ATI Radeon Xpress 1250

Zitat

The Radeon Xpress 1250 features low power consumption, class leading X1250 graphics performance in Vista with the AVIVO video processing engine, HDMI 1.2 output with full HDCP 1.1 support, 1080p playback capability, and very competitive platform performance all wrapped in a $115 price tag. It seems to us the X1250 was destined to find a home in an inexpensive home theater system or for those owners needing a mainstream system with very good multimedia capabilities.

While we were generally impressed with this release there are also some concerns. The performance of the X1250 graphics core was certainly class leading but one look at the competition tells an ugly truth for many users. Despite being faster than the Intel G33 in most games, it is still underpowered for recent titles - unless you consider 800x600 gaming to be a pleasurable experience. However, the platform is still capable of providing a decent gaming experience in several titles targeting the casual gaming crowd.

Also, the chipset is quickly showing its age as it does not officially support the new 1333MHz FSB capable processors from Intel, even if ASRock is supporting these processors by automatically overclocking the FSB to 333MHz. We did not have any issues during our testing with the E6550 and QX6850 processors, but there is no headroom above 333 if you have overclocking in mind.

[...]Overall, our two Radeon Xpress 1250 boards performed admirably against the Intel G33 with the ASRock board clearly being a better performer than the abit board in almost all areas. The only exceptions are overclocking and overall design aesthetics. We were initially turned off by the abit board due to quality concerns but those appear to have been solved now; however, continued support is still an issue for us. ASRock appears to have support nailed down for now but supply of the board into several markets is still undecided. We expect this board will be available in most areas shortly. Based on their designs and features, we cannot help but think the abit board belongs in an inexpensive HTPC setup and the ASRock board is really designed more for the general desktop user who still needs good multimedia capabilities. We will publish a compatibility report shortly on the motherboards we are reviewing.