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Review: Complete ATI Radeon X1600 Roundup - Got £100 for a card? Read this!

by Steve Kerrison on 28 June 2006, 10:24

Tags: ATi Technologies (NYSE:AMD)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qaf4v

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PowerColor X1600 XT BRAVO Edition

We continue through the alphabet of ATI AIB partners, reaching 'P', which is for PowerColor.

Powercolor_X16XT_BRAVO Front

The cooler is strikingly small, particularly compared to MSI and HIS's offerings. However, it is fan-assisted and doesn't take up extra case space, sacrificing silence for size. The fan is quite noisy when compared to some of the solutions on test, but we've heard worse.

Cast your eyes towards the backplane of the card and you'll see that the ATI Rage Theater chip is present. Good news, everyone, this one supports VIVO.

Powercolor_X16XT_BRAVO Back

Just four screws and no retention bracket for the heatsink, not that it needs one anyway. Everything else is pretty standard around the back of this card.

Powercolor_X16XT_BRAVO Outputs

Here we have, once again, dual DVI (both of which is dual-link), and that video connector in the middle gives us VIVO capabilities through the aforementioned Rage Theater chip. Thus far in this round-up we've only seen one other card with VIVO support - the ASUS X1600XT - and that didn't have two DVI connectors.

Powercolor_X16XT_BRAVO Bundle

Pacific Fighters is the bundled game and a handful of CyberLink products are bundled too for video functionality. Old Catalyst 5.11 drivers are to be found on the driver disc. So, not a great bundle if you're a gamer looking for some new titles to add to your collection.

If you like your cables however, then bask in the component video cable and the VIVO composite/S-Video cables. We'd prefer to have seen a breakout box rather than just cables like this, though, either way, the job of providing you with the connectivity you require is done.