ASUS X1650XT

A happy DX9 card that's great value for budget gaming.

It’s finally happened: ATI has a 7600GT competitor. It may be on the eve of DX 9’s inevitable retirement, but it has done it in the form of the X1650XT.

Although the other X1650XTs we’ve seen require no power, ASUS’ model comes with a power socket and features an obviously different board design to its competitors.

The card also features the new Native CrossFire, as seen previously on the X1950 Pro – here is where the debacle begins. Although there no longer exists a physical need for CrossFire edition cards (as the compositing engine is now on all cards), a number of vendors aren’t including the required internal bridges to enable CrossFire, in an effort to save on costs. According to ATI, vendors should be including one bridge with every card (two are required for CrossFire to function). The reality is the bulk of cards are currently being sold without bridges, with CrossFire editions still needing to be bought to attain the required bridges at a slight extra cost. This will apparently be changing soon to fit ATI’s way of doing things.

ASUS manages to make a good stab at value, including a CD wallet, DVI/D-Sub converters, component breakout cable and molex to PCI-E power cable. GTI Racing is included – not exactly a show-stopping game, but entertaining enough.

In 3DMark06 SM3.0, Quake 4 and Half-Life 2 the card scored 1262 3DMarks, 47.9fps and 56.49fps respectively. Comparatively, the 7600GT pulls 1099, 47.8 and 50.65. Victory for the red team!

The X1650XT does cost a little bit more than the now ancient 7600GT, but still represents decent value. If you’re looking for mid-level DX 9 card, then this is the ticket. In saying this, we’d suggest stretching another $50 to $80 and going for an X1950 Pro or 7950GT for better cost/performance, or more sensibly waiting for the budget DX 10 parts to be released in the first half of this year.