The Package, Bundle & Accessories

Here we can see the colorful retail package with a product port hole allowing you to see the VPU and its IceQ II cooling system. The ICeQ II essential draws air from inside the case and ventilates it outside the chassis. This is an added bonus, not only do you get premium performance, your system will run cooler and the VPU will run better at higher clock settings, resulting in a significant increase in performance and over-clocking headroom.

As we can see this card is powered by the ATI Radeon® X800 GT VPU, features PCI-Express interface, 256MB of GDDR3 memory, TV Out/DVI, HDTV ready and a decent software bundle. Also included is all the necessary cables and connectors to take full advantage of the cards capabilities. This card is ATI's latest mainstream answer to mid-level performance and entry level pricing and should offer a very nice 3D experience, which we will find out later.

The back of the box supports 12 languages and offers a quick run down on performance, specifications and system requirements. We can see some review site endorsements, perhaps we will be on their one day soon. Anyway, now that we have seen the box and we can identify the retail product, let’s take a look at what’s inside.

By opening the top we get a look inside the package. Of course the HIS X800GT graphics card is the main item we can spot, but it also contains a manual, some CD-ROM’s (with the drivers, some games and software), cables (S-Video cable, RCA cable and HDTV Output cable) and two converters (Mini-DIN to RCA and DVI to VGA adaptor). This is quite a full loaded bundle which provides added value to the package as a hole.

The HIS package comes bundled with a Multi-Language User Guide about the X800 series which comes in 3 languages. Inside you will find information that will help you configure the card for driver installation, Min-DIN, RCA, VGA, DVI cable configurations and how to properly install and use the graphics card for best performance. This guide covers issues such as using the Video-IN, using TV-OUT, Hydravision and more. The guide is complete and to the point with plenty of picture illustrations.

The software bundle is not so bad either. The HIS X800 GT IceQ II Turbo comes with several CD's going from the drivers for the card to some games and software. You will get iTurbo in this bundle which will give you factory authorized one touch over-clocking and hardware monitoring. Also included are two games and some video processing software that will allow complete editing of screen and video captures. Let's break it down.

• HIS Drivers CD
• Games
  • FlatOut
  • Dungeon Seige
• Software
  • 3D Album Picture Pro
  • PowerDirector 3 SE Plus
  • Power2Go 4

Looking below we spot the IceQ II ventilation bracket that is part of the IceQ II cooling system. This is a dual slot card that will utilize a slot for the VGA/DVI and the IceQ II cooling system, making the card a dual slot design. For best results you will install this bracket in the proper slot first, proceeded by the HIS X800 GT IceQ II Turbo video processing unit.

What else is included? The cables of course! The package consist of a TV-Out S-Video cable, a RCA cable, a conversion connector Mini-DIN to RCA, a HDTV Output cable and a DVI to VGA adaptor. Again we see the extra bracket for the air outlet which is part of the IceQ II cooling system.