Sapphire Radeon HD 2600 PRO 256MB GDDR3 OC Edition

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lt_shiro

2[H]4U
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Review on hardwarezone looks great with this card overclocked to almost xt speeds... At the price of ~$99 usd.
 
lt_shiro said:
Review on hardwarezone looks great with this card overclocked to almost xt speeds... At the price of ~$99 usd.
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Unless you want a card for a HTPC, forget about the HD 26xx and HD 24xx series...
 
I haven't seen many reviews yet. Guess I should... mainstream cards are always interesting... since it's usually what I buy :D Also, are these cards available to buy yet? Or are all these reviews pre-release reviews?
 
Citizen86 said:
I haven't seen many reviews yet. Guess I should... mainstream cards are always interesting... since it's usually what I buy :D Also, are these cards available to buy yet? Or are all these reviews pre-release reviews?
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I think they should be on sale by now. But don't even consider one, unless you just want a HTPC card. Their gaming performance is ridiculous.
 
Eventhough their gaming performance is ridiculous, their price is ridiculously cheap too.
 
It is $20 cheaper than most 8600GT cards and keeps up in most of hardwarezone test. As a budget card it holds it own in its weight class.
 
Well because some nVidia fanboys have enough money to buy the best 8800GTX, ATi's cards will always be considered bad eventhough they are dirt cheap. I don't want to say the cards are good but for the price they are sold at, what more do you expect?
 
the price to performance aspect of the card is very important, yes, but you also have to look at how it competes compared to last gen, the card can sometimes compete with the X1650! thats a sad if you ask me.
 
lt_shiro said:
It is $20 cheaper than most 8600GT cards and keeps up in most of hardwarezone test. As a budget card it holds it own in its weight class.
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Talk about stretching. $20 cheaper than most? There are many $109 8600GT cards you can buy, there is at least one that is $99 if you are penny pinching.

The 8600GT beat it comfortable across the board except for COH which ATI shines at.

The ATI performance is too uneven and I play mostly old games so I wouldn't even consider it. I have seen the 2600XT lose to a 7300GT in some benchmarks.

I won't buy a card hoping they fix it someday with drivers. As is, they are unacceptable as a gaming card.

If you game, the 1950pro is the card to get for really good bang/buck. I might get a 2400 for a HT computer but that is about it.
 
If you search hard enough you can find a cheaper 8600GT but why can't you hard enough enough for a cheaper HD2600XT too?
 
alg7_munif said:
If you search hard enough you can find a cheaper 8600GT but why can't you hard enough enough for a cheaper HD2600XT too?
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Several reasons:
A: Because this thread is referring Pro version, not XT versions.
B: Because it is also referring to a very specific overclocked 2600 pro. That is supposed to represent some kind of bang for the buck. (but doesn't)
C: Because at this time all 2600 cards are vapor and are not actually for sale, so there are No deals.

In short specific versions of Vapor cards that get beaten by even NV 7300GT/ATI 1650, in some games are not worthy of mention.

If you play games other than COH, ATI is a waste with the 2600 cards. If you play a variety of games you will be better suited with a NV 8600GT or ATI 1950 Pro.
 
Hey I am gonna get one of those too! Its more than enough power for my girlfriend to play Bejewled 2 with all graphics cranked to max, For the price its a great deal and I hear it runs cool too.

Im also considering the 512 version with stock clock
 
ChristO said:
Hey I am gonna get one of those too! Its more than enough power for my girlfriend to play Bejewled 2 with all graphics cranked to max, For the price its a great deal and I hear it runs cool too.

Im also considering the 512 version with stock clock
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Do not buy any 512 MB version of these cards. The extra memory yields virtually no advantage and you'll be paying for it. If you really want to buy one of these, get any 256 MB flavor and forget about the 512 ones.
 
When are 2400s and 2600s actually going to be released? I have seen a Sapphire 2400 on the Egg, but nothing else.
 
