Sapphire Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB GDDR4

Once again, Sapphire provided us with its Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB GDDR4 for evaluation. This turned out to be a reference model that's probably indistinguishable from that of other brands except for the Sapphire decals. The card itself is longer than Radeon HD 2600 PRO, though like the other mainstream cards, it comes with a single slot cooler reminiscent of the ones found on the Radeon X1950 PRO.

As expected from one of ATI's biggest partners, Sapphire has quickly rolled out its lineup of mainstream Radeon HD graphics cards.

It's a Sapphire labeled reference Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB GDDR4 using the default single slot cooler that's extremely quiet. No power connectors are required due to the relatively low power draw of around 45W.

The lower power draw of the 65nm core makes its point here, as the Sapphire Radeon HD 2600 XT does not require a Molex power connector, taking its juice directly through the PCIe interface. According to ATI, the power consumption of this card should be around 45W. The smaller and cooler core is also a factor for the ultra quiet cooling fan, which is something that we liked a lot. The memory chips are all passively cooled by the heatsink as this industrial looking piece of aluminum covered most of the red PCB.

Underneath the red translucent plastic shroud, the heatsink is an industrial looking design with none of the fancy colors you may find in other brands.

Native CrossFire is supported and Sapphire has also included the required bridge connector in its package.

Dual-link DVI outputs are found at the back. An included DVI-to-HDMI converter is included to enable users to hook this card to a HD display. HDCP support naturally is present.

The core runs at 800MHz, only 200MHz higher than the Radeon HD 2600 PRO but the memory does get a larger boost to 2200MHz DDR. Compare this against the maximum 1000MHz DDR on the PRO. Of course, with NVIDIA's GeForce 8600 GTS running with a 2000MHz DDR memory clock, ATI's numbers are not that much higher, especially with its GDDR4 memory. The number of stream processing units is the same for all the Radeon HD 2600 cards, topping out at 120 organized into groups of five each. CrossFire is supported, with interconnects at their usual places and Sapphire has included the bridge for that in its package. Other items that we found in our box include:

# 1 x DVI-to-HDMI adaptor
# 1 x DVI-to-VGA adaptor
# 1 x 9-pin mini-DIN to Component/S-Video dongle
# 1 x CrossFire bridge
# Driver CD
# User manual

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Source from HardwareZone

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Sapphire Radeon HD 2600 PRO 256MB GDDR3 OC Edition

It's been less than a week since ATI's mainstream DirectX 10 cards, the Radeon HD 2400 and 2600 series were released into the wild (at least for reviewers) and sadly for the beleaguered company, the new products are unlikely to set any performance records in their respective segments. Although we have yet to get our hands on the top Radeon HD 2600 card, the XT, the reviews so far have shown it falling short of the NVIDIA's top mainstream contender, the GeForce 8600 GTS.

Realizing its precarious situation, ATI has moved to revise its recommended retail prices for the new cards. The Radeon HD 2600 XT was initially priced at US$199 in the presentations given by ATI during the May launch of the high-end Radeon HD 2900 XT but in the latest press release announcing the Radeon HD 2400 and 2600 series, that has been lowered significantly to US$149. Similarly, the other lesser models in the series have also undergone price cuts to make it more competitive against the corresponding NVIDIA counterpart. This strategy has been used before by ATI for its Radeon HD 2900 XT and for the case of these new mainstream cards, positions them on a slightly lower bracket in both performance and price to NVIDIA, hence dodging a potentially damaging, direct confrontation.

Since we have already seen the budget Radeon HD 2400 series in action with this review of the Radeon HD 2400 XT card, it is now time to take a closer look at the Radeon HD 2600 series. Unfortunately, our Radeon HD 2600 XT card came too late to be included in this article so we'll only have a Radeon HD 2600 PRO from Sapphire for our benchmarks. This is not the reference version as the core and memory clocks on the Sapphire have been raised, making this an overclocked card out-of-the-box that should be faster (and probably more costly) than the standard.

