The
X1650XT is ATI's stab at the 7600GT, at least as it sits from
a price point (~$150 US). While ATI has been playing catch up
on the top of the line video cards, it has done very well with
keeping an edge in the value line-up. Why, you might be asking,
should I pay attention to these cards? Well, the simple fact is,
the X1650XT and the 7600GT can both handle most of todays games
at 16xx X 1xxx (depending on WS etc), with some games being very
playable with all the effects enabled.
Viperlair
has in our grubby little hands the Asus
take on the ATI's RV560, Asus
dubs this card the EAX1650XT. Let's look over the specifications
for this new Asus
graphics solution.
|
Specifications
|
ATI
X1650XT (80nm RV560@ 575MHz) |
| ATI
Crossfire™ ready |
| 256MB
High-Speed GDDR3 memory
(@ 1.3GHz) |
|
Twenty
Four pixel shader processors
|
| Eight
vertex shader processors |
| Eight
geometry pipelines |
| Ultra-Threaded
Shader Model 3.0 Engine |
| 128
bit memory path |
| Integrated
165MHz TMDS transmitter (DVI 1.0 / HDMI compliant and HDCP
ready) |
|
Integrated
TV Output support up to 1024x768 resolution
|
|
YPrPb
component output for HDTV display connection
|
| Adaptive
Antialiasing |
| Dual-link
DVI , VGA and TV-Out |
|
DirectX®
9 and OpenGL® supported
|
I
would normally tell you for the complete specifications and
updates on the Asus
EAX1650XT, please check out the Asus
website; unfortunately, there is no information about this
card on the Asus
website at time of writing.
Interestingly,
Asus has the 6 pin power connector on their version of the X1650XT
whereas ATI does not. I am not sure why the Asus version of the
RV560 GPU would be more power hungry, for some reason Asus thought
so. Of course the obvious answer is that voltage stability should
be improved, especially during overclocking. One other thing that
kind of rubs me the wrong way with the X1650XT line is that you
can't plug and play CrossFire with it, you have to purchase a
X1650XT-CF card to allow this card to run in CrossFire mode, unlike
its younger sibling, the X1600XT which can simply plug into two
slots on a 975x motherboard, tick the CrossFire tab in CCC and
your off.
Unpacking
the box you find your graphics card, manual, cables and several
CD's.
Also
included is a nice case to store all of your newly acquired CD's
(luckily it does hold more then 3) and a speedSetUP guide.
Looking
over the card itself, the first thing you notice is Asus has
shrunk their cooler by about 33% over previous iterations. The
card does not appear busy, add to this it is a short card (when
compared to X1950XT etc). The IO is fairly common of today's
cards, with dual DVI and a connector for your HDTV out.
While
the back side of the EAX1650XT is nothing spectacular, you can
see that the cooler Asus deploys is not the snap in variety,
this puppy is bolted down. You can also see the power connector
that Asus has included, along with a warning about ensuring
you plug it in (in many languages no less).
While
physically installing the EAX1650XT was no problem, the software
side of the solution turned out to be. My first build I downloaded
the latest Catalyst drivers (6.11 at the time) and attempted to
install them, I received a “No Supporting Graphics Card
Found” pop up from ATI. I read the release notes and interestingly
found the X1650 series missing from its support list (even though
I had followed the website and selected the Radeon X1650 device).
I did some research and found it was supported by 6.10, which
is also the version that shipped with the card. I proceeded to
install that version and got her working properly. UPDATE –
I have just checked the latest release notes and 7.1, has support
for the X1650 series.
Testing
This
is where the fun begins. The X1650XT is a midrange market focus
graphics solution. To sample against the EAX1650XT I chose the
previously reviewed HIS X1600Pro IceQ Turbo, which tested fairly
well here not long ago.
We
will be performing all tests at 16:10 resolution of 1680x1050
and 1280x800 (if the 1680 tests are below playable levels). While
not all games support WS resolutions, there is usually a hack
or two that allows you to play it that way, all of the games I
have chosen support WS.
Benchmark
System: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (2.13GHz), Asus
P5W DH Deluxe, 2GB
Super Talent PC2-6400, WD WD800JD /
80GB SATA 7200RPM, Asus EAX1650XT, Dell
2005FPW (1680x1050 and 1280x800), Windows XP SP2, ATI
CCC build 31959 (Catalyst 6.10)
The
Comparison System: Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 (2.13GHz),
Asus P5W DH Deluxe, 2GB Super Talent
PC2-6400, WD WD800JD / 80GB SATA 7200RPM, HIS
X1600Pro IceQ Turbo, Dell 2005FPW (1680x1050
and 1280x800), Windows XP SP2, ATI
CCC build 31959 (Catalyst 6.11)
The
games
-
F.E.A.R:
A very demanding shooter, you NEED hardware with some horsepower
for this one
-
Call
of Duty 2: Visually intense, bright and a lot of scenery
-
Quake
4: An upgrade to the D3 engine, very intensive
-
3dMark
2006: Our Synthetic benchmark...
NEXT
