We have shifted our methodology with image quality because it is such a subjective measure.  See what you think for yourself below.  I can say from my eyes, the X1650XT's rendering is excellent but appears to be a notch or two below that of its big brothers.  Below is a screen shot from NFS: Most Wanted at 1600 x 1200 with all eye candy maxed.  By the way, gameplay at this level was very playable.

Overclocking

We need to remember the HIS's X1650XT is their 'Turbo' card meaning it is overclocked right out of the box.  The default ATi speeds on the core and memory are 575MHz and 675MHz (1350MHz).  HIS's card, complete with the cooling to do it, came out of the box at 630MHz on the core and 730MHz (1460MHz) on the memory.  Using the ATi Tool we played around with overclocking both the core and memory until we found a stable ceiling.  Stable being defined as no observable visual artifacts or anomalies during gameplay.  As far as core speed, we were able to pump things up to 661MHz. Our max stable memory speed ended up at 745MHz (1490MHz).  As we have seen in other factory overclocked cards, we didn't find any real extra frames per second with jacking things up more which lends to the assumption that HIS has found the sweet spot when jacked up already.

Conclusion

The Radeon X1650XT has a lot going for it but the three central things are price, native Crossfire support and rock solid performance.  The market is full of $300 and up graphics cards.  That same $300 would buy you two Radeon X1650XTs if you had a Crossfire system ready that should give you loads of fragging smiles.  Adding in HIS's factory overclock, aka 'Turbo' and their higher end cooler only sweetens the pot.  HIS is big about citing the quietness of their cooler.  While I don't have a decibel meter to check it exactly, I can tell you that its sound level was drowned by that of the mainboard's chipset fan.  Excellent performance, quiet operation and a fistful of extras is always a crowd pleaser.

I always like to do a Pricewatch check of prices to see what a product's competition is money wise.  The HIS Radeon X1650XT Turbo street price is spot on with the rest of the field except... it looks like between now and January 1st 2007 there is a $15 rebate making the X1650XT Turbo definitely less expensive than any other card of this class.  Less money, more performance via the factory overclock and more bang for the buck equates to a solid product very worthy of serious consideration for your next upgrade.