One of the surprise hits out of Monolith was
F.E.A.R. This supernatural FPS looks incredible and really pushes a video card to its limits. For the benchmark, we ran three resolutions using the in game benchmark with all the settings set at max.
Prey has been in development for many years but the folks at Human Head finally released the game this year. The game utilizes the
Doom 3 engine like
Quake 4 and features the really cool Portal technology to garner some interesting game play aspects. All settings were set to maximum and three resolutions were chosen for the test.
Half-Life 2 is Valve's sequel to the mega hit that just keeps on going. The game features incredible physics and highly detailed graphics. A scene near the beach with attacking ant lions was used to test this card along with setting the graphics at maximum.
As you can see the performance is pretty much the same compared to a regular Radeon X1650 Pro. While I didn't enjoy Sapphire's regular offering as much, I do give them credit for trying something different and putting on a passive cooling unit does make this a unique card in its class. What you do get is above average game performance coupled with great multimedia support inAVIVO and a quiet card that will go great in an HTPC. Because of the tight spacing in HTPC boards that are typically mATX, the cooler might get in the way of some after market CPU cooling solutions. Overall, the Sapphire Radeon X1650 Pro Ultimate brings something different to the market in its segment and doesn't follow the reference design that other companies offer. You are paying a little more for having a silent solution but it does bring something different to the table.
C
The heating solution makes this card completely silent and offers ok performance. It's not going to run games at high resolutions but if you don't to spend too much or need a silent card for your PC, this card fits the bill.
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