HIS X1650 IceQ Turbo

[Miles]

Reviewer: Bjorn "Swedbear" Endre

Date Published: January 23, 2007

Excerpt: "The card I am testing today, the HIS X1650XT IceQ Turbo, uses the relatively new graphic chipset, the x1650XT from ATI. While the name suggests it is nothing more than a slightly faster X1650 Pro, the truth is that it is much more than that."


http://www.bjorn3D.com/Material/revimages/rev_forum/his_1650xt.jpg

Feel free to post your comments and questions here!

Link To Review (http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1041)

[XJnine]

Great review. I gotta say this though, ATI (nvidia too) has gone way too overboard with their product line. On a whim I decided to go to ATI's website and see what they list for their product line. On most of their cards they don't list the variations (XT, XTX, GTO, etc...;) so I had to find that out on my own. Here's what is currently listed as the product line from ATI:

x1950xtx
x1950 crossfire
x1950pro
x1950xt
x1900 crossfire
x1900xtx
x1900xt
x1900gt
x1800xt
x1800xl
x1800gto
x1800 crossfire
x1650xt
x1650pro
x1600xt
x1600pro
x1550
x1300pro
x1300
x1050
x850xt pe
x850xt
x850pro
x850
x800xt
x800xl
x800pro
x800gto
x700pro
x700
x600xt
x600pro
x550
x550 hypermemory
x300
x300se
x9800xt
x9800pro
x9800
x9600xt
x9600pro
x9600
x9550
x9250
x9200
x9200se
x9700

I'm sure I probably missed some since I only spent about 15 minutes working on this. WTF?!?!?! How many products do you need?!?! Talk about confusing the customer!!! They could really cut that down quite a bit and I'm sure it would make everyone happier. Customers would be able to choose a product a little more easily without trying to figure out which product is better than another and ATI's marketing, sales, and support division would have a much easier time dealing with their own products.

What a mess. I know nvidia is guilty too but I think ATI is much worse.

[Raptorfury]

good review to bad ati didnt come out with the x1050 line up before the x1000 line up ... yea nvidia is just as bad as ati with all there different varient of cards . they both have bout the same amount

[Kougar]

Yeah, that's not even the half of them. ;) x800GT, x800GTO2, and most of those cards include a SE moniker as the cut down variant and even LE on some, that is definitely only half of the models.

Part of it is you've included three (Possibly four) entire generations of ATI graphics cards there though, and while I don't disagree with you I think if you only look at the current generation that is still produced then it's a good deal better. I think nVidia is just as bad though of this, especially if you are going to compare back four generations of their cards.

[XJnine]

The reason I listed everything I did is because that's what ATI currently lists on their website as products. I would imagine they would only list currently produced products on the product page on their website. Nvidia lists the Geforce 8, 7, 6, FX, and 4MX series on their site. I'm sure if it were all spelled out it would look just as bad as ATI.

I didn't include mobile, professional, or integrated models.

I also know that some older cards like the 9800pro are still produced by ATI. We use them in some of the systems we use at work and we're probably buying close to a dozen a week from them.

[Kougar]

I know ATI still produces 9550 cards for the ultra AGP low end, but they do so to replace the entire 9500 series, 9200 series, the 9550 Pro, and so on.

To my knowledge cards like the x1800 series are no longer produced in favor of x1900 cards. Same with the x800 and x850 series of the last generation. Then there are cards like the x700XT that were announced, but never officially launched and only a few were ever released into the market. Many of those cards are simply not produced anymore or replaced by other cards listed, I would guess ATI lists them because they can still be found on the market, especially brick & mortar shelves where GPU's tend to sit around longer. Some of this I've picked up from reading Anandtech's GPU price guides, they tend to fill them with this kind of info on what's still produced and what's simply leftover stock.

[darkorb]

but with Nvidia, u can tell which cards are better than each other. However like the 6800gt, is better than the 7300gt. but its easier to tell than ATI

x850xt pe vs. x1800xl :P

tough choice, other than the SM3 part of it

[Kougar]

Forgotten nVidia's longstanding FX5000 series already? FX5500, FX5600, FX5700, FX5800, FX5900... and then for most of these there were at least 3 or 4 flavors, for example for just the 5900 series:

FX5900
FX5900 LE
FX5900 SE
FX5900 VE
FX5900 XT
FX5900 ZT
FX5900 Ultra
FX5950
FX5950 Ultra
FX5900 "Ultra Extreme"

I want someone to try and make sense of those listings. :grin: All of those are cards I found or remembered seeing for only a single series. Throw in the previous 5800, 5700, 5600, 5500, 5300, and 5200 cards, then times the lot by 4 and that's a rough figure for you! No one would have a clue exactly which cards outperformed which. If you have a clue what a "VE" or "ZT" card is, then you'd be an uber geek. ;) In most cases older cards outperformed the newer ones. It was a very much debated topic back then, which I happily was not a part of as I had a simple 9600XT that toasted most of them. :) IIRC the 5700 series was just as bad as the 5900 series with all of these versions.

nVidia does list many of their GPUs just as AMD/ATI does, except they hide them on different pages. It's ironic they don't list them all however...

[PP Mguire]

I just look at the top of each gen now instead of looking at low end and mid range cards. So i know what im getting for my money. Like 3rd gen, 9800XT FTW, after that X850XT PE, X1900XTX, X1950XTX, R600.

F5950 Ultra PCI-E, 6800Ultra Extreme, 7800GTX 512mb, 7900GTX, 7950GX2, 8800GTX. Ect.

[Kougar]

Forgot the "7800GTX 512mb" :mrgreen:

[PP Mguire]

Eh i suppse that was the best of the 7800 series. Will edit.

[Toebot]

I picked up a X1650XT, not the HIS, a Sapphire. Its scores are comparable to the results listed, all except for Fear. I've clocked it the same as the HIS, but there is no way that I'm getting even close to those scores. Fear must love the C2D 'cause it's stomping the crap out of my Opteron (2.6GHz). I can get frame rates around 60 but only at medium settings without AA (just forget about soft shadows).

I got the card because it was dirt cheap and seamed like a good interim solution until the next generation hit the mainstream. (And there was always the slight chance that ATI would make good and it could be used as a physics card.) But unless they drop below $100, I wouldn't recommend them. There are just too many similarly priced cards that perform allot better, even ATI's other products are competing in the same space. About the best use for this card would be in a HTPC, even the single slot coolers are quiet and they don't suck allot of power.

[Kougar]

Well, can't say about physics, but you can run F@H on it. ;)