HIS Radeon HD 4650 512MB iSilence4 review

RV730 - A Radeon HD 4650 with 512MB GDDR2

The Radeon HD 4650 512MB GDDR2. A card that is one of the the best performing models in the budget segment.

The chip used on this product is codenamed RV730 and is really a die-shrink 55nm version of the Radeon 3850/3870 GPU released last year. The graphics processor has 320 stream processors embedded, just like the last generation Radeon HD 3850 and 3870 graphics cards. The distinct difference however is that its memory interface is only 128 bits wide. Core clock speeds for the 4650 will range up to 600 MHz for the Radeon HD 4650, while memory will top out at 1,000MHz. Compared to the 4670, which is the same product yet clocked faster on the core and with faster memory, we see a big bottleneck for the memory. Thus tweaking the memory a bit is going do some wonders gaming wise.

But heck, at 69-79 USD you can expect nearly 384 gigaFLOPS of GPU performance, 16GB/s of memory bandwidth, and a 59W (likely even less) power envelope for the 4650.

What is the benefit of all that technical gobble you ask? Quite simple, a civilized game framerate combined with nice image quality settings, at this price level. It's an excellent power consumption aware product and you even get to watch Blu-ray movies and play HD content. Not bad right?

The GPU supports integrated 8-channel audio for both HDMI and DisplayPort.

The HIS Radeon HD 4650 512MB iSilence4

When we look at the card that HIS offers, we see some nice customizations. The blue colored PCB, and obviously eye-catching is the passive cooling design that originates from Zalman.

It really is a good looking card, we'll show you everything up close and personal in the photo-shoot though. HIS will deliver the card with reference clocks at 600 MHz on the core and 1000 MHz (500x2 MHz DDR2) on the memory aka framebuffer.

The bundle is very sober though. We see the card, an HDMI dongle, a VGA dongle, driver installation and small manual.

It has to be said, I'd rather forfeit on included game bundles and gadgets opposed to the Zalman cooler for the better price and vice versa. I find cooling at a sharp price better than the little extras. Depending on the country you live in you can expect a two year warranty.