128bit modules rated at 2.5ns, or 400Mhz, and are of the BGA form factor. That is a switch from the Samsung modules HIS used on the 9600XT Turbo. Now that we know what this card is made of, on with the performance testing!