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HIS Radeon HD 3450

Manufacturer: HIS Digital

HIS is one of the better known video card manufacturers when it comes to ATI-based cards. I’m sure you have seen several of their products reviewed here at Overclockers Online. Before continuing further, I must admit I am an NVIDIA fan and that this is the first ATI card I am getting my hands on in about 4 years – my last ATI card was a Radeon 9000 Pro.

In the past two years, the term “high definition” has become a household term. Video card manufacturers, such as ATI, have embraced it as well such as in the case of the Radeon HD series. In this review, we will be taking a look at the Radeon HD 3450 from HIS.

Package

HIS has opted to go with a relatively small package for the HD 3450. The front is heavily adorned with a graphic that looks like abstract art. The model name is clearly displayed, as well as HIS’s logo. Icons flaunting several features are also present. These include a sticker that says “HIS Certified 0dB Silence” in reference to the passive cooler on the card that we will take a look at shortly. Also, we can see that the 256MB DDR2 equipped, PCI-Express 2.0 based HD 3450 supports ATI CrossFireX technology, and HDMI output with 1080p “Full HD” capability. A DVI-to-HDMI adaptor is also pictured.

Tags: 3450, AMD, ATI, hightech information system, Overclockers Online, Review, video card

. 26 Mar 08 | Reviews, Technology | Comments (6)

HIS Radeon HD3870X2 1GB DDR3 (H387X2F1GNP)

This post was guest written by Jody Bailey, Technical Director of Overclockers Online.

Manufacturer : HIS – Hightech Information System Limited

A new era in graphics processing has begun for ATI and its partners. It is an era that follows in the footsteps of recent CPU progress by increasing performance not with frequency but with multiple processors. The server market has seen multiple processor systems for years and that was adopted into the consumer market by way of multi-core CPUs. We have seen multiple video cards in systems for a while now and there have been previous attempts to double the processing power of a graphics card by multiplying the graphic processors onboard but nothing that has shook up the industry like what we are looking at today from Hightech Information System Ltd..

HIS is a well established and well known ATI graphics card manufacturer for the average gamer and definitely in the enthusiast circles. Since their inception in 1987, HIS has been very closely tied with ATI and is an authorized 1st tier AIB partner, certified partner and launching partner. This means that HIS is definitely one of ATIs top partners for producing their graphics solutions. Of their long line of success in the video card industry, most recently HIS has become famous for their IceQ line which is now into the third version for select ATI graphics cards. The IceQ brand was established to provide additional cooling with reduced noise to provide the ultimate in video card performance. Unfortunately there is no IceQ version of the card we are looking at today but I think we all know that a beast like the HD3870X2 could certainly use it.

For those familiar with the graphics card landscape, the HD3870X2 needs no introduction because you know exactly what it is. For those that don’t, you can decipher what it is by its name alone. At the heart of the HD3870X2 is the HD3870, okay so two of them. That’s right, the X2 at the end of the model number denotes how many GPUs are onboard this card. It is essentially two HD3870s on the same card with an internal bridge that makes them work like a pair of HD3870s in CrossFire. With this kind of graphics processing power on one card, maxing out a 20″~22″ LCD at 1680×1050 should be fun and that is just what we plan on doing here today.

Package & Contents

We start our journey down this path of video card euphoria with a look at the package. It isn’t quite what I was expecting for such an elaborate and highly touted video card. There was definitely a look of surprise on my face when this package was pulled from the shipping box.

Tags: AMD, ATI, HD3870X2, hightech information system, Overclockers Online, Review, video card

. 25 Feb 08 | Reviews | Comments (5)