SAPPHIRE 100258L Radeon HD 3650 512MB 128-bit GDDR2 AGP 4X/8X HDCP Ready Video Card

Reviewed By: kdogg on 7/26/2010

Tech Level: high - Ownership: 1 day to 1 week

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: played hd videos in windows xp and 7 on slower cpus (using 5% cpu load)

Cons: Would shut off in windows XP during any 3d activity. I tried this in 3 different computers/PSU's.
In windows 7 it did the same thing but was able to recover from it, still prevented any game playing (and these are older games i was playing such as Dungeons and Dragons Online).
Came to the conclusion that it doesn't support older AGP motherboards (the one i planned on using it in was an nForce2 ultra 400 with the latest bios available to it)

Other Thoughts: If you can get this to work in your motherboard, it would be a decent AGP solution for windows vista/7 for hd playback and light gaming.

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Big Improvement in video output

Reviewed By: Injun10 on 7/26/2010

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: 1 week to 1 month

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: I bought this card to replace a Radeon 9600. It is a dual display setup and I needed HDTV output to connect to the component video input on my old Sony Trinitron. Of the few AGP cards available, even fewer include the HDTV connector. I have the monitor set to 480p and this card in conjunction with the Avivo software produces great quality output for all video up to 720p. I am very pleased.

Cons: This card runs much hotter than the 9600 and the fan adds noise. I also had to speed up the case fan for more cooling which adds even more noise. But I just sit further back, crank up the volume and enjoy the view.

Other Thoughts: I originally built my mobile Athlon XP based system years ago to host my OTA HDTV tuner and play music via iTunes or Internet radio. This system is more than adequate. Recently, I have watched more music videos and this card really improves the capability of the system. I find that ATI cards are very video friendly and just work.

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Unfortunate...

Reviewed By: on 7/12/2010

Tech Level: somewhat high - Ownership: 1 day to 1 week

This user purchased this item from Newegg

Pros: Can't comment

Cons: Had many of the same issues the other 1 star reviewers had. Wouldn't allow the computer to POST from time to time, when it did it ran best without drivers. RMAed, second card acted exactly the same. Tried tons of drivers, different BIOS settings, AGP hotfix, everything. Finally gave up when ATItool reported core speed as "#J" and froze my computer. Never ran a single game for me, furmark crashed every time.

Other Thoughts: I hate to give this card a 1 egg, but its just one more heads up that it doesn't particularly work with certain motherboards. No idea why. I'll be heading back Nvidia way to replace my 7600gs, sorry ATI.

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