While initially we thought we had on our hands the X1300XT Platinum from GeCube, a bit more research found we had the model just underneath it. GeCube offer four variants of the X1300XT - the standard DDR-2 model, a DDR-3 128MB and 256MB (which we have) and a Platinum version with 256MB of DDR-3 memory and a higher core clock speed.
Having a quick look at the box there isn’t too much to get excited about. Being a lower end card, the box is smaller then our standard mid-range and upwards models. The front lets us know that 256MB of DDR3 is included along with a few other key technologies.
Turning the box over there is a bit more detail on the specification of the card along with a diagram on how to make use of the connectivity on offer from the card. Chances are that you’re not going to be having a look at it so let’s open here up and see what we have inside.
GeCube are typically a pretty budget card, this is done by keeping the extras to a minimum and once we open the box up we see this is as true as usual. There is a user manual, DVI to VGA converter and S-Video to S-Video and RCA cable.
Moving on to the card itself we can clearly see that the cooler looks pretty stylish. Being quite a large cooler, it does cover a majority of the card and doesn’t let us see a whole lot. You will notice that there is no extra PCI Express power connector for the card at the rear.
The back of the card simply has a plate to hold the heatsink fan in place and all your normal array of circuitry. All 256MB of the DDR-3 memory is located on the front of the card and hidden under the larger cooler.
Finally moving to the I/O side of things we see a couple DVI ports and an S-Video port. This makes it a great little card for people wanting to use two good quality LCD screens but not purchase some expensive, such as monitors which require Dual Link slots.
Clock Speeds
The standard DDR-2 X1300XT from GeCube carries a 500MHz core clock speed although the DDR-3 model we are testing comes with a slightly increased 550MHz core and the DDR-3 memory is clock speed at 1360MHz DDR.
