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ATI HD 2600 XT 256MB

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Max Slowik
Kurtis
ATI
Jun. 28, 2007

Specifications

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Test Setup

We use one synthetic test, 3DMark06, and a series of games to test video cards. Note that we only test 3DMark06 for kicks, and the resulting scores don't factor into our review whatsoever. We try to use our own timedemos whenever possible, but will use the in-game timedemo or record a few minutes of gameplay using FRAPS if that's not an option. The games are Half-Life 2: Episode One, F.E.A.R., Company of Heroes, Prey, and Need For Speed: Most Wanted. All benchmarking results are the average of at least three runs of each game at each different setting.

We bench using Windows XP Service Pack 2, and the latest video card drivers (NVIDIA 158.22). The driver settings were left at default, and transparency-sampling anti-aliasing was left off.

Test Computer

Processor: AMD Athlon64 X2 6000+ (Sponsored by AMD)
Memory: Crucial 2x1024MB DDR2 800MHz @ 5-5-5-15 (Sponsored by Crucial)
Motherboard: MSI K9AGM2-FIH 690G
Power Supply: Seasonic S12 500W
Operating System: Windows XP Professional w/ SP2 (Sponsored by Microsoft)

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Page 1: Introduction
Page 2: The Card & Bundle
Page 3: Test Setup
Page 4: Testing - HL2 Episode 1
Page 5: Testing - F.E.A.R.
Page 6: Testing - Company of Heroes
Page 7: Testing - Prey
Page 8: Testing - Need for Speed Most Wanted
Page 9: Testing - 3DMark 06 & HQV
Page 10: Performance Summary, Power & Noise, and Overclocking
Page 11: Conclusion

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2 User Comments

1 - Posted by titan on July 1, 2007 - 1:19 am

For Company of Heroes use the -novsync command line parameter. Somebody from Relic has more benchmarking info at http://www.relicrank.com/bloggo/2007/ 06/01/company-of-heroes-dx10-d 3d10-faq-and-benchmarking-guid e/

2 - Posted by Max Slowik on July 1, 2007 - 5:35 pm

Yeah, I found that a little too late; I will be updating the video card benchmarks fairly soon, since I'm planning on a nice DX10 round-up. It should be fun (by fun I mean mind-numbing horrible terrible very bad work) but also helpful and enlightening.

The mid-range gap is just appalling, though. It's almost as if major companies can't make stream processing cards that cost right to fill in the space. NVIDIA comes close with their 8800GTS 320MB, but it still runs about $275. . .

Thanks for the heads up. I'm still getting the hang of video card benches, and I'm always willing to accept pointers.

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