The high-end graphics card market has really heated up lately with ATI and NVIDIA battling for the performance crown.  That doesn't mean the rest of the market has been forgotten.  Today we will be looking at one of the latest ATI cards to enter the market, the HD4650.  The good folks over at Sapphire have provided not just your everyday HD 4650, they make an Overclock Edition.  With a name like that I just had to see what this sub $70 card can do.

The packaging for the HD4650 is packed with tantalizing features and the now familiar "Prepare to Dominate" slogan.  This same packaging is used for the vanilla version so make sure you check for the Overclock Edition stickler or the tell tale GDDR3.  Thanks to the inclusion of HDMI support across all the HD Radeon cards, the 4650 is ready to do double duty as a passable 7.1 sound card for your home theater or gaming builds.  And in a pinch, you can use Crossfire X to combine cards for increased performance as your budget allows.

Specifications:

Features:

Redefine HD Gaming

320 Stream Processing Units
Enough power to tackle the most demanding HD games and applications.
Microsoft DirectX®10.1
Play today while preparing for tomorrow with state-of-the-art DirectX 10.1 graphics capabilities.

Enhanced Anti-Aliasing (AA) & Anisotropic Filtering (AF)
High performance anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing (4X AA) smooth jagged edges and create true-to- life graphics, for everything from grass to facial features

ATI CrossFireX™ Technology
ATI CrossFireX™ technology with up to quad GPU support offers superior scalability so your system is ready to level up when you are.

PCI Express 2.0
Support for PCI Express 2.0 will prepare you for bandwidth-hungry games and 3D applications.

Go Beyond HD Video

• Unified Video Decoder 2
  UVD 2 frees up your CPU for other tasks so you get The Ultimate Visual Experience™ for the most processing- intensive content. Take full advantage of Blu-ray functionality with dual-stream, picture in picture capabilities.

• Accelerated Video Transcoding(AVT)
  Edit and transfer your videos to a portable video player with new Accelerated Video Transcoding (AVT) technology.1

• Upscale Beyond 1080p
  Watch the hottest Blu-ray movies or other HD content at full 1080p display resolution and beyond.2

• Enhanced DVD Upscaling
  Watch standard DVD movies in near high-definition quality with DVD upscaling.3 The GPU uses post processing algorithms to enhance standard and low resolution videos and movies on your HD display.

• Dynamic Contrast
  Dynamic Contrast automatically adjusts the contrast and brightness during scenes to consistently deliver a crisp, vibrant picture.

• HDMI
  Enjoy the latest audio technologies using HDMI with 7.1 digital surround sound support. Also, xvYCC support allows the user to enjoy a wider range of color when connected to a capable HDTV.
  

1 Some digital rights management restrictions may apply

2 The ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series GPUs can upscale video display to 2560x1600 on dual-link monitors which is almost twice the display resolution of 1080p displays.

3 The ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series GPUs can upscale video display to 2560x1600 on dual-link monitors which is almost twice the display resolution of 1080p displays.

Break-through Efficiency

• Dynamic Power Management
  ATI Radeon HD 4600 Series graphics cards feature ATI PowerPlay™ technology, delivering high performance when needed and conserving power when the demand on the graphics processor is low.1

• More Performance Per Watt
  ATI Radeon HD 4600 series deliver up to 3x the performance per watt of AMD’s previous generation GPUs.

• Energy Efficient Manufacturing Process
  Second generation 55nm chip uses the industry’s most energy efficient manufacturing process.

1 Some digital rights management restrictions may apply

System Requirements:

–PCI Express® based PC is required with one X16 lane graphics slot available on the motherboard

–400 Watt or greater power supply (550 Watt for ATI CrossFireX™ technology in dual mode) is recommended

–Certified power supplies are recommended. Refer to http://ati.amd.com/certifiedPSU for a list of Certified products

–1GB of system memory recommended

–Installation software requires CD-ROM drive

–DVD playback requires DVD drive

–Blu-ray™ playback requires Blu-ray drive and full 1080p display requires a 1080p-capable monitor

–To enable dual mode ATI CrossFireX™ technology, a second ATI Radeon™ HD 4600 Series graphics card, an ATI CrossFireX Ready motherboard and one ATI CrossFireX Bridge Interconnect cable (included) is required.