MSI Radeon HD3650 – latest technologies at affordable price

Recently, we have been focusing primarily on high-end video cards, so today we'll be looking at a value video card for a change. While we look for shortcoming in high-end video cards, we'll have to look for advantages in cheap video cards because their shortcomings are predetermined. However strange that may seem, there are more advantages than in high-end video cards. Admit it - it is nice to see that you've got much with little money spent. Now, let's move on to more specific issues. AMD Radeon HD3650 video cards have come to replace AMD Radeon HD2600Pro and AMD Radeon HD2600XT and at the same time retained the old price level. The major distinctions from the predecessors are about the finer process technology, support for DirectX 10.1, Display Port, and the PCI-express 2.0. Of separate mention is support for the renewed ATI CrossFire X technology by AMD Radeon 3650, which allows merging more than two video cards into a combination. Here are the major specifications of the video cards in question:

Note that new video cards, like more expensive Radeon HD38x0, offer a full support for ATI AVIVO HD. Note that it includes the UVD (Unified Video Decoder) technology which substantially facilitates handling high-definition video, like Blue-Ray and HD-DVD. Therefore, such video card will be a perfect base for a home digital cinema. Now that we have listed all the new features, let's move on to examining the specific video card - MSI R3650-T2D512.

MSI R3650-T2D512 is shipped in a small cardboard box. Despite the small size, the front side of the box contains quite a lot of information, including the key specifications of the video card. This is typical for the MSI products.

On the reverse side of the box, there is also a lot of information, including the mention of support for the ATI CrossFire X. Recall that this technology allows merging more than two video cards into a combination.

The package bundle includes all the necessary items:

• S-video > S-video adapter + composite out (RCA);
• S-Video > Component out adapter;
• S-Video cable with two "male" connectors;
• DVI -> D-Sub adapter;
• drivers CD;
• installation manual.

MSI R3650-T2D512 has been released in a small size, which will be highly appraised by owners of tightly packed housings. Anyway, the PCB design is very similar to the reference. By the way, the video card has been factory-overclocked by 25 MHz for the graphic processor. Amusingly, but that has allowed MSI to add the “OC” label at the end of the video card's marking.

The reverse side of the video card contains four memory chips which make up half the video memory installed on the video card. The other part of the memory is located on the front side of the video card. Also, note the crossbar which is part of fastening of the cooling system, whose advantage here is questionable. The thing is, on the one hand, such crossbars should provide rigidity to the board and ideally press on the board opposite the point where the GPU chip is located, thus providing its reliable contact with the cooling system thus preventing its warp. On the other hand, the rigidity of the PCB is quite enough for holding such a light cooling system, and the crossbar does not contact the point opposite the place where the graphic processor chip is positioned. Therefore, you should treat this "bonus" more like a decoration rather than a necessity.

The cooling system of the video card is small in size. That was more than enough due to the low heat emission of the new graphic processor RV635.

A similar PCB like that was already used by MSI in its previous products. Near the GPU there are four video memory chips which make up 256 MB. The remaining 256 MB are positioned on the reverse side of the video card.

The memory chips are made by Qimonda and offer 1.0 ns access time, which is equivalent to the frequency 2000 MHz. The real operating speed of the video memory is lower – 1600 MHz.

The radiator of the cooling system is fully pained golden and contacts the graphic chip via viscous heat-conductive mass that resembles chewing gum.

Cooling system efficiency

We'll be testing the efficiency of the cooling system in the same way as before with the game Oblivion at the maximum settings, and Riva Tuner.

While measuring the temperatures, the values varied in leaps and bounds and finally achieved the point 57 C. That's really not bad at all for such a "cold" chip. However, we should note that the cooling system was far not noiseless, albeit not loud as well, so that is a shortcoming of the new product. We also note the perfect operation of the ATI PowerPlay technology which, at the time of low load upon the video card, reduces its frequencies to 110 / 800 MHz for the graphic processor and video memory, respectively. That's about all, so let's move on to the most interesting part – discussion of the methodology and the tests themselves.

Details of the testing methodology

Admit it - it would be stupid to test a value video card at the settings we normally use for tests of high-end high-performance video cards. It is also not good to downstate the settings for the sake of tests and producing reports. There is only one way out left – to take a creative approach and downstate those settings which will give the maximum boost and have a minimum effect on the image quality. So, we'll be testing high-end video cards at the maximum settings in games, and now we are listing only the parameters which we changed.

Call of Duty 4:
Shadows: no
Soften Smoke Edges: no

That was quite enough to raise the gameplay speed to a more comfortable experience.

