Asus kit fights HIS overclocker

ASUS and HIS X1950PRO cards made it ways to our lab and despite all the testing we are doing with Vista graphics, memory, G80 and Quad FX madness we squeezed in some time for these two cards.

Before we even begin we have to say that the cards are not in the same category, as the Asus is close to a reference design and is much cheaper while the HIS offering is a high-performance, overclocked card that will cost a bit more. We compared them together just to give you a picture what will happen if you pick one or the other.

The Asus card uses a special white heatpipe cooler. It is a single slot cooler but it did a good job and was very quiet. You can see two new Crossfire connectors on the top of the card. The card of course has a 6 pin power connector. The Asus card comes in a nice package and includes a quick setup manual, VGA driver CD and a multilanguage manual on the CD. It comes with S-video to HDTV cable, power connector and two DVI dongles and an Asus branded leather imitation CD case.

HIS is the first X1950 PRO card that includes the new Crossfire cable. Unfortunately the Asus box didn't included one so we could not try the real cableless Crossfire but we are hoping to solve this issue very soon and to give crossfire a try. The box also includes a manual, video in video out cable, HDTV cable, S video cable and 2 DVI dongles. It also includes Power DVD 6, HIS bonus DVD with games and software with a full version of Dungeon Piege 1.1 and some demos including Half Life 2. it comes with a full version of Cyber link cyber director 5 SE+ version, Power 2 go 5 and media show 3 software all full versions and some other trial software. It also comes with Flat out game on 2 CDs. This is a nice little package.

The HIS uses a special IceQ 3 cooler and the card package includes a bracket that you can place once you mount the card. The temperature was only a bit cooler than the reference design cards but it is clocked much higher than the reference. Asus for example used ATI's reference cooler for its X1950 PRO pretty much like everyone else.

There is also a difference in the price. Asus card costs around €185.00 at press time at least in German / Austrian e-tail while HIS costs a bit less than €220.00 so there is a price difference. The Asus EAX1950PRO is clocked at 580 MHz core and 1404 MHz memory while the HIS IceQ 3 X1950PRO works at 635 MHz core and 1485 MHz memory. You can tell from the clocks who will win the benchmarks but Asus will cost you less. Both cards have the twelve real pipelines and 36 Shader units, can be used in Crossfire and support HDCP.

Benchmarketing
We used the same setup including:
Foxconn C51XE M2aa Nforce 590 SLI motherboard
Athlon FX 62 2800 MHz 90 nanometre Windsor core
2x1024 MB DDR2 Corsair CM2X1024-6400C3 memory
Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 500GB SATA NCQ hard drive
Thermaltake Mini Typhoon Athlon 64/X2/FX cooler and Intel CPU's
OCZ 700W GameXstream power supply