The 2600 and 2400 have HDCP by default. Getting a 8600GT with HDCP is more expensive than 8600GT without HDCP. The $20 difference is a good estimate between a 2600 and a 8600GT with HDCP.
 
What I'm confused about is why these little NVIDIA fanboys are bitching about this card when NONE of them have tried it yet. Why the hell would you rely on other peoples experiences or "reviews" to tell you if its a good card for you?

Buy it and try it, don't like it? Return it. Simple
 
anvl said:
What I'm confused about is why these little NVIDIA fanboys are bitching about this card when NONE of them have tried it yet. Why the hell would you rely on other peoples experiences or "reviews" to tell you if its a good card for you?

Buy it and try it, don't like it? Return it. Simple
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Did you SERIOUSLY just ask why people rely on other people's experiences or reviews to judge something?

You know I heard trying to grab metal out of a fire was a bad idea, why don't you try it out for yourself? Also ever heard of a Restocking Fee?

Reviews show the 2600xt and pro doing poorly in games and benchmarks. And the Pro is more expensive than a 8600gt on eWiz.com as well.

Review: http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,2151674,00.asp
eWiz: XFX 8600GT - $113 shipped http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=XFX-86GT25

The ATI cards linked before all cost more once you factor in shipping, not to mention the 8600gt provides better fps than the XT which is faster than the Pro.
 
anvl said:
What I'm confused about is why these little NVIDIA fanboys are bitching about this card when NONE of them have tried it yet. Why the hell would you rely on other peoples experiences or "reviews" to tell you if its a good card for you?

Buy it and try it, don't like it? Return it. Simple
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Do you apply that logic to every product in your life, and every experience?
 
Fact:

2600xt is only neck and neck with 8600gt not gts.

So a 2600pro that overclocks to xt speed is priced according to performance.

When 8600gt is overclocked 2600 pro has no chance.
 
Technoob said:
Do you apply that logic to every product in your life, and every experience?
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Actually no, but do you truely believe because one reviewer said the video card was crap that it's crap?

If someone says Pizza sucks then you won't even bother trying it?
 
anvl said:
Actually no, but do you truely believe because one reviewer said the video card was crap that it's crap?

If someone says Pizza sucks then you won't even bother trying it?
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No, but if multiple people told me that a certain restaurants pizza tasted like shit and was more expensive than other known good tasting pizza, I would try somewhere else rather than waste my money on that pizza place..

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/radeon_hd_2600_performance_preview/page5.asp
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=426&type=expert&pid=12
http://www.hothardware.com/articles/ATI_Radeon_HD_2600_and_2400_Performance/?page=4

Along with others I don't feel like finding and linking, and the one above I did link.
 
jmackay Quote:
Originally Posted by anvl
Actually no, but do you truely believe because one reviewer said the video card was crap that it's crap?

If someone says Pizza sucks then you won't even bother trying it?

No, but if multiple people told me that a certain restaurants pizza tasted like shit and was more expensive than other known good tasting pizza, I would try somewhere else rather than waste my money on that pizza place..

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...view/page5.asp
http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid...=expert&pid=12
http://www.hothardware.com/articles/...rmance/?page=4
Click to expand...

Same could be said about [H]'s testing metholodgy. If multiple other sites say ATI's offerings isn't that bad but one say's...yes it is. Are you too going to go with the mass's?

The said individual wants to go with ATI's offerings after exploring possiblites is that person RIGHT! Deal with it.
 
DaBoonies said:
Same could be said about [H]'s testing metholodgy. If multiple other sites say ATI's offerings isn't that bad but one say's...yes it is. Are you too going to go with the mass's?

The said individual wants to go with ATI's offerings after exploring possiblites is that person RIGHT! Deal with it.
Click to expand...


Actually, if you have a brain you can tell which sites are doing rigorous decent testing and which are fluff, you can also read the objective numbers that lead to the more subjective conclusions. If you look at the number on the same games from [H] and others you will find they all essentially tell the same story.

