Hello, first post. I have been reading and enjoying the forum and have just joined. I am building a very restricted budget PC, non gamer but want half decent graphics, want it to be fairly nippy but no need for blistering spec. I am going AMD and understand AMD and ATI work well together. I currently use ATI, have tried gforce before but dont seem to get on with it..... Anyway, I have a choice between 2 low spec cards Sapphire X1650 Pro and Asus 4350 silent, both of which are 512MB. and Pcie2 Now I know they are both old ( but still current, just!) with the Sapphire being the older. I bought the Asus forgetting I had the X1659, and am now wondering which to use. Any thoughts appreciated.
Knowing absolutley nothing about either cards other than seeing the numbers, I'd say go with your new one, I'm guessing the old one is DX9 max? Aren't all the HD 4XXX cards DX10? Also, they're probably still doing drivers for the 4350.
... lol actually according to this the X1650 models that are listed are a good few levels higher than the 4350 xP. You should take the DX version into account though. You could always run some benchmarks with both cards and see which one performs better.
Thanks for the advice both. Dae, thats an interesting point about the performance...Although I think I will fit the newer card because I just remembered why the 1650 was in a cupboard. Drivers were a nightmare to get right. As for benchmarking both, well I haven't built the PC yet! Maybe I should put my list of bits up, see what people make of it.
i have an HIS X1650 in my HTPC, it plays 1080...but not much else. it used to be my primary card for gaming/general use and was pretty insufferable at any reasonable resolution. it just so happens that i have my furmark benches for the 1650 still uploaded: pretty sad.... but just for the lulz, vs my 5870: EDIT: and BTW, i never had any problems with the CCC version that i use with that card (according to furmark its 8.5). so if you do go with the 1650, 8.5 is probably a safe bet for you.
You are both correct in your assumptions, I will be using it for 1080. a fair bit. More interested in 2D performance than 3D for this machine. In fact, when I get round to building a HTPC I will use this card and find another more recent card for this current build ( details of which should be on here soon, newbie so takes a while for my posts to appear) AV forums seem to like the 4350 for its silence , half height and 1080 performance. Driver choice seems to be an issue though. Thanks for the comments and insights, it all helps!
Why not consider the 5450? http://www.ebuyer.com/product/201166 The 5450 has better audio controller than the 4350. 4350: "Integrated HD audio controller with up to 2 channel 48 KHz stereo or multi-channel (7.1) AC3 enabling a plug-and-play cable-less audio solution" 5450: "* Output protected high bit rate 7.1 channel surround sound over HDMI with no additional cables required * Supports AC-3, AAC, Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio formats" Also not to mention 5450 support Eyefinity as well, so you can use 3 dislay with just one card.
Thanks Marine, don't know how that one slipped past me! Slightly faster engine clock and better audio. No reviews yet on that site though , but no doubt there will be some somewhere. However, as this is a budget build, and I already have the X1650 and with the 4350 on its way it has to be a choice between those two! Thanks anyway though, appreciated!
Well, for general uses the 4350 would be better...but for gaming performance, the X1650 would be better...just thought you should know this.
