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Radeon HD3650

D

Doom4life

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 31, 2006
Messages
196
My girlfriend just bought Spore, so I'm thinking of upgrading the graphics card on the system I built for her a number of years ago. I realize it is an old system, but she is plenty happy with the performance, so I don't think its necessary upgrading everything at the moment.

She has an AMD Sempron 2600+ with 1.5GB of RAM. Currently, theres an ATI 9200 graphics card in there. I was thinking of going with a Visiontek Radeon HD3650 just so she can play at full resolution with higher graphics settings. Would this be the best bet? The place I would buy it from (has really good prices) only carries ATI cards, so nVidia isn't an option. Keep in mind, that other future games (ie Sims 3) would probably be played on this system. Perhaps even upgrading the processor to a cheap Athlon 64 3400+ would be an option, but I'm not sure the price/performance would make it worth it.

She plays it on her laptop just fine (with graphics settings on low), and its a Turion 64 1.6Ghz with 1.5GB of RAM and a ATI Xpress 200m graphics chip. I have to bump down the resolution to 1024 x 768 though, but she doesn't care.
 
Its a socket 754 system. As I mentioned before, she is happy with her system so far, so I doubt she would see the need to spend extra on a motherboard and processor.

The Visiontek card is $84.99.
 
If you do enough looking, you MIGHT be able to find a PCI-e 754 motherboard and a better video card for that price. $85 for 3650-level performance is hard to swallow. But I understand where you're coming from in terms of her being happy with performance otherwise - my wife is using a laptop with an X1600 mobile for the sims3.

Even a motherboard with integrated Radeon X1250 or GeForce 7100 would be a better performer.

edit:

http://www.ascendtech.us/itemdesc.asp?ic=MB64FICC51GSYSK
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102820

way better performance for the same money. no backplate, though. That's kinda silly. Extend yourself $10 more and you'll find a motherboard with an IO shield.
 
Doom4life said:
My girlfriend just bought Spore, so I'm thinking of upgrading the graphics card on the system I built for her a number of years ago. I realize it is an old system, but she is plenty happy with the performance, so I don't think its necessary upgrading everything at the moment.

She has an AMD Sempron 2600+ with 1.5GB of RAM. Currently, theres an ATI 9200 graphics card in there. I was thinking of going with a Visiontek Radeon HD3650 just so she can play at full resolution with higher graphics settings. Would this be the best bet? The place I would buy it from (has really good prices) only carries ATI cards, so nVidia isn't an option. Keep in mind, that other future games (ie Sims 3) would probably be played on this system. Perhaps even upgrading the processor to a cheap Athlon 64 3400+ would be an option, but I'm not sure the price/performance would make it worth it.

She plays it on her laptop just fine (with graphics settings on low), and its a Turion 64 1.6Ghz with 1.5GB of RAM and a ATI Xpress 200m graphics chip. I have to bump down the resolution to 1024 x 768 though, but she doesn't care.
Click to expand...

going back on old hardware like that can sometime cost more then just going with the newer. in this case a 780G board with a couple gigs of memory and a good X2 would probably do more then just getting the video card. and you could do it for ~125 easy.
 
Doom4life said:
Its a socket 754 system. As I mentioned before, she is happy with her system so far, so I doubt she would see the need to spend extra on a motherboard and processor.

The Visiontek card is $84.99.
Click to expand...

Hard to say go for it at that price. You buying locally? ewiz has an AGP HD3650 for $60.
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=AT...d1e7e9006dca146545918f03d27891964a25790b4372c

Newegg has AGP HD3850 and HD4650 for $80 (both of which have 3 times the steam processors over the HD3650).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814103080

Newegg has an AGP x1650pro for $50.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102073
 
ClearM4 said:
Hard to say go for it at that price. You buying locally? ewiz has an AGP HD3650 for $60.
http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?p=AT...d1e7e9006dca146545918f03d27891964a25790b4372c

Newegg has AGP HD3850 and HD4650 for $80 (both of which have 3 times the steam processors over the HD3650).
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814103080

Newegg has an AGP x1650pro for $50.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102073
Click to expand...

good fines but just to push the point your half way to a system overhaul at these prices.
 
