Verdict: Blows more hot air than a politician and is just as irritating

Abit is well known for its line of top-quality, overclocking-friendly motherboards. However, when it comes to graphics cards the company doesn't seem quite as willing to push the boat out.

This card is based on the X700 Pro GPU, which is ATi's answer to the 6600 GT. There was an X700XT that had a higher core clock speed but it also ran incredibly hot, which was probably why it was canned in the same month it was launched.

This might also explain why we couldn't overclock the GPU on this Abit card much above its stock frequency of 425MHz - in fact, we only pushed it to a feeble 465MHz. The memory was a little more flexible, overclocking from 432MHz to 500MHz (1GHz effective). This overclock added 11 per cent to the average frame rate in Far Cry at 1,600 x 1,200 with 4x AA and 8x AF.

Although the HSF is fitted with small pads that are supposed to be in contact with the memory modules, on closer inspection these actually float just above the surface and do nothing but restrict the flow of cool air to the chips. On top of this, Abit's choice of HSF is a lot louder than the reference ATi HSF. The tiny fan makes a very unpleasant whine that will cut through all but the loudest CPU HSFs.

The Abit's performance also leaves a lot to be desired. Doom 3 at 1,280 x 1,024 with 2x AA and 2x AF ran at just 27.1fps. This is an average, so there will be parts of the game where the frame rate dips even lower than this. The last thing you need is the frame rate dropping below 25fps when you wander into a room packed full of demons and other hell spawn. The 45.6fps produced by the slightly cheaper XFX is much more desirable. And it isn't just Doom 3 that sucks, as the frame rate in Far Cry is also teetering on the edge of playability. Thankfully, the less demanding and more ATi-friendly Half-Life 2 is playable at this resolution, but the XFX is still faster.

Abit doesn't even bundle any games with its card, just a free copy of PowerDVD 5, and composite and S-Video cables for the TV output.

With considerably slower speeds than 6600 GT cards, and a HSF that demands earplugs, there are very few reasons why you'd want to put this card in your PC.

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