Gigabyte HD 2600 Pro 512MB

Reviews: Hardware

Motherboards | Power Supplies | Memory | Systems | Video Cards

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Max Slowik
Beth
Gigabyte
Jan. 7, 2008

Specifications

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Performance Summary

This video card is, essentially, no different than any other HD 2600 Pro. During some tests, in which memory bandwidth was particularly important, the card actually did worse than a 256MB GDDR3 card. And worse than bad is... bad.

I have to assume that, if I actually did get a copy of Neverwinter Nights 2, it wouldn't play any better than the games I benched, either.

But, like any good HD 2000-series card, the video acceleration was fantastic. That would be the only saving grace.

Power and Noise

Seeing as how the video card doesn't have a fan, it shouldn't make any noise, but sometimes hardware makes electronic whines. This wasn't the case, and the only sound that card was responsible for was muttered disappointment over its performance.

The power consumption was just a little higher than a GDDR3 Pro, but almost unnoticeably:

Idle (integrated graphics): 125W
Idle (HD 2600 Pro): 140W
CPU loaded, GPU idle: 237W
CPU and GPU loaded: 252W

Idle power consumption 15W
+ Load power consumption 15W
= Total power consumption 30W

Power Usage

Watts

ATI HD 2400 XT

ATI HD 2600 Pro

Gigabyte HD 2600 Pro

ATI HD 2600 XT

Albatron 8600 GT

Watts (lower is better)

Overclocking

I couldn't push the card past its stock timings and, although it didn't seem to be a cooling issue, it did run a little hotter than a fanned Pro. Even with a fan set against the heatsink, the card would not overclock one MHz.

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Page 9 of 10

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

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Add Comment

2 User Comments

1 - Posted by Crez on May 19, 2008 - 7:58 am

Noise

"Seeing as how the video card doesn't have a fan, it shouldn't make any noise, but sometimes hardware makes electronic whines."

It actually makes noise! Don`t know if its only the one I got, but it definitely makes a high pitch sound whenever scrolling windows or playing games.

2 - Posted by Max Slowik on May 19, 2008 - 9:06 pm

Have you tried unplugging your speakers? Sometimes they pick up weird crosstalk or whatever electronics dudes call it.

Also: that sucks, man, hate to hear that. It's probably covered by the warranty if it's driving you nuts.

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