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PowerColor Radeon X1600 XT Bravo Edition Review |
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Written by Mavke
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Monday, 13 March 2006 |
Techgage comes with a review on the PowerColor Radeon X1600 XT Bravo Edition video card. If you are considering an upgrade to the PCI Express platform and don't know which GPU to pick up, then this review may be for you. In the GPU-world, there's always a low and high end card. The card we are taking a look at today lands itself in the middle somewhere, and proves to be a worthy contender to it's competitors. The Radeon X1600 series has a lot to offer. If you are familiar with ATI's Avivo technology, you will get it here. In gist, Avivo is everything video related. It offers superb video playback quality, crisp and clear images and vibrant colors.
 PowerColor Radeon X1600 XT Bravo Edition Review
The Radeon X1600 XT is the top offering available in it's class, with the next step up being the Radeon X1800 XL. At the time of writing, the Radeon X1600 XT retails for around $170, while the Radeon X1800 XL retails for $370. That's quite a jump, and at that point you may as well shell out the extra for a Radeon X1900. The card I'm taking a look at today is one I couldn't wait to shove in the machine. All of the benchmarking tests throws this card against the GeForce 6800 GT. Granted, the GeForce 6800 GT was top end of last gen, and offers more pixel pipelines and a wider memory bus.
As a whole, I was very impressed with the performance of this card. When comparing it to the GeForce 6800 GT, it certainly held it's own and never came very far behind. So the question really is, if you are a budget gamer, is the card worth your $170? At this price point, the next ATI step up would be the Radeon X1800 XL, which can cost around $325. This is a huge jump. On the NVIDIA side of things, this card competes nicely with the GeForce 6800 GS. I wish I had a GeForce 6800 GS on hand, as it would have been a more fair competition.
The GeForce 6800 GS is equipped with 12 pixel pipelines as the Radeon X1600 XT is, but it's memory bus is better at 256-bit. Both the Radeon X1600 XT and GeForce 6800 GS are priced similarly, so depending on what side you wish to take, you cannot go wrong with either. The 256-bit memory bus on the GS may improve some games at higher details though. I can't speak from experience with the GS, so it's hard to have a real opinion. The Radeon X1600 XT offers superb performance for the price though, and I highly recommend it to anyone who wants an ATI card in their machine.
In the future if you wish to upgrade and have a CrossFire board, you could purchase a Radeon X1600 CrossFire card to help you out. As a standalone card though, it impressed me throughout all of the tests. Even at high resolutions, it handled all of the games very well, although some parts of certain games became evidently laggy. The bundle with the card is primarily a game I never heard of, nor tried out. If you are a fan of the flight simulator genre though, you will appreciate this addition.
The fact that this card includes all of the extra video cables you need for Avivo adds to the value. Simply put, if you are a gamer on a budget, then you cannot go wrong with this card. It offers amazing performance for the price, and overclocks quite well. Coupled with the great Avivo capabilities, this card would be perfect even if you are building an HTPC but don't need all of the functionality that the All-In-Wonders offer.
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