Like the Radeon HD 2400, the 2600 series is manufactured using the 65G+ process technology (basically 65nm process), allowing ATI to squeeze almost 400 million transistors onto a core (RV630) measuring roughly 14mm in width. The die shrink has also allowed for lower power consumption, with the Radeon HD 2600 rated at around 45W by ATI and despite its heavy transistor count (at least 100 million higher than NVIDIA's GeForce 8600 and 8500), temperatures should be relatively cool if our experience with the Radeon HD 2400 XT is any gauge.

The basic architecture found on the original R600 (Radeon HD 2900 XT) is retained for the most part, though as usual, the operational hardware units have been reduced in quantity for the lesser Radeon HD 2600. The number of stream processors have been more than halved, with the Radeon HD 2600 equipped with 120 compared to the 320 on the Radeon HD 2900. Unlike the Radeon HD 2400, the ring bus architecture remains on the 2600 but the main memory bus has also been reduced to 128 bits wide, putting it below older Radeon cards like the 256-bit memory bus of the Radeon X1950 series. The key features and the reasons behind the 'HD' in the Radeon HD 2600 series are all accounted for, including the Universal Video Decoder (UVD) hardware that is actually not found on the high-end Radeon HD 2900. A HD audio controller and HDCP support are other essential HD features on these cards. Below is a table listing some of the important specifications of the Radeon HD 2600 PRO and the existing competitors from both ATI and NVIDIA, both new and old.


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Source from HardwareZone

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NVIDIA Partners Quietly Rollout Retail GeForce 8400GS

NVIDIA takes on the entry-level DirectX10 market with a sub-$100 retail graphics card

Graphic card manufacturers silently launched retail GeForce 8400GS-based add-in boards this week. The GeForce 8400GS is NVIDIA’s newest retail entry-level offering, slotting below the GeForce 8500GT. NVIDIA previously released the GeForce 8400GS a couple months ago to OEMs only.

The retail GeForce 8400GS arrives ready to take on AMD’s upcoming ATI Radeon HD 2400-series. The entry-level offering introduces DirectX and shader model 4.0 to a sub-$100 price point. NVIDIA also packs the GeForce 8400GS with PureVideo HD for hardware accelerated video decoding, which accelerates decoding of H.264, VC-1 and MPEG2 high-definition video formats.

GeForce 8400GS-based cards feature 16 stream processors clocked at 900 MHz with a 450MHz core clock – similar to the GeForce 8500GT. NVIDIA pairs the GeForce 8400GS with 256MB of 400 MHz, 800 MHz effectively, DDR2 memory as with the GeForce 8500GT. However, NVIDIA has castrated the memory interface, leaving the GeForce 8400GS with a 64-bit interface instead of the 128-bit interface found on the 8500GT.

Expect GeForce 8400GS-based cards to start popping up in retail within the coming weeks. A quick search reveals MWAVE is the only retailer with a GeForce 8400GS in stock for $70.

Source from dailytech

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MSI GeForce 8800 Ultra 768MB

As if having the jump over rival ATI by releasing the world's first DirectX 10 compatible graphics architecture is not enough, NVIDIA has continued to consolidate its superiority by extending its GeForce 8 series from the initial high-end GeForce 8800 cards. So we have also seen the mid-range GeForce 8600 and 8500 series in recent months while at the extreme high end, NVIDIA's response is the GeForce 8800 Ultra. MSI sent us its version of this new king of the hill and here are the highlights.

How to top the successful and speedy GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB? Well, NVIDIA's answer is to raise the bar on the clock speeds. The MSI card we received is a typical reference card that follows the default clocks - which have all been increased in the Ultra SKU. Hence, the core clock has gone from the GTX's 575MHz to 612MHz, the memory has increased to 2160MHz from 1800MHz and underneath all this, the internal shader clocks have also gone up to 1500MHz from 1350MHz. As this is a standard card, we will not be showing the performance benchmarks and you can refer to our previous review of the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra for the figures. Let's just say we were not exactly thrilled with its performance (or its price point).

The success of the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 Ultra has been how the engineers have managed to keep the graphics card at an admirably low noise level despite increased clock speeds (that usually spells more heat and in many cases, a noisy fan). A black plastic shroud covers most of the card but the large two-slot cooler is as quiet as the GeForce 8800 GTX. Although NVIDIA's engineers claim to have reduced power consumption slightly in certain scenarios, that wasn't the case during our testing, so be prepared to have extra 'juice' in your PSU before getting one of these.

