X-bit labs

Silence of the Radeon HD 2600: Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H Graphics Card Review

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin , Yaroslav Lyssenko

[ 11/19/2007 | 11:51 PM ]

Despite the constant progress and development of new technologies, the manufacturers have to compromise when introducing new generation of graphics accelerators. High gaming performance requires massive cooling solutions that affect the price of the end-product noticeably. Today we are going to see if Gigabyte Technology succeeded with their version of a compromise like that.

Table of contents:

• Package and Accessories
  
• PCB Design and Specifications
  
• Cooling System
  
• Testbed and Methods
  
• Performance in First-Person Shooters
  
• Battlefield 2142
  
• Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
  
• Call of Juarez
  
• Far Cry
  
• F.E.A.R. Extraction Point
  
• Half-Life 2: Episode One
  
• Prey
  
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
  
• Performance in Third-Person Shooters
  
• Tomb Raider: Legend
  
• Splinter Cell: Double Agent
  
• Performance in RPG
  
• Gothic 3
  
• Neverwinter Nights 2
  
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
  
• Performance in Simulators
  
• X3: Reunion
  
• Performance in Strategies
  
• Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
  
• Supreme Commander
  
• Company of Heroes
  
• Performance in Synthetic Benchmarks
  
• Futuremark 3DMark05
  
• Futuremark 3DMark06
  
• Conclusion
  

For the last decades the PC has evolved from a technically sophisticated device into a simple and easy-to-use tool. The invention of the small form-factor brought the computer into the living room where there are other priorities than at an office. The small PC must be functional and provide enough performance, yet it must not be noisy or too complex.

As you know, it is the active coolers of such very hot devices as PSU, CPU and graphics card that are the main sources of noise in a PC. The problem of cooling is especially crucial for the graphics card since there is limited space to install a heat-dissipating system for it.

Gigabyte Technology’s product line-up has included graphics cards with passive coolers for many years. After the release of such DirectX 10 compatible solutions as ATI Radeon HD 2400/2600 and Nvidia GeForce 8500/8600 it became possible to offer high-functionality and silent products and the company carried the tradition on.

The Gigabyte GV-RX26T256H graphics card we are going to test today is based on the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT. It is equipped with the Silent Pipe II cooler and has 256 megabytes of GDDR3 memory. Let’s see how appealing this solution is in the eyes of a user who wants not only run multimedia applications but also play games.