X-bit labs

The Mass Market Warrior: ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT GDDR4 Review

Category: Video

by Alexey Stepin , Yaroslav Lyssenko, Anton Shilov

[ 09/28/2007 | 10:56 PM ]

We have already reviewed new Radeon HD graphics architecture before, but at that time we only took a closer look at the top Radeon HD 2900 XT model, while more mainstream solutions didn’t get covered because they were scheduled to start selling a little later. Finally, mass Radeon HD saw the light of day and today we are going to check out one of them: Radeon HD 2600 XT.

Table of contents:

• Architecture and Technical Characteristics
  
• PCB Design and Specifications
  
• Cooling System
  
• Noise Level & Power Consumption
  
• Testbed and Methods
  
• Performance in First-Person 3D Shooters
  
• Battlefield 2142
  
• Call of Juarez
  
• Call of Juarez DirectX 10
  
• Far Cry
  
• F.E.A.R. Extraction Point
  
• Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter
  
• Half-Life 2: Episode One
  
• Prey
  
• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl
  
• Performance in Third-Person 3D Shooters
  
• Hitman: Blood Money
  
• Lost Planet: Condition Extreme
  
• Tomb Raider: Legend
  
• Splinter Cell: Double Agent
  
• Performance in RPG
  
• Gothic 3
  
• The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
  
• Performance in Simulators
  
• X3: Reunion
  
• Performance in Strategies
  
• Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
  
• Company of Heroes
  
• Supreme Commander
  
• Performance in Synthetic Benchmarks
  
• Futuremark 3DMark05
  
• Futuremark 3DMark06
  
• Conclusion
  
• ATI Radeon 2600 XT: Highs and Lows
  

AMD’s mainstream graphics processors RV360 and RV610 were announced along with the top-performance R600 as we reported in our review of the Radeon HD 2000 series, but it was only on the 11th of June that AMD began to ship them in large amounts. This made AMD even more handicapped in its competition with Nvidia who had begun mass shipments of its new mainstream processors G84 and G86 in mid-April. Having such a large advantage in time, Nvidia’s partners had managed to fill the market up with graphics cards with those GPUs.

AMD’s graphics department, the former ATI Technologies, found itself lagging behind again although its mainstream GPUs could be considered more advanced than Nvidia’s G84 and G86from a technical standpoint. As opposed to the senior R600, the new GPUs are both manufactured on a thinner, 65nm, tech process, and the RV630 supports modern graphics memory of both types, GDDR3 and GDDR4 , just like the senior GPU does. Interestingly, AMD/ATI didn’t position the Radeon HD 2600 XT GDDR4 , the senior model of the new series, as an opponent to the GeForce 8600 GTS but targeted it at a cheaper niche the Nvidia GeForce 8600 GT, with much weaker specs, resides in. As a result, the pricing of the new mainstream cards from AMD now looks like follows:

Interestingly, AMD wants to counter the GeForce 8600 GTS with the Radeon HD 2600 XT Gemini which is a dual-chip solution with two RV630 GPUs working in CrossFire mode. We have seen such solutions before, from ASUS and Gigabyte and later from Nvidia, yet all of these attempts were not much of a success. Nvidia’s GeForce 7950 GX2 was in fact forgotten by the developer himself after the release of the GeForce 8800 series. AMD has no choice, however. The manufacturing cost of R600-based products can hardly be reduced to fit into the $189-249 category in near future whereas the RV630 has too few texture processors and rasterization subunits to challenge the G84 in popular applications.

As for ordinary, single-chip, cards, the Radeon HD 2600 XT GDDR4 looks a worthy opponent to the GeForce 8600 GT. Let’s compare their technical specs first.