Today we will be analyzing three video cards based on the ATI Radeon X1650XT GPU, also known by its codename the RV560. All three proposals are aimed at the mid-range segment of the market.

The RV560 GPU is manufactured under an 80nm manufacturing process and is able to reach operating frequencies of 575 MHz for the core and 1.35 GHz for memory. The GPU comes with 8 vertex shading units, 24 pixel shading units, and 8 rendering pipelines with one TMU and ROP for each pipeline.

The table lists the technical characteristics of all three video cards we will be reviewing today. The characteristics of the cards are nearly identical save for a few changes in the operating frequencies of the core and memory. Physically, the HIS Radeon X1650XT differs from the other video cards by being the only one that comes with a dual-slot cooling solution.

All three video cards we analyzed are Windows Vista compatible and come with HDCP technology.

The first card we will be analyzing in this comparison is the ASUS EAX1650XT. The video card operates at frequencies of 574MHz core and 675MHz (1350MHz effective) for the GDDR3 memory. The card has a total of 256MB of memory which uses a 128-bit interface. ASUS chose large packaging for its video card, displaying much of the card’s technical characteristics and a table comparing the card’s performance to the NVIDIA 7600GT on the back.

ASUS includes a CD to install the user manual, which is actually in digital format, and a driver CD. In addition, the package comes with the video game GTI Racing V560.

The accessory package comes with two DVI-to-VGA connectors, two Crossfire bridges, and a Molex to 6-pin PCI-Express cable converter.

The layout of the board makes it clearly evident that ASUS chose to use their own board design in place of the reference ATI board. The ASUS EAX1650XT is the only video card in this article that requires a 6-pin auxiliary power source. The cooling solution ASUS chose covers only a small amount of the video card’s surface and is limited to the GPU and memory chip region.

Although the cooling solution might not be very wide, it is much more vertically thick. The card comes with two DVI output ports and one S-Video Out.

The HIS Radeon X1650XT is characterized by a 575 MHz Core clock along with a 690MHz clock for the GDDR3 memory. The effective speed of the memory, which utilizes a 128-bit interface, is the equivalent of 1380MHz. A unique aspect of the video card is HIS’ choice to use a passive cooling system making the card completely silent.

The card comes with an installation handbook, a Driver CD, and a DVD with the CyberLink DVD 4 program, the game Dungeon Siege, and three demos: Half-Life 2, RollerCoaster 3 Tycoon and Act of War: Direct Action.

The supplied accessories consist of a DVI-to-VGA connector, an S-Video composite cable, a component cable, and a single ATI Crossfire connector.

HIS designed the cooling solution of the card to be completely fanless and instead opted upon a solution comprised of entirely heatpipes. The chosen material for the portion of the heatsink that is in contact with the GPU is aluminum while the heatpipes themselves are copper. Contrary to the ASUS solution on the previous page, the HIS X1650XT does not require auxiliary power.

The price to pay for the silent cooling solution turns out to be that the card takes up two slots instead of one. Again, we have two DVI connectors and one S-Video port.

For cooling the memory chips, HIS chose to use mini-heasinks for each memory chip. A glimpse of the mini-heatsinks can be seen in the above photograph right underneath the primary heatsink.

The packaging for the Sapphire video card comes showing the technical characteristics of the video card. Similar to the ASUS X1650XT, the box has a table that compares the operating frequencies of the Sapphire Radeon X1650XT to the NVIDIA 7600GT. The Sapphire X1650XT has a core clock of 600MHz and a 700MHz clock (1400MHz effective) for the 256Mbytes of GDDR3 memory, which again uses a 128-bit interface.

In addition to the instructional handbook and driver CD, the card also comes with PowerDVD 6 and a DVD version of “The Da Vinci Code” video game.

The accessory package is comprised of a component cable, an S-Video adapter, and two DVI-to-VGA adapters.

Sapphire uses a cooling solution that covers nearly the entire surface of the video card. The heatsink is copper and cools both the GPU and memory. The card, similar to the solution presented by HIS, doesn’t require auxiliary power.

As can be clearly seen in the photo, the video card is a single-slot solution. It also has two DVI ports, allowing for the use of multiple monitors, along with an S-Video out connector.

Test Configuration

We conducted the analysis of the three ATI Radeon X1650XT based video cards using a Socket 939 AMD system. For the test system, we chose to use an AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ along with 2GB of DDR400 memory. The tests were all run at resolutions of 1280x1024 and 1600x1200 with anti-aliasing set at 4x and anisotropic filtering set at 16x.

