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.