asus 3650 hd (i want but someone didnt recommend, help?)

im interested in getting an asus 3650 hd 512 mb pcie (600/ 800 mhz i believe)

a friend who has been to a computer school (dunno what for) and i respect that he has a better knowledge than me said that asus isnt good... well in his exact words 'dear god no, the x3 series of ati cards suck'.

he then went on to tell me to get a 9800 gt, but theyre really expensive. the cheapest i found was like $200 but im building a whole new pc on a budget and dont have much.

The asus 3650 cards seem to be okay in my opinion so im just wondering whats so bad about them, it seems theyd run all the games i want (cod 4, bioshock,world in conflict, quake wars) and i only want to run them well on med settings at the most.

the system im making will have: (my main focus is on the vid card so i dont care about sata 3 and all that right now..)

gigabyte ep45-ds3

e8400 3ghz dual core

seagate 500 gb sata2

2x 1gb kingston 800 mhz

generic case and psu at 650w (friend said cos its generic itd be about 580W)

Its a tad slower than a 2600XT. IMO you are wasting your money on a E8400 and a 650watt PSU if you go with a 3650 for any length of time. You might as well get a E2160 CPU and a antec earthwatts 430watt PSU instead of those more expensive parts and save yourself some money.

If you want a video card that is cheap and powerful at the same time, look into a 4850, you seriously wont regret it.