For the analysis, we chose to benchmark using Prey, Splinter Cell Chaos Theory, and Serious Sam 2.

Performance Analysis

The X1650XT solutions clearly perform better than the 7600GT in all benchmarks. The overall scene, however, is something we have become used to seeing when reviewing video cards all based on the same architecture. The performance difference between the three Radeon X1650XT video cards is minimal, and for the most part it stays within 1 FPS of the reference ATI board. The Sapphire Radeon X1650XT ends up the fastest, however slight the performance difference is, out of all video cards. We are nearly positive that this small performance edge is a result of the higher frequency of the card’s GDDR3 memory.

Our overclocking tests basically consisted of us trying to reach the highest stable core and memory clock frequencies. In order to increase the frequencies, where possible we used ATI Overdrive in the ATI Catalyst driver control panel. For cards that did not allow access to the tool, we switched to using the manufacturer’s manufacturing tool, and, in the case there was no manufacturer overclocking tool, we used the freeware ATI Tool.

In our testing it ended up that all third party tools resulted in an immediate crash of the system, and so we were only able to use ATI Overdrive. The below graph is organized from the largest overclock to the least overclock.

The Sapphire X1650XT was able to reach the highest combination of a stable overclock and performance out of the three cards tested. Although the card did not have the highest core clock, the Sapphire video card’s memory was able to reach the highest frequency at 770MHz. Despite their difference in memory and core frequiencies, however, the overall performance of the cards ended up being very similar to each other.

The noise emitted by a video card’s cooling system is able to greatly increase the overall system noise output. Since it is an important aspect of a card’s performance, we tested each video card to see which solution was the most efficient in terms of noise output. The tests conducted on this page were done using the following methods:

Noise Test: We tested using a noise meter, the ML80 Lafayette, placed a distance of 10 centimeters from the video card’s fan. The fan was forced to run at maximum speed and the position of the noise meter was the same for each video card. We chose to force the fan to run at its maximum speed in order to simulate a “worst case” scenario.

Temperature: We measured the operating temperatures of the GPUs using the free application ATI Tool. Temperature was measured at idle, meaning only the operating system was running, and also at full load, in which we ran the “Natures” benchmark of 3D Mark 2001 for ten minutes.

Power Consumption: We tested power consumption using a power meter. The complete consumption of the system was measured; however, the hardware components, except for the video card, were exactly the same in each test, isolating the video card as the only source which was able to affect power consumption.

Even though the card was a completely fanless solution, the HIS Radeon X1650XT ended up consuming the most power. It consumed 10-15 Watts more compared to the other solutions tested. It is surprising to see the HIS solution consume the most power considering that the ASUS solution was the only one which actually required an auxiliary power connection.

The HIS Radeon X1650XT, which is a completely fanless solution, was naturally the quietest solution out of the cards we tested. The noise displayed on the graph for the HIS card was the ambient noise level of the test room. Out of the video cards tested that had an active cooling system, the Sapphire X1650XT had the quietest noise level under both full and idle load.

We apologize that our temperature analysis of the video cards is incomplete. This is because the ASUS and HIS video cards we tested unfortunately did not come with any temperature sensor installed on the GPU. Thus, we were unable to record their temperatures.

Once again the benchmarks we ran today leave us with very close results. The differences in frames per second between the various video cards ended up being extremely slight, and therefore, negligible.

We placed each X1650XT sample through performance, temperature, noise, and overclocking tests and were able to see what each card was capable of. Although the Sapphire X1650XT wasn’t able to reach the highest core overclock, it did obtain the fastest memory speed of 770MHz. The large gain in memory frequency, however, still did not give the card’s performance an edge over competing solutions as is evident in the Serious Sam 2 Greendale test we ran.

At NewEgg, the Sapphire X1650XT is available for $150. The Asus EAX1650XT is available for $152 and the fanless HIS Radeon X1650XT is available for $150. The pricing is virtually the same for all three cards, making all three solutoins an attractive choice for consumers with a budget in mind. The HIS video card was a completely silent solution making it very attractive for consumers wanting to keep the noise level of their PC as low as possible. The card, however, also consumed the most power in our tests and was a dual-slot solution. The Sapphire X1650XT reached the highest memory overclock at 770MHz, while the ASUS EAX1650XT reached the highest core overclock at 675MHz. The similarities between the video cards make it impossible for us to declare a true winner or to recommend one product over the other. The final choice ends up relying on your personal preferences in a video card.