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The Verdict
Much like the X1600 XT we received a while ago I think the X1650 Pro is a fun product. It's offers a good amount of features for the money you pay. Unfortunately overall gaming performance is still not where it should be. Over the past year or two we heard ATI and NVIDIA screaming that 4xAA and 8xAF are the industry standard. In my opinion that means that if I play a game at 10x7 or 12x10 I should be able to play it with such settings. The X1650 PRO proves that it has a very hard time keeping up with such settings, and especially in the newer games. So I find it very hard to position this product. Where the X1950 PRO seriously amazes me I do think that the X1650 should be a tad faster as it will still have a very hard time competing with NVIDIA's similar priced GeForce 7600 GS line of products. The ATI camp will say yeah but we can de HDR+AA with this card, and while that is true it lacks the raw horsepower to be able to do that in fashionable manner.
When we put that in light of the pricing we really can't complain much though. This is a lower end mid-range card with a budget price and that's just great. It allows you to play most games at 1024x768 and sometimes 1280x1024. Also the overclock you'll manage with this card is quite substantial and you will be able to push another few FPS out of the card easily. As always, HiS build-quality is exceptional, the bundle is very good for the money, HIS means stamina, stability and image quality. The X1650 PRO performance brings reasonable mid-range performance. The ICEQ cooler makes the price tag slightly higher compared to the competition though by all means please invest that extra tenner as the cooler is working really well whilst also being silent, and in today's PCs that is just awesome.
As always I like to remind you of other things than just gaming. The media playback/encoding/decoding functions. HDTV, media center, Dual-link DVI, HD gaming, offloading the CPU for playback, H.264 or whatever decoding process you need; this product is capable of it.
The new AVIVO implementation is working really well and is exciting stuff for you and me especially in this price-range. I really enjoy what HiS have done with this product. Good bundle, decent performance, good price and a heap of functionality. It's definitely a product worth considering if you are in the market for a sub 130 EUR/USD mid-range product, yet if raw gaming power is you thing then you need to look for another graphics card.
Many thanks to Peter from HIS technology for providing the sample. On a second note, we'll have a X1650 XT (Crossfire as well) review up very soon.
