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Review: 3-way passively-cooled midrange shootout. Sapphire vs HIS vs XFX

by Tarinder Sandhu on 4 May 2007, 08:45

Tags: HiS Graphics

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qaicd

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Introduction



There are a number of factors to consider if looking to upgrade your graphics card.

Most folks can't justify spending £350+ on a GeForce 8800 GTX and, somewhat sensibly, opt to keep on the safe side of £100.

Both AMD and NVIDIA's board partners understand that the sub-£100 market is the volume space, and they all tend to have multiple SKUs at, often, overlapping price points.

DX10 gaming is still a little way's off so partners still rely on DX9 parts to make up the bulk of their sales.

In the name of differentiation, larger AICs have taken it upon themselves to design and market passively-cooled cards based on popular GPUs.

We have 3 such offerings today, encompassing the Radeon X1650 Pro, Radeon X1650 XT and GeForce 7600 GT SKUs from Sapphire, HIS, and XFX, respectively.

They're positioned at different price points and performance is, well, interesting. Read on to find out if silence and performance can coexist in one package.