SUMMARY: The graphics market is heating right up lately with a lot of different high end solutions emerging. For those though who are after a budget card which performs fairly well, you really can't go past SiS' latest Xabre400 chip. Today Asher "Acid" Moses" takes a look Triplex's Xabre400 solution, namely in the Xabre Pro.
Upon opening the box you are greeted with a driver CD, a detailed User's Manual, an S-Video cable and a DVI-to-VGA convertor. I was quite pleased to see the DVI-to-VGA convertor included with the card as it enables users to run dual VGA monitors without having to purchase a separate convertor.
- The Card
The Triplex Xabre Pro runs at a 250MHz/250MHz (500MHz DDR) core/memory clock speed, which obviously means that SiS are targeting the low-end gaming market with the Xabre 400 chipset. The card also features 64MB of Hynix memory rated at 3.6ns. Hynix memory chips have been known for their high overclocking potential and we'll see if this trend continues a little later on in the review.
The component layout of the card is virtually identical to that of SiS's reference board, however, there is a big difference as far as aesthetics are concerned. Firstly, the card features a shiny silver PCB, which is certainly a plus for users that like to show off their PC's innards through window kits, etc. It also features a sexy silver heatsink/fan unit with a handsome amount of thermal grease separating it from the Xabre 400 core.
It is important to note that there are no memory heatsinks on the card. This is most likely due to the fact that the heat produced by the memory chips was not great enough to warrant any extra cooling, thus reducing the overall price of the card.
The card also features a DVI output, a TV output and dual monitor support - all handled by the SiS 301 controller. During testing we found this controller to be of extremely high quality and the TV out image quality proved to be significantly better than what we've seen from other manufacturers in the past.
