The HD 3650 was intended as a mid-range offering after AT! had mediocre success with the Radeon HD 2600 XT. As a DX 10 part the HD 3650 has 120 SPs, which may seem a lot, but as we've seen before the number of SPs isn't always indicative to performance especially when comparisons between brands are made. Based on a newer 55 nm fabrication process this GPU stays quite cool, and should be suitable for multimedia and HTPC users.

Features

GeCube was the only vendor to send us a card based on the core. This card came with all the necessary cables and connectors although we missed HDMI con¬nectivity. The bundle was minus any games.

Performance

We were interested to compare this card with NVIDIAs GeForce 9500 GT and 9400 GT offerings. Although it's one generation older and AT! has already replaced this GPU with the new Radeon 4650 and 4550 GPUs (which we just couldn't get working) we wanted to see if the Radeon 3650 could hold its own. While it is a slightly superior offering to the GeForce 9400 GT it doesn't hold a candle to the faster 9500 GTs. It's superiority to the 9400 GT based cards is noticeable in 3D Mark Vantage, World In Conflict and Crysis; all of which are heav¬ily stress shader performance. At Rs 4,650 it's no gamers' card, and even at that price you will find much better options for gaming from amongst the GeForce 9500 GT range. What it is, is a super cool running card that hardly consumes any power - perfect for non-gamers who need the good¬ness of discrete graphics.

And Our Choice For You Is

Our Best Performer was Palit's 9600 GT SONIC 1 GB - the fastest entry level card priced at Rs. 8,750. However, the EVGA 9600 GT steals the limelight when it comes to value for money. For a mere 0.5 percent or so less performance this card is a whopping Rs. 1250 or 20 percent cheaper. EVGA has struck gold with their 9600 GT. Gamers looking to build good gaming rigs that don't rip your pocket should definitely consider the EVGA 9600 GT. MSIs 9600 GT Zilent was only slightly slower than the other two 9600 GT solutions but costs pretty penny steer clear of this one. If you're looking to play online games like MMORPGs and such, the EVGA 9600 GT should be your choice; its not very power hun¬gry and should easily run most games at medium resolutions. For connectivity options Palit's 9600 GSO SONIC is hard to beat with DVI, D-Sub, HDMI and Display Port connects this card has all bases covered. AT! doesn't make a very strong name for itself here but if you're a fan of the brand PowerColor's HD 3850 is your best bet for a decent gam¬ing experience. Priced at Rs 6,900 it's also a little cheaper (though qEite a bit slower) than offerings from EVGA and Palit.



ForabudgetofaroundRs.5,000 it's hard to ignore ZOTACs 9500 GT AMP! Edition. At Rs 5,333 this card will easily play older games and is very suitable for someone wanting to try his hand at gam¬ing. Alternately Calibre's 9500 GT offers a little more performance and a cool display unit for a small premium of around Rs 900. Anyone looking for something an HTPC class card should look at the GeForce 9400 GT cards. We recom¬mend either ZOTAC or Sparkle as brands. ZOTAC has the advantage of offering an HDMI adapter, while Sparkle has a slightly cheaper card which is also the cheapest graph¬ics card in our labs this month.

TO wrap Up

These are interesting times. While the entry level cards gener¬ally do not cause much of splash we've already seen decent perfor¬mance throughout the spectrum of even dirt cheap cards. Anyone looking at using Windows Vista or using their computer as an HTPC should seriously consider including a graphics card into the budget. Sadly we couldn't get working drivers for the HD 4650 and 4550 cards we received from AT!, and the 4670s have not yet hit our market. NVIDIA too, is lagging with providing us with new entry level offerings based on their GTX 2xx architec¬ture. With more and more users jumping on the general purpose PC bandwagon we feel the need for graphics cards in this country is only going to burgeon. Then there's the unknown equation of DX 10.1 and DX 11 lurking on the yet unseen horizon. Thankfully, if you're reading this, you aren't really a hard core gamer, and future antics of Microsoft aren't really going to affect your fun any. Ditch the DVD player - the age of the HTPC is here.