PowerColor X1300 HyperMemory™ 2

Introduction

Because not everyone can shell out $500+ green for a video card, I decided to review the PowerColor X1600 XT and X1300 not so long ago. On February 21st, Tul Corporation announeced another low-end model based around RV515, the PowerColor X1300 HyperMemory™ 2 (RV515LE). With the PowerColor X1900 XT review behind us, I thought it would be fun and interesting to check out these cheap boards as well.

Remember the X1300 model I already reviewed was sporting 256MB of onboard DDR2 RAM with a 128-bit architecture. Is it even possible to get "cheaper" than that? Well, with HyperMemory technology, companies can reduce RAM costs by having the graphics card utilize some of your system memory. However, with low-end products, such as X300 / X1300, it's usually a mere 5-10 FPS increase.

As you've already guessed, I'm checking out the PowerColor X1300 HyperMemory™ 2 today. What's interesting is it sports a frame buffer of up to 512MB. Crazy, considering that much memory can be found only on performance and enthusiast parts. What's troubling, however, is the memory architectur,e which is only 64-bit and natively 128MB of onboard memory.

Also, the size of the card can be a deciding factor when going for a low-end model with full DirectX 9.0 support (including Shader Model 3.0).