I have the exact same card and can't get the audio over HDMI working either...

I've been using the AGP variant of this card for some time now, and am really happy with it.

Regarding the video playback, I have reasons to believe that VC1 isn't being accelerated in your test, MikeC. When I play back VC1 test clips, CPU utilisation drops to the same level as H264 (i.e. between 0 and 15% CPU time according to task manager).

The best way to test VC1 and H264 acceleration for HD-series Radeon cards is to use MPC-HC. When playing back a supported video, it will show you in the filter properties whether DXVA is being used.

For me, VC1 acceleration was not working properly (glitches in playback) with Catalyst 8.4 on XP, but when it switched to Vista with Catalyst 8.5 it worked perfectly.

Looks very nice card for budget build. It probably runs nicely 3+ years old games. I am thoroughlly impressed about that heat sink. It looks good and seems to work very well.

Not only card seems to be quiet, it also looks good IMHO. If I ever need more horse powers than my current IGP for main computer, this baby is top of my short list for now.

If the idle consumption would be lower...

The EAH3650 is confirmed in many places to have broken HDMI audio. Only Catalyst 8.2 works, and my understanding is that no newer drivers will ever work.

Asus has failed to give useful replies to any of us who have contacted support - see this thread:
http://vip.asus.com/forum/view.aspx?id= ... uage=en-us

The only reason I'm keeping this card is because I'm happy with the framerate for TeamFortress 2. It's not working for home theater use.

With this in mind, I think that SPCR should seriously reconsider the recommendation. If some of the advertised features do not work, you shouldn't be recommending it. There are competing silent 3650's without this issue.

We noted how HDMI audio did not work, and now we've added cautions in the conclusions about this. However, it doesn't change our basic assessment: It's a good, inexpensive video card that's well cooled without noise. No HDMI audio is a pain if you want to use it for a HTPC with a HDMI TV, but surely, this is not a deal breaker for everyone. When someone sends us an alternative silent 3650 card, we'll be happy to review it.

In terms of the higher power consumption....I do not think it has to do with the audio processor. As far as I know, the 3850 ALSO has this feature.
http://ati.amd.com/products/Radeonhd3800/index.html

All 3800 series have the integrated HD audio processor.

I find it VERY odd that the 3650 is using more power than the 3850, very odd....

I have to admit I struggle to see the point of these cards, particularly when compared to the newer IGPs, such NVidia's 8200 and AMD's 780G series. They use quite a lot more power than an IGP, cost more but still can't play modern games at reasonable resolutions and detail. if you're just after a video playback upgrade for a non-IGP system, then a 3400 or similar should do fine, if you're after gaming, then only a little more cash will get you a much better card (3850 256mb for example).

I'm not criticising the review, which was very well done, more the rationale for these cards existance.

Having products at all price points. There will always be someone who just can't/won't pay those few bucks more. (In addition, these cards made a lot of sense for silent gaming systems, at least until the fanless 9600GT designs became available.)

What, an older chipset with larger transistors should run cooler? Intel 6600/8400, Nvidia 7600GT/9600GT come to mind. Or am I totally missing something?

Of course and different peoples gaming habits differ too. I'm just arguing from my perspective (obviously ) that these mid-range cards don't seem to do anything particularly well - they're not great for gaming, they draw quite a bit of power and they're not any better at off-loading video than recent IGPs.

Man that cooler is a joke. A small modern heatpipe radiator combined with a giant black piece of metal that doesn't do anything useful. Someone was laughing when they built that thing!

I don't... AFAIK the 3650 doesn't support all the power saving features the 3850 does (this could also be card specific). In particular IIRC 3850 lowers memory clock and both core clock and core voltage. Not sure what the 3650 does, but possibly doesn't lower voltage.

The eah3650 does correctly lower GPU and ram clocks, but I am not sure about voltage. As chips get hotter, the internal resistance increases, so more power will be drawn. That might account for the higher load, even if voltage adjustment is in effect.

Anybody know how high above the pc bracket the passive cooler extends? Half inch? I've got a Cooler Master htpc case with limited height clearance.