Dual Dual-Link DVi is also worth mentioning, especially with ultra-high resolution displays such as Dell's 30" 2560x1600 3007FPW coming into the affordable range. Hardware assisted h.264 decoding could be the icing on the cake in 2006 with the ever increasing importance put on HD and the imminent explosion of HD-DVD and BluRay content. With its small size, low power requirements and aforementioned h.264 capability (part of ATI's Avivo technology) It would certainly make an attractive card for use in a HTPC. HIS X1600XT IceQ Turbo

will make for decent stocking fillers for the readers that wants to enjoy games with maximum detail switched on.

[HWM Gold Award] This card takes ATI back to the top, displacing rival NVIDIA and their Geforce7800GTX

Well HIS has really made an extremely great card here. This card really nips the X800 Series at its feet and when you enable the iTurbo it even beats it in the benchmarks. If someone is looking to upgrade from the 9600 and 9800 series to something more powerful I really recommend picking up this card. It was hard to find any problems with this card, the price was right on target, the benchmark scores are right where they should be and the card is quite amazing.

[Gut]

[Best Buy Award] In the case of the HIS examples, the GTO is certainly the stronger part, since it overclocks to the same speed, and offers an extra quad of pipelines, giving it a considerable advantage in the most demanding titles. You can't do better than the HIS X800GTO. With iTurbo ratified overclocking features, a whisper quiet cooler that is far more effective than the stock units and a great bundle, HIS have another winning product.