Radeon HD 3650 Showdown - ASUS vs. HIS

HOW WE CONFIGURED THE TEST SYSTEM:

We tested all of the graphics cards used in this article on an MSI P6N Diamond motherboard powered by a Core 2 Duo E6550 processor and 2GB of low-latency Corsair RAM. The first thing we did when configuring our test system was to enter into the BIOS and set all values to their "optimized" or "performance" default settings. Then we manually configured the memory timings and disabled any integrated peripherals that wouldn't be put to use. The hard drive was then formatted, and Windows Vista Ultimate was installed. When the installation was complete we fully updated the OS, and installed the latest DX10 redist and various hotfixes along with the necessary drivers and applications.

HotHardware Test System  Intel Inside!

Processor - Motherboard - Video Cards - Memory - Audio - Hard Drive -

HARDWARE USED: Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 MSI P6N Diamond nForce680i SLI Chipset Diamond Radeon HD 3650 1GB Sapphire Radeon HD 3670 512MB ASUS EAH3650 TOP HIS Radeon HD 3650 IceQ Turbo NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS 2GB Corsair Dominator DDR2 2x1GB, 4-4-4-12 (1T) Integrated Creative X-Fi Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 750GB - 7200rpm - SATA

OS - Direct X - Video Drivers -   Synthetic (DX) - DirectX 9 - DirectX 10 - OpenGL - DirectX 10 - DirectX 10 - DirectX 10 -

RELEVANT SOFTWARE: Windows Vista Ultimate DirectX 10 NVIDIA Forceware v169.25 ATI Catalyst v8.4 BENCHMARKS USED: 3DMark06 v1.1.0 Half-Life 2: Episode 2 Company of Heroes ET: Quake Wars 1.4 Crysis Single-Player Demo Bioshock 1.1 PT Boats: Knights of the Sea

Performance Comparisons with 3DMark06 v1.1.0 Details: www.futuremark.com/products/3dmark06

3DMark06

3DMark06 is one of the most recent addition to the 3DMark franchise. This version differs from 3Dmark05 in a number of ways, and includes not only Shader Model 2.0 tests, but Shader Model 3.0 and HDR tests as well. Some of the assets from 3DMark05 have been re-used, but the scenes are now rendered with much more geometric detail and the shader complexity is vastly increased as well. 3DMark06 also employs much more lighting and there is extensive use of soft shadows. With 3DMark06, Futuremark has also updated how the final score is tabulated. In this latest version of the benchmark, SM 2.0 and HDR / SM3.0 tests are weighted and the CPU score is factored into the final tally as well.

Overall results in 3DMark06 tells us a story with three acts: a shaky beginning, solid middle, and great finish.  The Diamond HD 3650 1GB is by far the worst performer even though the 1GB memory buffer is the largest of the group.  As we've reported before, the slower DDR2 memory utilized on that card only serves to cripple the performance rather than enhance it.  The other three Radeon HD 3650s from ASUS, HIS, and Sapphire all come in with scores that are too close to call a winner.  In general, the Sapphire model typically gave us the highest of the trio, and it is this card that has the fastest clocks matched with 512MB of GDDR3; the ASUS version ships with 256MB, and the HIS with slightly lower clock and memory speeds.  In 3DMark06, at least, the GeForce 8600 GTS was the overall leader, even though Shader Model 3.0 comparisons were right alongside the HD 3650's levels.