Sapphire Radeon X1600Pro HDMI is the first graphics card on the retail market to sport the HDMI interface with both sound and video signals through the same cable. Sapphire recently informed us that it will start shipping its HDMI-capable graphics card to retailers as the first HDMI/HDCP-capable graphics card on the market. Sapphire Radeon X1600Pro HDMI isn’t perhaps the fastest card around with its 12 pixel pipelines and core clocked at 500MHz. But most new games will work quite well, however the 3D performance is not the most important thing here. It’s the 2D faunctions and this card seems to be made for an HTPC.
Sporting ATI’s AVIVO technology there is no lack of image improving features and through the HDCP encryption over the HDMI interface it is possible to play HD DVD and Blu-ray movies when they appear in our PCs. To further strengthen the HTPC usage Sapphire sends along two different installation brackets. One for regular ATX chassis and one for low-profile chassis. The sound signal is connected to the graphics card either through an internal or external SPDIF input and is then transmitted to the HDMI output.
Sapphire Radeon X1600Pro HDMI will be available soon in stores near you and is expected to cost about $160.
