3-way passively-cooled midrange shootout. Sapphire vs HIS vs XFX

Final thoughts, HEXUS.awards and HEXUS.right2reply

We've taken a look at three mid-priced graphics cards that are differentiated from the norm by using passively-cooled heatsinks.

They take in three GPUs and are priced between £59 and £87. We've seen the cards' physical and benchmark attributes, so let's formulate a conclusion that delineates which one is best.

Staring off with the Sapphire ULTIMATE X1650 Pro, priced at £59, we find it hard to recommend. The underlying architecture is such that the HIS Radeon X1650 XT iSilence II is around 50 per cent faster in most games whilst costing around 20 per cent more.

What's more, the GPU is of an age when HDCP support wasn't considered a must-have feature, so it falls down in that respect, too. It doesn't have any card-specific redeeming features such as HDMI support or a half-height form factor.

We reckon that Sapphire needs to ensure that the retail price drops down to, say, £49, or it should rework the ULTIMATE into its X1650 XT range, which is a far better GPU.

Moving on to the HIS X1650 XT iSilence II, available in both 256MiB and 512MiB framebuffers for £82 and £95, respectively, it's a far more attractive proposition.

Framerates are reasonable at 1280x1024 4xAA 8xAF and inherent CrossFire and HDCP support are definite bonuses, as is its overclocking prowess. The bundle is also good, if a little long in the tooth.

The fastest and most expensive card on test was the XFX GeForce 7600 GT Fatal1ty Edition. We're impressed with just how far XFX has been able to push the G73 core whilst cooling it with a zero-noise heatsink.

The XFX is peerless with respect to OpenGL performance and more than holds its own in D3D tests. The only real downside is a lack of HDCP support, but its attractive pricing, £87, which is not much more than you'd expect to pay for a default-clocked, actively-cooled, GeForce 7600 GT.

DX10 cards are now slowly becoming available at these price points but we've yet to see just how good NVIDIA's sub-£100 offerings are, and we've yet to spy what AMD/ATI will offer in this space.

Three different DX9-compliant approaches, then, all manage to passively cool these midrange cards, so let's give you some unequivocal buying advice.

Bottom line: This time round we'd look past the Sapphire and invest the extra £23 and go for the HIS card. XFX makes an equally strong case, especially in performance terms, so it can also be recommended.

HEXUS Awards

HIS Radeon X1650 iSilence II 256MiB
XFX GeForce 7600 GT Fatal1ty Edition

HEXUS Where2Buy

The Sapphire ULTIMATE X1650 Pro 256MiB is available to buy for around £59 here
The HIS Radeon X1650 iSilence II 256MiB is available to buy for around £82 here
The XFX GeForce 7600 GT Fatal1ty Edition 256MiB is available to buy for around £87 here

HEXUS Right2Reply

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