Valset said:
good finds but just to push the point your half way to a system overhaul at these prices.
Click to expand...

Half price is still half price. If your happy with your system why spend more. Plus, an over haul takes a good amount of time to setup, reinstall software and restore personal settings.

But I agreed with a 780G motherboard being a good upgrade option if the OP is willing to spend the time and a little more cash (~$150 for 780G mobo, X2 CPU, 2GB DDR2 RAM?). The 780G intergrated HD3200 graphics are pretty nice for what they are (3dmarks05 scores ~3500 and 3dmarks06 ~1500). Will be enough to make the OP's girl happy and leaves the option for a futrue video card upgrade if wanted.

And to answer the OP question, for a older system the HD3650 is probably a great choice; since that CPU won't allow you to play many new games there is no reason to spend more cash on a stronger video card that might need a new PSU. It would be nice to find one for $50 or less though; used maybe? You can probably find a used x1650pro or 6600GT for less than $50.

Upgrading the CPU to a 3400+ will help if you can find a cheap one used. Those Semprons are quite a bit slower than the normal x64 chips.
 
Last edited:
RADEoN said:
yea i'd say try to score a used CPU and video card.
Click to expand...

I was bored and check ebay; saw the 754 3400+ for $35 shipped.

So OP is looking at ~$60 to upgrade just the GPU, ~$100 to upgrade both the cpu and video card, or ~$150 to upgrade to a new dual core rig with much more power and future upgrade options, but requires much more setup time.

Tough choice. I would probably go the cheapest route myself and see how it runs.
 
ClearM4 said:
Half price is still half price. If your happy with your system why spend more. Plus, an over haul takes a good amount of time to setup, reinstall software and restore personal settings.
Click to expand...

because to a point it actually is not cheaper for some things. like the 939 dual cores, I had a hell of a time getting one and then selling it off. to make a long story short at the end of the day I didn't really save anything. and a lot of people actually end up paying more for less. its just my experience that there is a point where you can buy a bare bones for the same price as a upgrade, in the OP case the price of the card and cpu upgrade would get him nearly two generation step up for the in a cpu/motherboard/memory combo. I was pretty sorry to see my 939 setup go (nostalgia, that and it served me really well) I could not escape that upgrading it cost more then rebuilding it.
 
Thanks for the replies all....

I bought the 3650 from a local computer store, before seeing the posting on NewEgg. I'm from Canada, but I have an American address to shop to, so I never thought of going that route. I returned it today, and will explore the options available on NewEgg (more on that later).

I think I am going to stay away from buying a whole new system, since she and I feel there is really no need to. It does everything she uses it for just fine (e-mail, web browsing, listening to music), so I think spending slightly more for a dual core rig would be overkill. She doesn't play many games, infact Spore is her first one that has actually required a half decent graphics card. The only other games she would probably buy would be Sims 3, which again adding a graphics card is really all thats needed. That, and she wants to get a MacBook Pro (I know, I know...) in a few months, so I would rather save that extra bit of money and put that towards that laptop.

I tried out Spore on my system (Athlon 64 3400+, x850 XT Pro (o/c to XT PE) and 2 gigs of RAM) and she enjoyed playing Spore on it (versus her Mobility 200M laptop). There was no choppiness and it looked nicer, which is all she wants.

So I've narrowed down the card to either an x1650 Pro ($49.99) or an HD4650 ($79.99). Money is not an issue here, as long as it will perform well.
 
Yup, both of ours are AGP.. and that is one option to consider :) However, I was thinking of giving my x850 to one of my friends. We play Flight Simulator X every so often, and I think he uses a Radeon 9200 so he'd get a nice boost of framerates with it.

I was aware of the newegg site, but here are the cost differences for one card shipped:

American address:
HD4650 - $89.99 USD
UPS 3 Day - $7.00
---------------------------------
TOTAL: $86.99 USD (~$96.56 CAD)

Canadian address:
HD4650 - $92.99
Handling and fees (ie taxes) - $12.39
Shipping - $10.59
---------------------------------
TOTAL: $115.97 CAD



So its almost $20.00 cheaper for me to get it shipped to my USA address. I live like ten minutes from the border, and I get gas once a week.
 
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