Call of Juarez
Shadows: middle
Shadow size: 1024
Materials quality: middle
Texture quality: middle
Foliage quality: middle
Enchanted quality: off (only in the DX10 mode)

Need for Speed Carbon
Car reflection update: off
Motion blur: off

Need for Speed Pro Street Racing
Shadows on the motorway: middle
Motorway effects: minimum
Effects of cars: disabled
Smoke: disabled

In Crysis, we used the middle quality settings, at Oblivion – we also reduced the quality settings from middle to low but left "enabled" those features which are more typical of high-quality modes, e.g., HDR (dynamic illumination). We did not change the quality settings in Prey, because this game is a too hard nut to crack even for almost all modern video cards. By the way, we ran tests in Crysis using the integrated test and not the SmartFPS.com as we did before. We had to do that because SmartFPS.com replaces the game settings with its own, which is unacceptable for us.

Now, a few words on the competitors and the way we selected them. As the rivals to MSI R3650-T2D512, used were Radeon HD2600XT with 256 MB DDR4 memory and GeForce 8600GT with 256 MB DDR3 memory. Our choice is explained by the retail prices for the video cards – all the three cost about the same. You might ask if the 256 MB of video memory is enough. We'll demonstrate the answer on the example of Crysis with the quality settings set to the middle level:

Crysis under Windows XP required 209 MB of video memory, so the 256 MB of onboard memory was quite enough.

Well, let's look at the results of tests!

Benchmarking and conclusions

Before looking at the test results, let's look at the configuration of our test bench and the versions of the drivers:

For Radeon video cards we used Catalyst 8.3 for both the operating systems, for GeForce 8600GT - ForceWare 169.21 and ForceWare 169.25 for Windows XP and Windows Vista, respectively. Traditionally, we are examining the results starting with 3DMark tests:

At 3DMark05 and 3DMark 06, MSI R3650-T2D512 took the second and the last place, respectively. On the one hand, that may seem a loss of the new product, but on the other hand - the difference is so minor to give a one-one verdict. So, let's look at the results of gaming tests which we ran using the 16x AF. Enabling it had a weak effect on the speed of video cards.

At Call of Duty 4, MSI R3650-T2D512 took the second place, and the predecessor Radeon HD2600XT anyway proved faster. However, there no wonder in that Radeon HD2600XT offers much higher frequencies than those of MSI R3650-T2D512.

At Call of Juarez, MSI R3650-T2D512 again took the second place, however, it lagged a bit behind GeForce 8600GT at 1600x1200, but that is not essential.

On moving to the DirectX 10, the Radeon video cards substantially lost in speed, and GeForce 8600GT took a lead. In fact, that is not the only game where NVIDIA's video card has taken a lead, so let's not take it too close. Admit it, the speed of the game leaves much to be desired, so why not to reduce the settings even more than that?

That's better, albeit not sufficient. However, we should admit that at 1024x768 it is quite possible to play at even this speed and play with pleasure.

At Crysis, this MSI's new product (or AMD – whichever you like) again took the second place.

On moving to the DirectX 10 mode, the game Crysis demonstrates its grown appetites for resources, so the speed of all the participants of the tests appears to be insufficient. Now let's see the speed performance in the low quality mode!

That's better! Needless to say, the game has lost greater part of its niceties and looked like the good old Far Cry, but on the other hand we got the chance to play it comfortably.

At Need for Speed Carbon, only GeForce 8600GT does not perform in the best way, but both the Radeon video card again demonstrates quite good results. MSI R3650-T2D512 again took the second place.

At Need for Speed Pro Street Racing, MSI R3650-T2D512 performs at about the same level as GeForce 8600GT, and Radeon HD2600XT took the first place due to the high clock speeds.

At Oblivion, MSI R3650-T2D512 yielded a bit to GeForce 8600GT, but the difference is so minor that this is not worth to be treated as a victory of the latter. By and large, all the video cards demonstrate almost similar results.

At Prey, MSI R3650-T2D512 loses to GeForce 8600GT albeit at 1024x768. As the resolutions go up, the NVIDIA's video card yields its positions, and the MSI's new product takes the second place.

Final Words

Today's tests have shown that new Radeon HD3650 video cards have proved successful. Of course, they are slower than Radeon HD2600XT equipped with GDDR4, but they consume less power and therefore emit less heat, which became possible due to the finer 55-nm process technology. At the same time, let's not forget about support for DirectX 10.1 and the Display Port by these video cards, which may be in demand in future. In general, AMD Radeon HD3650 and, specifically, MSI R3650-T2D512 are inexpensive and rather functional video cards which will suit to those who are ready for tradeoffs in terms of settings in games.

Pros:

• low power consumption and heat emission;
• efficient cooling system.

Cons:

• noise coming from the cooling system.