AMD ATI Radeon X1650 Pro 512MB AGP Graphics Card (100-437809)   

List Price: $199.00 Discount Price: $121.97

Features:

• Blistering 3D graphics with full screen anti-aliasing, high dynamic range lighting, and stunning shader performance
• Windows Vista compatible
• Watch stunning, high-definition video on your PC
• Cool running technology ensures whisper-quiet operation
• Displays in excess of a billion more colors than competing graphics cards

Accessories:

Smartlink Cable

Customer Reviews:

ATI-branded card WAY too hot ! [Posted on 2007-08-29]
I have an HP Pavilion a400n (Athlon 64 2800+) machine that's 3-4 years old now. The stock 250W PS finally died. Dropped in an Antec 650W PS and thought "good time to replace my very old and slow ATI 9600"

So, I grabbed the X1650 Pro with the new PS and installed both. My power budget climbed from 240-280 to almost 550W as the new card draws a stupidly high 160W under max load. Good thing I passed up the 500W PS for the 650W one!

The problem is that the factory heatsink/fan is far too wimpy. After an hour of medium use, going into Call Of Duty 2 or Toca 3 Racing or BioShock causes the Radeon X1650 to get blisteringly hot and the PC locks up. Powering down is the only option.

The tragedy of this is that COD2, etc. have never looked better! Being able to use AA and AF at a decent resolution is terrific. Unfortunately, I'll either have to mod the Pavilion case out with 1-3 fans, mod the card with a new cooler, or most likely, take it back and exchange it for an nVidia 7600 GS.

ATI should NOT sell this card without decent cooling, which it clearly does not possess. I liked the old 9600 just fine and had assumed I would get the same quality product with the new X1650. Sadly, that's just not the case.

I only give this card 2 stars and that's only due to the fact when it runs, the graphics are stunning....for a few minutes!

Boo to ATI [Posted on 2007-09-15]
This card is abysmal. Can't even install the drivers on XP32...initially thought it was a power problem but it failed with both a 500w and 650w power supply. i'm no newbie at installing device drivers either, this card just sucks (and on top of that i was buying it to replace an x1950 pro which ALSO didn't work...BOO TO ATI)

Very Risky [Posted on 2007-09-18]
I bought this because I thought it would make my gaming experience better, instead of getting better video quality, I got either no video at all or the the basic color. Their customer support isn't any better, if your on the west coust, and you work during the days on weekdays your out of luck. They are open 8 to 7 eastern time. I don't recommend this product. Get a Nvidia card,they have never failed me so far.

ATI can't implement the AGP spec properly [Posted on 2007-09-27]
Card would not work in my Dimension 4550 computer at all, with its AGP 4x slot. Turns out that ATI didn't actually implement all of the AGP spec that was needed for compatibility with these older systems. So my first warning of this was only after the card had been purchased and the system failed to boot at all with it. Tried another ATI card and had the same problem. Tried a nVidia card finally, and it's working great. Sorry ATI, you've lost me with these incompatibility problems. I don't understand how they could release this product at all.

This Video Card Rocks [Posted on 2008-03-15]
Upgraded from an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB card to the ATI Radeon X1650 Pro 512MB card. In between I tried an nVidia 512MB card but was very unimpressed with its performance. Read reviews about the Radeon X1650 overheading, problems with compatibility, etc., initially that steered me away from the card and toward the nVidia card. That wasted time and money. The card is fast, made a big difference on the mundane (using Microsoft Money) to the more intense (FEAR, BioShock, etc.). I have 4GB of ram and an Xtreme gamer sound card, so my bottleneck was the video card. This pretty much removed the bottleneck. This is an AGP card, so it could not compete with PCIe, but for folks like me that don't have that option, this card is great. Price is all over the map. Shop well or wait for an Amazon sale, because you certainly don't have to pay ATI $200 for the card. I am suspicious that some of the problems people had with cards is due to buying what I would consider a knockoff from one of the less capable licensees. Install was easy, uninstall my old video drivers, shut down, crack open the case, take out the old card, slide in the new card, start back up, install the drivers, reboot and you're done. Even older games (Unreal 2004) looked better with the new card.

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