X-bit labs

MSI RX2600XT Diamond 512 Graphics Card: A Jewel of HD 2600 XT Carats (page 20)

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin , Yaroslav Lyssenko

[ 10/19/2007 | 09:16 AM ]

Conclusion

The MSI RX2600XT Diamond 512 did well in our tests, leaving a positive impression overall. Its dual-slot cooler can be viewed as a kind of drawback, but it makes the card silent despite the increased GPU and memory frequencies. This card doesn’t suit for compact system cases, but multimedia PCs are quite often assembled in rather large cases, which can accommodate a dual-slot graphics card. The accessories to the RX2600XT Diamond 512 provoke no complaints, either.

As for pure gaming performance, the MSI product ensures an average performance gain up to 10% over the reference ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT GDDR4, and up to 20% in a few cases. Of course, this is not enough for this card to be competitive against the Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS. The moderate frequency growth must be not enough to make up for the driver-related problems, 24x VIW execution processors, and possible problems with the rasterization units or memory controller of the ATI RV630 chip.

We have to acknowledge once again that graphics cards like ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT GDDR4 and Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT/GTS are often unable to deliver high performance in modern games, at least when the gamer doesn’t want to compromise and reduce the level of detail or when he wants to play in resolutions higher than 1280x1024. Our tests show that such cards often turn to be slower than previous-generation solutions such as ATI Radeon X1950 Pro.

The Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB, on its part, provides a high enough performance for you to play comfortably at the maximum level of detail and with 4x FSAA at a resolution of 1600x1200 and, in some games, even 1920x1200. This is obviously the minimum everyone who is interested in modern games should go for. The same should be true for the new ATI Radeon HD 2900 Pro as well.

So, it looks like the only application left for the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT and Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT/GTS is multimedia PCs, especially as they suit that purpose even better than the top-performance products. You should only buy one for games if you don’t play games seriously or if you can’t afford a more advanced graphics card.

If you need a quiet and economical graphics card, and games is not your priority, you should definitely consider the MSI RX2600XT Diamond 512 as one of the best options, but you should look up in the higher class if you want to play games with high-quality visuals. This is going to require more money, but you won’t be disappointed with the card’s performance.

Highs:

• DirectX 10 support;
• Full support of hardware HD-video decoding;
• 512MB if video memory onboard;
• Higher GPU and memory clock speeds;
• Efficient and quiet cooling system;
• Low power consumption;
• Low price.

Lows:

• Not very high performance in contemporary games;
• Not very high overclocking potential;
• Dual-slot cooling system may prevent installation in compact system cases.