X-bit labs

ATI Introduces DirectX 9 and PCI Express to Value Graphics Market: PowerColor X300SE Graphics Card Review (page 4)

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin

[ 10/20/2004 | 04:34 PM ]

PowerColor X300 SE: Closer Look

The PowerColor X300 SE looks curious due to the compact size of its low-profile PCB. You can install the card into low-profile cases if you have an appropriate mounting bracket.

Well, there’s no such bracket among the accessories, and you probably won’t find one easily. The PCB is rather simple, but with a lot of tiny elements, concentrated in a dense area. Some elements are not installed, however, as there are several empty landing spots at both sides of the PCB. The device’s belonging to the low-end class is evident from the components employed. The quality of manufacture is high, though. The soldering is neat and the PCB edges are carved out smoothly. The video-out mode – PAL or NTSC – is selected with an onboard jumper. In the year 2004, on a PCI Express device, this thing looks a sheer anachronism as today most graphics cards can switch between the video-out modes on the software level.

A rather bulky needle heatsink is mounted on the graphics core; it is fastened to the PCB with two standard spring clips. The heatsink touches the GPU die through a layer of white-color thermal paste. There is no protective frame around the die, although the heatsink isn’t very firm and shakes when you touch it with your finger. The memory chips on the face side of the PCB are not cooled at all, although they could easily implement it by installing a pair of elastic heat pads. The memory on the back side of the PCB is not cooled, either.

The memory chips on the PowerColor X300 SE most probably come from ProMOS, judging by the markings. According to the documentation, the memory has an access time of 5 nanoseconds and is rated to work at a frequency of 200 (400DDR) MHz. And the chips do work at this frequency on the PowerColor card. The bandwidth of the graphics memory subsystem is 3.2GB/s as in the PC3200 standard, since the memory bus is 64 bits wide. Considering the complexity of modern computer games, this is too little – we shouldn’t expect the PowerColor X300 SE to run modern games fast. The graphics core is clocked at 325MHz. Made with 0.11-micron tech process, this chip should be highly overclockable and cool, but we’ll check this out in the next section.

Overall the card resembles some low-profile RADEON 7000 models, but unlike them it doesn’t support multi-monitor configurations. The last fact is strange for a modern device, now that even integrated graphics solutions are starting to support output to two monitors. The PowerColor X300 SE has one DVI-I connector and one S-Video output, and you can attach one PC monitor with DVI-I or the D-Sub interface and one home device, for example a TV-set, to this graphics card simultaneously. So keep this fact in mind – no multi-monitor configurations with the PowerColor X300 SE.

We guess this graphics card will suit almost ideally for inexpensive multimedia PCs that serve as a home entertainment center. The support of VideoShader technology, missing in the RADEON 9200, will add to that, too. The PowerColor X300 SE can play videos in DVD or DivX formats and can run games in low resolutions. That’s the maximum it is actually intended for.