 |
 |
 |
||
|
|
||||
 |
|
|
| Introduction | ||||||
Just last week, we posted an evaluation of a Radeon HD 3650 card by Diamond Multimedia, where said manufacturer decided to one-up ATI's reference specifications by raising the amount of on-board memory to a full one gigabyte. The results, unfortunately, were not overly favorable as the memory happened to be of the inexpensive, low-speed DDR2 variety.
With the Radeon HD 3650 marketed as a low-cost alternative for gaming on a budget, it's no surprise that each card's accompanying accessories are a little light. Each company includes a multi-language user's installation guide and a drivers CD, and ASUS also provides a digital copy of the guide on a second CD-ROM as well. To cover the various setup options, each card also ships with a single VGA-DVI adaptor and an additional HDMI-DVI adaptor. The major difference between the two bundles comes down to a single cable. ASUS plays it safe by offering one last S-Video connection cable. HIS, however, hope users may choose to purchase a second card, thus needing the CrossFire bridge found here. HIS also throws in a case badge for good measure. |
| A closer inspection - It's in the cards | |||||||||
|
|
| Base System and 3DMark06 Results | ||||||||||||||
|
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.
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. |
| Half-Life 2: Episode 2 | ||||||
As our only game based on DirectX 9 technology, Half-Life 2 has a breakdown that is very much in line with what we saw with 3DMark06. Diamond's HD 3650 is overmatched by the rest of our testing suite including three HD 3650s from other manufacturers and a mid-range card from NVIDIA's camp. Additionally, the cards from ASUS, HIS, and Sapphire are operating on quite similar levels - only a frame per second or less separated them at either resolution. To make the comparison with 3DMark06 complete, the 8600 GTS takes a relatively big lead at 1280x1024, yet falls back into the pack at 1600x1200. |
| Company of Heroes | ||||||
Company of Heroes breaks the trend set so far, by having the GeForce 8600 GTS and Radeon HD 3650s swap places. We also notice that in this benchmark, the amount of onboard memory does seems to make a difference. The two cards with a 256MB memory buffer - the Gigabyte 8600 GTS and ASUS' EAH3650 TOP - both find their way to the bottom of the pack. Even the beleaguered Diamond HD 3650 1GB outguns them here, able to mix and match the slower DDR2 with four times as much memory to put up better numbers, especially at the higher resolution. Cards from Sapphire and HIS are architecturely more similar, yet Sapphire has slightly higher core and memory speeds allowing it to move to the head of the pack. |
| Enemy Territory: Quake Wars | ||||||
Our Quake Wars results pretty much reconfirm some of what we've seen in the other benchmarks thus far. The HD 3650s in this article, minus Diamond's card of course, are running neck and neck with each other, making it a tough call. We will need to look into areas other than performance to determine the overall winner here. |
| Crysis | ||||||
The GeForce 8600 GTS has slightly lower speeds that the HD 3650, and only a 256MB buffer. As such, it's one of the worst performers in Crysis. Diamond's sample has the most memory, but anemic memory speeds, and it too suffers an untimely fate. The remaining HD 3650s have similar speeds for both GPU and memory, but one, the ASUS EAH3650 has half the memory of the other two, causing it to fall back from 5-15% in frame rates. HIS actually came out on top here, even though the speed differential should have caused this to fall into Sapphire's favor. |
| Bioshock | ||||||
Not much new to report, what with four cards performing on quite similar levels and one that isn't. Leaving the Diamond HD 3650 out of the equation, each of the HD 3650s and the sole 8600 GTS are only removed from each other by 1.29 fps at 1280x1024, and even closer at 1.09 fps at 1600x1200 - roughly a four percent delta from top to bottom. Perhaps the only noteable thing here is that the GeForce is near the top of the tight-knit pack at the lower resolution, yet falls flat at the higher one. |
| PT Boats: Knights of the Sea | ||||||
Again, as with Company of Heroes, there's a bit going here with the haves and the have-nots. Cards with only 256MB of memory are squashed, with frame rates in single digits. The 512MB or higher cards fare much better, outperforming the other cards by frame rates that are nearly double in the case of Sapphire and HIS, or at least a third better by Diamond's card. |
| Overclocking Results | ||||
Further overclocking factory overclocked cards can get interesting, as the cards come with decent boosts in speeds right out of the box. It's sort of like taking a Ferrari, and then adding Nitrous tanks. All kidding aside, we went into the Overdrive section of ATI's Catalyst Control Center to see just how far we could push each card's GPU and memory speeds past the manufacturer's specs. The answers just might be a little surprising...
The curious thing about Overdrive is that it typically offers you a range of speeds to choose from, and although both of these cards are based on the same GPU, the range shown differed. For example, when the ASUS card was installed, the highest speed available was 890 MHz. The same screen for the HIS IceQ Turbo showed 850 MHz. Raising speeds and testing along the way, we found that the highest stable speeds we arrived at were 875 MHz for the GPU and 970 MHz for the GDDR3 memory on the ASUS EAH3650 TOP and "only" 840 MHz / 990 MHz, respectively, with the HIS Radeon HD 3650 IceQ Turbo.
As one might expect, the higher GPU clock speed achieved when overclocking the ASUS EAH3650 TOP allowed it to rise to the top of each benchmark and best the HIS HD 3650 IceQ Turbo (these tests we not sensitive to frame buffer size). New frame rates for the ASUS card were just over 6% better in each game engine, which is obviously a good thing, yet the speeds we arrived at were closer to 10% higher than the originals. HIS saw approximately a 4% increase in performance, which is more in line with the 5% increase in GPU speed. |
| Performance Summary and Conclusion | ||||||||
|
Performance Summary: This could have been a much closer showdown if ASUS had shipped the EAH3650 TOP with an additional 256MB of memory. As it stands now, the two cards are tweaked to similar speeds and as such performance was nearly identical, but only when frame buffer capacity did not come into play. Game engines that used larger amounts of memory for texture caching, such as Crysis, PT Boats and Company of Heroes, ran much better on the HIS HD 3650 IceQ Turbo equipped with 512 MB of GDDR3.
HIS Radeon HD 3650 IceQ Turbo HIS' version of the HD 3650 comes with slightly lower clock and memory speeds than ASUS' - both lower by exactly 10 MHz to be exact - yet in almost each and every benchmark or game we used in this article the HIS card came out on top, even if the differences were sometimes trivial. Where the IceQ Turbo really shined in comparison to the ASUS EAH3650 TOP was in some of the more graphically challenging game engines, where the extra 256 MB of memory (512 MB total) helped keep frame rates anywhere from 10% to as much as 50% higher. Also in HIS' favor, we had no problems finding a number of outlets that had the card in stock, a few of which were currently offering $20 rebates, thus nullifying the difference in price between the two cards. Idle temps were found to be slightly higher on the HIS card, although under load we found both coolers to have identical heat levels. The IceQ Turbo solution, however, was the quieter of the two options. The only downside, if you will, might be the lower overclock speeds that we achieved when overclocking. Even then, we were running the GPU 120 MHz faster than the original specs called for, meaning more performance basically for free. Summing up the positives and negatives, we're declaring HIS as the winner of this showdown.
|
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
;)
