Year of the Pig Edition Price:
Regular Edition Price:
Edition by Simon Lau - April 1st 2007

Like many people around the world, it wasn't too long ago when I celebrated Chinese New Year. This year marked the year of the pig and the celebrations were bigger than ever. Many companies capitalize on these events by either launching new products and PowerColor has done exactly that.

Shortly after the celebrations ended, my good friends at PowerColor asked me to write a small little article on the new X1650Pro Year of the Pig Edition.

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You're finding this article on the last page of Jody's original X1650 Pro review because the cards are more or less identical.

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Apart from the notes stating that this is the Year of the Pig edition, there's aren't many changes to the package. Even the accessories are the same.

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What sets this card apart from the original X1650 Pro is the heatsink. Since it's the year of the pig, PowerColor has added a gold pig shaped decal on the top of the heatsink!

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All the other sides of the card look the same.

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As we strip the heatsink off the card and clean off the thermal paste, we see the X1650 Pro core and a set of memory chips.

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So while PowerColor claims the cards are identical, there is a minor change in memory supplier. If you read the Contents page of Jody's review, you see the regular X1650 Pro uses Samsung modules whereas this version has Hynix chips. The Hynix is still rated for 700MHz DDR3 so you will not be at any advantage or disadvantage when it comes to performance. A full break down of the specifications can be found on Page 2 of the review.

The decorative heatsink looks nice but will not increase the performance of the video card. I encourage you to read our benchmarking of the X1650 Pro where we compare it to an X800GTO, X1300 Pro, and two 7300GTs.

You'll see that the X1650 Pro is great at the lower resolutions but slowly dips off with the increasing screen size and level of eye candy. That said, Jody wraps up the look of the X1650 Pro in a very fitting way.

The X1650PRO isn't a $175 video card or even a $150 card so it shouldn't be expected to do what the more expensive cards can do. The X1650PRO costs about $115USD and performs remarkably well for that price tag. It is about time that gamers with this type of budget have options for a video card that can play the newest games at resolutions over 800x600 and the X1650PRO can definitely do just that.

For anyone looking to spend a few dollars more to differentiate themselves could definitely consider the X1650 Pro Year of the Pig Edition. Also, for anyone born under the year of the pig, this piece of hardware would certainly make for some great stories around the dinner table.


Overclockers Online would like to thank Power Color for making this article possible.


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