Date: April 15th, 2004
Article by: Nathan Glentworth (Owner, Head Editor & Hardware Reviewer)
Product was donated by: Hightech
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PRODUCT COMPOSITION & FEATURES (cont'd)

The stock clock memory frequency setting 200Mhz (400DDR) is very close to the theoretical limits for these particular chips. Unfortunately, I was unable to test the limits of this card through overclocking. The videocard BIOS somehow completely locks the user out of pushing up the clock by resetting the card to the stock defaults as soon as any 3D application is started.

The VPU core is quietly cooled via this small, yet attractive radial cooler. I also tested if this cooler was warm to the touch and after some gaming and it was actually quite cool.

Other than the large amount of onboard memory, the other defining characteristic of this card is the inclusion of a second DVI connector rather than an analog. With two digital CRT or LCD monitors and the help of ATI's Hydravision, you can finally take advantage of you dual digital monitor setup.

Now lets pull back from the review a bit to ponder something for a moment. Why is dual DVI not a standard on all videocards today is beyond me. With the DVI specification becoming more and more popular due to the increasing popularity of digital LCD monitors, you should be seeing more videocards hitting the market with this configuration. It just makes sense and if you by chance still want the use a standard analog VGA monitor with the card, you can always use the included convertor.

Food for thought.......

VIDEOCARD OVERCLOCKING

As stated earlier, any attempt to overclock this card had the videocard resetting itself to stock defaults. Overclocking was more or less impossible unless you wanted to go through the work of flashing your videocard BIOS to allow any increase. I personally do not condone videocard BIOS flashes seeing it has the sneaky ability to complete render your videocard dead if something goes wrong.