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GeCube Radeon X1300 & X1600 HDCP Ready Review |
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Written by Mavke
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Wednesday, 30 August 2006 |
This year sees the start of a format battle on a scale similar to that of the VHS/Betamax era. We're referring, of course, to Blu-Ray and HD-DVD high-definition video discs. Both are being pushed by major companies and both claim to be the one for next-generation media storage. What we can be sure of is that with the new generation of high-definition discs comes a new form of digital rights management. High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) could be the most restrictive form of DRM yet. We are seeing cards that definitely do support it and HDMI trickling through slowly now. If you want HD content from next-generation media, you better have HDCP support. - Hexus
 GeCube Radeon X1300 & X1600 HDCP Ready Review
We have Radeon X1300 and X1600 cards for your delectation. No PRO or XT suffixes, but they do have HDMI/HDCP, HyperMemory and Slim Edition monikers. Media centre cards, anyone? Both cards have different GPU's and memory speeds, and thus will give different levels of performance, their feature sets are essentially identical. Dongle-less CrossFire is supported by both of these cards; data for the composition of the two GPU's outputs sent over the PCI Express bus. We'll have to see what the bundles offer, but ultimately, the only two differentiating factors between these two cards could well be price and performance.
Like it or not, a new wave of content protection is on the verge of being inside every computer, media player and display device. Not to worry though, it'll stop us all from stealing, which can only be good, right? So, if you're upgrading the way of HDMI and/or HDCP equipment, and you're going to hook up your media centre to that equipment, you'll be needing something like one of the two cards we looked at today, if you want to be assured that your content will play back properly. Both of GeCube's SKU's come with enough of a bundle, so if you've been itching to use that HDMI port on your new telly, with one of these cards you can.
Better still, with 512MB of frame buffer through HyperMemory, there should be more than enough room for Vista's Aero Glass GUI on that big display, should you choose to build yourself a media centre around it, when it comes out. Performance wise the Radeon X1300 doesn't offer up all that much. It simply doesn't got the power to do a particularly good job of games. The Radeon X1600 was slower than the other cards we tested in its class. However, it was able to provide playable framerates most of the time, generally showing itself to be a more capable card than its little brother.
All things considered, both cards on test have passed through successfully. However, we feel it's a little too early to give any recommendations towards HDMI and/or HDCP cards like this, until we've seen a few more and discover just how deeply the technology will penetrate the market. That said, if we had to choose one of these two cards, unless we were on a real budget, it'd definitely be the Radeon X1600.
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