ATI HD 2600 Pro 256MB

Reviews: Hardware

Motherboards | Power Supplies | Memory | Systems | Video Cards

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Max Slowik
Beth
AMD
Jan. 14, 2008

Specifications

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Performance Summary

DirectX 10 is just a footnote. You'll barely enjoy DirectX 9 games with this card, assuming they were made a few years ago, the details are turned down, and the resolution is kept real low. That isn't to say that it completely rules out gaming, but the card only played Half-Life 2 and Prey alright, and that's about it.

I'd say this is acceptable for a laptop, but it's just not good enough for a desktop.

The video acceleration was spot-on, just as excellent as the HD 2900 XT's, which is to say, unmatched by any NVIDIA, or even other AMD cards. Besides, you know, the XT.

Power and Noise

For such a small card, the stock fan churns a huge amount of air. I'd easily say it was overkill, and that's just by the sound of it. With all the passive options out there, skip anything with this mean little turbine. Combined with staccato framerates, it's like paying money for headaches.

The power consumption is improved over an XT, though:

Idle (integrated graphics): 125W
Idle (HD 2600 Pro): 139W
CPU loaded, GPU idle: 236W
CPU and GPU loaded: 250W

Idle power consumption 14W
+ Load power consumption 14W
= Total power consumption 28W

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 was able to squeeze an even 13% improvement over the stock speeds, from 600MHz core/ 800MHz memory to 678MHz core/ 904MHz memory. It was enough to improve the games the Pro can already play, but it didn't make the unplayable games suddenly playable.

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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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