If the inherently faster clocks on the GeForce 8800 Ultra is still not enough to suit your taste for speed, MSI's usual proprietary overclocking utility, Dynamic Overclocking Technology (D.O.T) is bundled together with this card. Users are able to get the preset profiles to get between 2 and 10% boost in clock speeds, though of course, getting the maximum 10% to run stable on your card is not guaranteed. However, as usual, MSI will be responsible for any damages encountered during the use of D.O.T, so it's a form of insurance for less daring overclockers.

Other exclusive MSI software include StarOSD, which allows users to tweak their clocks and fan settings within an application, e.g. a game. There is no need to exit the program to change your graphics card settings anymore. This should be a boon for enthusiasts who desire close, complete control of their systems and to optimize them on the fly. Finally, MSI also bundled a future Hall of Fame RTS game in the award winning Company of Heroes, which has breathed new life into the genre. It is a fitting title for a top end card like this GeForce 8800 Ultra. More so now that the game has been updated to support DX10 in the latest patch release version 1.7.

The GeForce 8800 Ultra is a luxury item, with prices starting from US$829 at launch and we don't expect this MSI card to be any different, especially when one factors in the software and applications bundled. There probably won't be that many available also for this niche product that will appeal only to enthusiasts with real spending power. For the majority, this is a card for bragging rights only, as the value is hard to justify with its performance. This isn't the fastest yet as MSI has an overclocked version in the pipeline, but that too will come at a price of course.

Product Specifications

* GeForce 8800 GPU (G80)
* Core Clock: 612MHz
* Memory Clock: 2160MHz DDR
* 384-bit memory bus
* 2 x dual-link DVI outputs supporting two 2560 x 1600 resolutions
* Minimum 500W or greater power supply
* HDCP Compliant
* NVIDIA SLI Ready
* Dual Molex 6-pin power connectors required



Source from hardwarezone

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Gigabyte Passive Single-Slot HD 2600 XT

New Silent-Pipe II cooler only takes up one slot

Gigabyte is displaying the latest passively cooled ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics card. The upcoming GV-RX26T256H pairs the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT with a Silent-Pipe II cooler for silent computing. Gigabyte has opted for a single-slot cooler design, unlike the Sapphire HD 2600 XT Ultimate.

The new GV-RX26T256H features 120 stream processors and 256MB of GDDR3 memory attached via a 128-bit memory interface. Gigabyte equips the GV-RX26T256H with dual dual-link DVI and component video outputs. The card also supports HDMI and 5.1 channel audio with an adapter. HDCP is also supported for high-definition video playback of formats such as Blu-ray and HD DVD.

Expect Gigabyte to launch the single-slot passive ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT next month with the official GPU release.

Source from dailytech

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2 New HD 2600s from Sapphire

Sapphire Technology has two new ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT models on display at Computex 2007. The two new ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT models include an AGP model and a new lower cost PCI Express model. The new Sapphire HD 2600 XT features identical specifications as the PCIe counterparts with 120 stream processors and a 128-bit memory interface. Sapphire equips the AGP model with 256MB of GDDR3 memory.

The Sapphire HD 2600 XT AGP also features DVI, VGA and TV-outputs. Although the card is AGP, it still requires additional power via a PCIe power connector. Nevertheless, the Sapphire HD 2600 XT AGP brings high-definition HD DVD and Blu-ray video playback with AMD’s Universal Video Decoder, or UVD, and DirectX 10 support to AGP users.

Sapphire is also preparing a lower costing ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT-based PCIe offering. Sapphire manages to reduce costs by trimming the PCB down to four layers instead of the typical eight layers. Due to the PCB reduction, the internal CrossFire connectors are absent, so the card will not be hardware CrossFire compatible.

However, Sapphire claims the CrossFire connector-less ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT-based card will support software CrossFire once AMD releases drivers capable of the feat. Additionally, the trimmed down card features dual DVI and TV-outputs. The card does not require any extra power.

Expect Sapphire to officially unveil the HD 2600 XT AGP and the slimmed ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT-based card when AMD officially releases the GPUs next month.

Source from dailytech

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