Conclusion
Despite its low-end status, the Radeon X1300 PRO is definitely an improvement over its predecessors. The occasional gamer would find the Radeon X1300 PRO half decent for some games provided they use the appropriate settings. For games that are turn based for example, the few processing pipelines on the card can manage more than adequately. This mix of casual gaming friendliness and its Avivo background (for encoding acceleration) makes the Radeon X1300 PRO a feasible alternative for system integrators. They can claim a 'discrete graphics' solution that's almost always superior to onboard graphics. With vendors like Gigabyte adding passive cooling too, the Radeon X1300 PRO becomes a viable home theatre PC option, though its performance limits it to the basic functions; accelerating high definition content of very high resolution is definitely not on the cards and besides, they are not HDCP compliant yet.
Adding a silent cooler gives it the edge over the reference cards, especially when you consider its very decent pricing.
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As for the Gigabyte RV-RX13P256DE-RH, its performance was as expected. On par with the reference card, it is not capable of running the latest games like F.E.A.R on anything but the lowest possible settings and resolutions. But at least it is a DirectX 9.0c compliant card that supports the much-touted features like Shader Model 3.0 and HDR; whether you can run any game decently with these effects enabled is another question that our benchmarks have probably answered. Performance-wise, it should be sufficient for its target market. The silent cooler on the Gigabyte does a proper job on cooling the core though the overall price you pay for the noiseless cooler is generally higher temperatures. Case ventilation also plays a big part here so if you already have quite a few internal fans, it should help the Gigabyte even more, since the design of the Silent-Pipe II relies heavily on existing air flow within the casing.
Overclocking is not recommended for the Gigabyte GV-RX13P256DE-RH and the paltry amount we sustained was too minor to justify the inevitable higher temperatures. The rest of the card fits in with its low-end status, with a minimal bundle that's saved by an up-to-date DVD playback application and decent accessories. Its other strength is probably the price. At around US$87, it compares favorably with other fan-cooled reference cards from other vendors (and cheaper than the ASUS EAX1300PRO). With other passively cooled alternatives from vendors like Sapphire and HIS costing around US$10 more, this is advantageous to Gigabyte. Of course, those other cards might have attributes that may better the Gigabyte but that's yet to be established. Nevertheless, for the moment, the Gigabyte GV-RX13P256DE-RH is a decent and silent Radeon X1300 PRO, eminently suited for casual gamers and media applications.
| Testbed Configuration |
| Processor |
AMD Athlon 64 FX-55 (2.6GHz) |
| Mainboard |
MSI K8N Diamond Plus |
| Memory |
1GB DDR400 Kingston |
| Harddisk |
Seagate 7200.7 80GB SATA |
| Operating System |
Windows XP Professional w/SP2 |
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