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Avivo is not VIVO

We don’t quite get what ATi marketing was thinking on this one. “VIVO” is traditionally video-in/video-out, and “A-“ is a negating prefix, so “Avivo” means…? Well, that’s actually correct; we do have Video Out in almost every configuration known to man, but no Video In.

Avivo is ATi’s marketing umbrella for a broad set of X1000-series multimedia enhancement features. These include a range of image quality settings in Catalyst Control Center, comprehensive support for various video output formats, and H.264 hardware decoding.

The latter pays respect to an ATi tradition. Years ago, inclusion of hardware IDCT support on many ATi video cards allowed for fluid DVD playback on systems that should have required a Hollywood-Plus accelerator to avoid the Slide Show Effect. Fast-forwarding to now, we learn that H.264 is the content-protected encoder of choice for HD-DVD and Blue Ray, and Avivo-capable boards support hardware-accelerated decoding for smooth, high-quality playback.

Given the ongoing format war, you may prefer not to include that expensive new HD optical drive on your Christmas list this year. If so, the capability can still be sampled with HD content downloaded from the web, such as movie trailers.

Overclocking

Pre-release chatter had the X1950 Pro at 600-650MHz core and 550MHz memory, but the release parameters were 575/690. Our Sapphire showed up running at 580/700 and similar variances are reported on other third-party boards. The card is stable and does not toast its own bread like some GPUs in recent memory, so we have no objections.

Will it go faster? The answer is a qualified ‘no’. Although we were able to eke out a few extra cycles out of the memory via Catalyst Control Center, significant bumps – along with any core clock tinkering – tended to yield display corruption during 3DMark05.

However, we observed that the reported core temperature sometimes peaked above 75C when exiting a failed test, then rapidly dropped. Further, the extremity of the attempt seemed to correlate to how quickly the corruption would arise; with milder efforts, we usually got past the invasion of Proxomitron and well into Firefly Forest before the display went haywire, suggesting that this GPU may prove kind to aftermarket cooling modders.

We have an entire evidence locker that speaks to the dangers of mechanical creativity near BGA chip assemblies, and heartily do NOT recommend this option. That said, more speed may be available, especially since the stock cooler design draws from the back of the card and vents against the front slot bracket, and the waste air may tend to be drawn back across the smooth top-plate. Thus, there is a potential recirculation loop where the air just gets hotter and hotter, providing yet another coincidental parallel to the recent US election campaigns.

So, overclocking is not an option for us; your priorities may differ. Is the stock performance suitable? Let’s find out.

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