Diamond Viper HD 3650 1GB

The Diamond HD3650 1GB is not a bad card as it does support DirectX 10.1 features, meaning that you can play the latest and greatest games on the computer with full visual fidelity. The problem becomes, when price comes into play along with the performance of the card, the card just doesn’t cut the mustard. Another review of this card states that at $95 USD, this card is an ok buy and I would agree with that statement. At $130 online from various sources (Newegg, ZipZoomFly etc.) the card is not a good buy as there are better choices for your money.

The Diamond 3650PEG1 is a mid range ATi graphics card targeting the masses with a good cost/performance ratio. With the test results, we have seen that this card is probably not that suitable for demanding 3D games running in high resolutions. In fact, the card is prices pretty low as a mid range card suitable for game playing and Blu Ray movie playback. Using Using the ATitool's 3D artifact detection software, we left the card to run. for 15 minutes. At normal room temperature of around 30 Degrees, the GPU temp maintains at 33 degrees Celsius. After 10 mins of running the catalyst artifact scanner, the GPU temperature rises steadily to about 61 degrees Celsius. The card runs pretty cool under the load.

Much like other 3650 cards, you get a pretty good performer packed with features for a low price. The inclusion of native HDMI-out is a big plus for anyone running a home theater PC setup, but others are not left out with VGA and DVI connections as well. So while it is another good 3650 card, I just can't see the benefit aside from marketing to add the additional memory to make 1GB. I'm sure with prices being so low on DDR2 these days, it's sort of a no brainer from the marketing department, but performance-wise no 3650 will ever be able to run a game at resolutions to warrant the extra memory. So while there is about a $20 premium for the 1GB card, the inclusion of HDMI onboard can make up for some of that difference in price.

Integrating an HDMI output on a graphics card is an excellent idea in my opinion, especially when the card has HDCP and audio support. Such connectivity would greatly benefit the users of media PC systems, but all this becomes irrelevant with the noisy fan. Nobody wants to hear a constant loud fan whine while watching movies. Since Diamond left out the fan control circuit the fan will always run at full speed, no matter if the card is idle, playing a movie or running an intense 3D application. The cost saving from this is extremely small, all recent ATI GPUs have thermal monitoring AND fan control integrated inside the GPU, all you need are a few dirt cheap parts to drive the fan with sufficient current. Older cards required a separate fan controller, the LM63 for example, which was fairly expensive with prices in the $1 to $2 range. Overall my recommendation for customers in this segment would be to look for a HD 3650 card with 512 MB or even 256 MB of faster memory, maybe even a passive card.

As I see it, you shouldn't spend your money in anything less than a Radeon HD 3850 if you want to game, and those after the additional HTPC features often need not spend more than $40. There are a few different variations of the Radeon HD 3650 getting around and this Diamond version uses the slower GDDR2 memory. There are GDDR3 versions which operate at significantly higher memory frequencies, providing a greatly improved memory bandwidth. However, the GDDR3 cards are only available with 256MB of memory, which is also not ideal for modern gaming titles. Loading the Diamond Viper Radeon HD 3650 with 1GB of memory was a seriously bad move, as it decreased performance while increasing the cost, and this is the last thing the Radeon HD 3650 needs.