I have read too many reviews on these cards and in the end it is clear that ATI mis-balanced the active units in the entire HD 2000 lineup, with too little texture processing power. Sometimes their new generation card is slower than old generation card in the same range. The 2600XT is sometimes slower than 1650XT. ATI screwed up, big time.

Now they tried to compensate by shifting the whole line down a notch in price, but even then performance is uneven and they often lose to months old second place cards from the competition, on top of that they have no card at all to compete with NVs top cards in each segment (8600GTS and 8800GTX).

Now out of this ATI mess a consumer may still find a price performance value on an ATI card but it won't be easy. The 2900XT is too close in performance to the 8800 GTS 320MB to even try for a price performance at the top. The 2600 XT is often undercut by the 8600GT.

But it seems that low end home theater may work better for ATI. Though that is hardly peachy either:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=867722

ATI needs to man up, acknowledge they screwed up on unit balance, respin with more texture performance.
 
DaBoonies said:
Same could be said about [H]'s testing metholodgy. If multiple other sites say ATI's offerings isn't that bad but one say's...yes it is. Are you too going to go with the mass's?

The said individual wants to go with ATI's offerings after exploring possiblites is that person RIGHT! Deal with it.
Click to expand...

Your perfectly correct, you can waste your money however you want.

And the main difference in the [H] review and the others was that people didn't turn on eye-candy, which was the 2900XT's downfall. For these low end cards you won't use much anyway, and the 2600 still has problems with AA.

Also it was their conclusions that were wrong, not just their numbers. They would go on to show a card that wasn't performing well in #s, then recommend it anyway.
 
lt_shiro said:
I can't agree with that. 8600 GT is almost as fast as a 7900. And handles any Directx 9 title at 1280x1024 so far.
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It's not as linear as that. A 8600 GT can be as fast as a previous generation high-end card (7900/X1900), but that greatly depends on the game you're playing. Those that take advantage of the shader power of this new architecture, will run faster. The rest, which are still the majority, will run slower. Sometimes much slower, since, among other things, the 8600 GT is crippled in memory bandwidth. All this impacts image quality, because the card will not have the horsepower for decent levels of AA for example.
 
The 2600 pro seems to be getting it's ass handed to it by a 1650XT in most of those reviews. I was hoping that they might at least bring some hope to the mainstream, but apparently not. I guess the 2600XT isn't going to be any better, either. Wow. Way to drop the ball ATI. Next!
 
DaBoonies said:
Same could be said about [H]'s testing metholodgy. If multiple other sites say ATI's offerings isn't that bad but one say's...yes it is. Are you too going to go with the mass's?

The said individual wants to go with ATI's offerings after exploring possiblites is that person RIGHT! Deal with it.
Click to expand...

If it was someone I've known for years and trusted that their judgment in the past has always been sound, then yes, one is good enough.
 
Snowdog said:
Actually, if you have a brain you can tell which sites are doing rigorous decent testing and which are fluff, you can also read the objective numbers that lead to the more subjective conclusions. If you look at the number on the same games from [H] and others you will find they all essentially tell the same story.

I have read too many reviews on these cards and in the end it is clear that ATI mis-balanced the active units in the entire HD 2000 lineup, with too little texture processing power. Sometimes their new generation card is slower than old generation card in the same range. The 2600XT is sometimes slower than 1650XT. ATI screwed up, big time.

Now they tried to compensate by shifting the whole line down a notch in price, but even then performance is uneven and they often lose to months old second place cards from the competition, on top of that they have no card at all to compete with NVs top cards in each segment (8600GTS and 8800GTX).

Now out of this ATI mess a consumer may still find a price performance value on an ATI card but it won't be easy. The 2900XT is too close in performance to the 8800 GTS 320MB to even try for a price performance at the top. The 2600 XT is often undercut by the 8600GT.

But it seems that low end home theater may work better for ATI. Though that is hardly peachy either:
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=867722

ATI needs to man up, acknowledge they screwed up on unit balance, respin with more texture performance.
Click to expand...

QFT
 
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