Doom 3	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
HIS IceQ 3 X1950PRO 635/1485 MHz	124.5	105.2	80.4	50.2
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	122.4	100.8	76.3	48.1
?	?	?	?	?
Doom 3 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
HIS IceQ 3 X1950PRO 635/1485 MHz	98.4	71.0	52.0	37.2
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	94.1	67.3	49.2	30.7
?	?	?	?	?
Far Cry High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
HIS IceQ 3 X1950PRO 635/1485 MHz	93.40	90.62	73.51	45.42
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	92.89	88.29	70.64	44.00
?	?	?	?	?
Quake 4	OK 1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
HIS IceQ 3 X1950PRO 635/1485 MHz	143.0	137.5	126.0	90.5
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	143.2	135.6	122.1	85.9
?	?	?	?	?
Quake 4 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
HIS IceQ 3 X1950PRO 635/1485 MHz	136.3	120.5	101.8	68.2
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	134.6	116.9	96.3	63.9
?	?	?	?	?
FEAR	OK 1024x768	1280x960	1600x1200	2048x1536
HIS IceQ 3 X1950Pro 635/1485 MHz	107	86	62	39
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	105	83	60	37
?	?	?	?	?
FEAR High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 16X	1024x768	1280x960	1600x1200	2048x1536
HIS IceQ 3 X1950Pro 635/1485 MHz	76	57	38	24
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	74	54	37	23
?	?	?	?	?
Half Life 2	OK 1024x768	1280x960	1600x1200	2048x1536
HIS IceQ 3 X1950PRO 635/1485 MHz	93.89	93.27	92.52	87.95
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	94.11	93.99	92.23	85.99
?	?	?	?	?
Half Life 2 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x960	1600x1200	2048x1536
HIS IceQ 3 X1950PRO 635/1485 MHz	92.30	84.72	75.92	56.81
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	92.02	82.26	73.22	54.49
?	?	?	?	?
Serious Sam 2	1024x768	31280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
HIS IceQ 3 X1950PRO 635/1485 MHz	153.8	143.7	114.5	76.7
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	153.0	139.7	108.4	72.6
?	?	?	?	?
Serious Sam 2 High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
HIS IceQ 3 X1950PRO 635/1485 MHz	111.7	86.6	69.2	45.9
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	106.9	82.4	66.3	44.1
?	?	?	?	?
Serious Sam 2 HDR + FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1280x1024	1600x1200	2048x1536
HIS IceQ 3 X1950Pro 635/1485 MHz	107.6	81.3	51.6	30.7
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	101.6	76.5	48.7	29.0
?	?	?	?	?
Oblivion	1024x768	1600x1200	?	?
HIS IceQ 3 X1950Pro 635/1485 MHz	44.92	37.02	?	?
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	40.12	34.62	?	?
?	?	?	?	?
Oblivion High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1600x1200	?	?
HIS IceQ 3 X1950Pro 635/1485 MHz	37.24	29.82	?	?
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	35.92	26.13	?	?
?	?	?	?	?
Oblivion High Quality HDR + FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X	1024x768	1600x1200	?	?
HIS IceQ 3 X1950Pro 635/1485 MHz	33.18	21.43	?	?
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	29.22	21.12	?	?
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 03	3DMark 03	Game2	Game3	Game3
HIS IceQ 3 X1950Pro 635/1485 MHz	16788	129.4	98.8	110.5
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	16198	126.1	94.1	105.4
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 03	Single Texturinng	Multi Textur.	Vertex Shader	Pixel Shader 2.0
HIS IceQ 3 X1950Pro 635/1485 MHz	3650.4	7318.8	64.9	148.5
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	3531.5	6760.5	60.3	151.9
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 05	3DMark 05	Game1	Game2	Game2
HIS IceQ 3 X1950Pro 635/1485 MHz	10684	47.6	30.4	54.0
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	10262	46.8	28.5	51.8
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 05	Single Texturinng	Multi Textur.	Pixel Shader	VS/VS complex
HIS IceQ 3 X1950Pro 635/1485 MHz	4260.9	7578.9	313.7	126.4/60.6
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	4108.5	6935.4	309.2	127.5/55.5
?	?	?	?	?
Composite Figures 3Dmark 06	3DMark 06	?	?
HIS IceQ 3 X1950Pro 635/1485 MHz	5107	?	?	?
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	4906	?	?	?
?	?	?	?	?
SM2.0 Test	Score	GT1	GT2
HIS IceQ 3 X1950Pro 635/1485 MHz	1946	14.805	17.625	?
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	1851	14.135	16.721
?	?	?	?	?
HDR/SM3.0 Test	Score	HDR1	HDR2
HIS IceQ 3 X1950Pro 635/1485 MHz	2103	20.164	21.879	?
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	2013	19.354	20.915
?	?	?	?	?
CPU Test	Score	CPU1	CPU2
HIS IceQ 3 X1950Pro 635/1485 MHz	2154	0.679	1.092	?
Asus EAX1950PRO 580/1404 MHz	2153	0.679	1.093

You will see that there is not much difference between the cards in Doom 3. HIS is up to five frames faster. There is a bit more difference at 20x15 and the effects on where HIS runs seven frames faster or twenty-one per cent faster.

Similalty, there is not much difference in Far Cry High Quality FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X but HIS can end up about three frames or four percent faster. Quake 4 shows a difference only at the top resolutions and can make a five percent difference. Quake 4 FSAA 4X and Aniso 8X can run four to five frames faster almost seven percent difference.

FEAR without effects runs two to three frames faster on HIS and with effects it runs one to three frames faster, in first case it is five percent faster in second case is four percent faster.

Half Life 2 needs a top resolution to shows a difference of a two FPS and with effects there is a difference of four percent at the top resolutions. Serious Sam 2 benefits from the overclock and runs four to six frames faster or again a bit more than five percent. You can see the same trend in Serious Sam 2 with FSAA 4X and Aniso 8X.

We tried the Serious Sam 2 HDR and HIS card had a bit more juice and could run up to six per cent faster. Oblivion showed a bit bigger difference. There is a twelve percent difference at 10x7 and seven per cent at 16x12. You can not get the playable frame rate at higher resolutions.

Oblivion High Quality HDR + FSAA 4X + Aniso 8X likes the overclocked card at least at 10x7. HIS runs thirteen and a half percent faster while at 16x12 the performance is tight.

HIS runs 3Dmark03 500 marks faster, 3Dmark05 420 marks faster and 3Dmark06 some 200 points faster. This was expected from the faster clocked card.

In Short
HIS did a good job with its X1950PRO card. It is a bit faster than the competition and has a nice quiet and good dual slot cooler. It outruns the default clocked cards including the Asus but it is more expensive. HIS also has a nice retail package and loads of bundled stuff.

Asus performs slightly slower but costs almost €50 less so if you want to save this is the card for you. If you want to get the fastest available Radeon X1950 PRO that we tested so far HIS IceQ 3 X1950Pro at 635/1485 MHz is the best card for you.

We could not overclock any of the cards much more but there should be tool around that will unleash a bit more power from these cards if you really want to. They can also work in Crossfire and, if you buy one card for around €200, you might be able to plug the other one in soon, in most of Intel and ATI's motherboards. ?

Reviewed and tested by Sanjin Rados and Fuad Abazovic