A very solid video card
Written: Sep 29 '07 (Updated Sep 29 '07)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Excellent card performance, (games, video, ect) particularly given the price.
Cons: FRUSTRATING installation. Sapphire needs to spend more attention to making their products easier to install.
The Bottom Line: I would say that this is an excellent choice if you are computer savvy and patient. If not, select a different card.
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| bogrod's Full Review: Sapphire RADEON¿ X1650, (256 MB) AGP Video Card |
In my quest to come up with a choice for my aging computer and its equally-aging video card, I had to decide from a rather substantial list. There are dozens of manufacturers out there who use either ATI or nVidia, in configurations from rather modest to totally exotic (and expensive). I definitely did not want to bust the bank on a purchase for my motherboard which hosts the now-old AGP interface (most modern motherboards carry PCI-E) and I figured that settling for something on the high end of the "low" scale would work.
This card came with a fair degree of positive word-of-mouth, so I went ahead with it.
My initial experience with this product out of the box was, to say the least, frustrating. During initial installation, the computer refused to accept the card (caused the computer to shut down) and also refused to accept the new drivers off of the included CD-ROM. It was only after many many hours and searching on the web (and a lot of recommendations that lead to dead ends) until I eventually managed to find a third-party driver that finally allowed the card to be attached to my motherboard without causing a shutdown or other graphics issues. Once this happened, my computer then recognised the new card and then requested the proper drivers.
Unforunately, this was very much a trial-and-error process and was very time-consuming and frustrating. I think I ended up spending 4 and a half hours on it.
Now that the card has been installed, I have nothing but good things to say about it. Gone are the stuttery movements on characters in Sims 2. Same goes for any video that is played online (Youtube and so forth) The card essentially imported the settings that I had from my previous card, and no additional work was needed along those lines (a definite plus). There is a very small fan attached to the video card's heatsink, but I have not noticed an increase in fan noise from my computer. The fan means an extra draw on the power supply, but the one I have is holding the load. This however might be a concern if you're already pushing the limits of your power supply.
To conclude this review, I certainly recommend this card if you are looking for something that is relatively low-cost and are familiar with the installation of new video cards and their drivers. If you end up purchasing this card and have difficulties, I recommend seeking out the Omega third party driver version 3.8.291 (Catalyst equivalent 6.9). Uninstall your current video card's drivers, wait for the call to restart your system, and then once you reload back to desktop, you will be in basic VGA mode. At this point, install the Omega driver. Once you've install this driver, hook on the video card to your motherboard and then install the proper drivers (once the proper drivers from the cd-rom are installed, you can then safely uninstall the Omega driver)
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 75.00
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Epinions.com ID:
bogrod
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Reviews written: 17
Trusted by: 0 members
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