ATI Radeon X1650 Pro: Sapphire vs HIS

ATI Radeon X1650 Pro

A few weeks ago ATI introduced the Radeon X1950, their new high end card that has drawn a large amount of users since its introduction. At the same time the X1650 pro was introduced, but this did not get nearly the amount of publicity that its bigger brother got. The X1650 is the new mid range chip by ATI, a successor to the X1600XT.

As the GeForce 7600GT was beating the X1600 cards without even straining itself, ATI needed to respond to keep up in the mid range segment. The X1800GTO was introduced, but was clearly an emergency solution to keep consumers happy. The X1650 is the proper new card for the mid range segment, and it has arrived not a minute too late. 

The chip used on the X1650pro is the RV535, a revised RV350 chip used on the X1600 cards, but produced on 80 nm. The smaller production method makes the chip cheaper to produce and the chip generates less heat. The possibilities of the X1650 are the same as those on the X1600, the only difference between the X1650 and the X1600 is the clockfrequencies used. The table below shows the differences between the two chips.

General
		No photo
Brand	ATI	ATI
Product name	Radeon X1600 XT	Radeon X1650 Pro
Product code
Tested by	Koen Crijns	Steven de Feij
Test Date	10/02/2005	09/05/2006
Details	Details	Details
Specifications
Chip codename	RV530	RV535
Interface	PCI Express x16	PCI Express x16
Memory	256 MB	256 MB
Clock frequency - Core	590 MHz	600 MHz
Clock frequency - Memory	690 MHz	700 MHz
Memory controller	128 bit	128 bit
Memory type	GDDR3	GDDR3
DirectX version	9.0c	9.0c
Vertex Shader version	3.0	3.0
Pixel Shader version	3.0	3.0
Vertex Shader pipelines	5	5
Pixel Shader pipelines	12	12
Pixel color precision	FP32	FP32
Extra power connector
Chip - Transistor count	157 mln
Chip - Production technology	90 nm	80 nm
SLI compatible

When checking out the graphs on the Radeon X1650 XT product pages, we have to conclude that the X1650 only performs slightly better than its predecessor. nVidia stays on top in this segment when we just consider pure 3D power, however there are a few advantages to the ATI card. One fo these is the fact that ATI chips can use Anti Aliasing together with HDR rendering, something that the nVidia cards can not do yet. In a mid range card this feature is not as important as it is in the high end segment, as the X1650 does not posess enough graphics power to use these two features simultaneously. For a casual gamer that does not use AA and AF and plays on a 17 or 19 inch monitor the new ATI card is normally more than enough. 

We received X1650 Pro cards from two manufacterers, Sapphire and HIS.