Introduction

AMD's RV730 GPU is already several months old. While the first card designs were mainly aimed at the lower end of the performance segment, many manufacturers are now offering cards designed to be used in a media PC. ATI's awesome UVD 2 video decode engine together with the HDMI output and integrated audio devices makes all recent ATI cards great candidates for a media PC. A major drawback on most cards is that there is an active fan which will spoil your movie experience with the fan noise it creates.
HIS has chosen to use the VNF100 cooler by Zalman on their HD 4650 iSilence which is completely passive: no fan - no noise.

Packaging & Contents

The HIS package will definitely catch some attention on a crowded store shelf. On the front you will find all the important product facts, while the back has some additional information.



You will receive:

• Graphics card
• Documentation + Driver CD + STALKER Clear Sky full game
• DVI Adapter + HDMI Adapter

The Card

Zalman's VNF 100 GPU cooler dominates the look of the card. It uses three heatpipes to move heat away from the GPU core to the back side of the PCB where it is dissipated in the big blue heatsink. Due to the cooler design the card will need two slots in your system. Please note that the "second" slot is directed toward the back side of the card not to the front, like on most other cards.


The card has two DVI ports, the most common output configuration today. I would have liked to see an HDMI port which could underline the media PC use of this card. Since an HDMI adapter is included, it makes no difference. Using the adapter on a DVI port will result in a normal HDMI + Audio output coming from the card. In case you need an analog port you can also use the included DVI adapter.
For HDMI Audio, NVIDIA requires you to feed an external audio source, for example from your motherboard's on-board audio, to the card via SPDIF cable (also included). AMD on the other hand has integrated a sound device inside their GPUs which is the easier solution for most users.


The card has no CrossFire connector, yet it does support CrossFire via the PCI-Express bus. Personally I don't see much potential in combining two of these cards, it is just much easier to get a higher performing card if you need that.



Here are the front and the back of the cards, high-res versions are also available (front, back). If you choose to use these images for voltmods etc, please include a link back to this site or let us post your article.

A Closer Look

In order to disassemble the card you need to remove this metal plate which is glued on top of the Zalman logo and the four screws.


Zalman's VNF100 is made up of two main components. A small base which soaks up the heat and moves it to the heatsink module on the back using three heatpipes. Even though the base is rather small and doesn't have any copper components it does an excellent job, the card is running comfortable temperatures at all times.


The card has no dedicated power connectors, all operating power is sucked from the PCI-Express bus.


The DDR2 (!) memory chips are made by Qimonda and carry the model number HYB18T512161CF-20. With a latency of 2.0 ns, they are specified to run at 500 MHz.


This is AMD's RV730 GPU. It is made in a 55 nm process with 512 million transistors. On the card the GPU is protected by a small plastic shim (not pictured) to avoid crushing the GPU core.