These are the best honest prices we could find for the exact cards used in our tests.
GDDR3), so prices online may seem to vary. Please note that some of these cards are available at different clock speeds or with different graphics RAM (DDR2 vs.
Our XFX GeForce 8600 GTS goes for about $160, while the eVGA GeForce 8600 GT used in our testing will set you back about $130. We’re using updated prices here-the lowest prices we were able to easily obtain online for in-stock items from reputable dealers, without mail-in rebates. Note that the price of GeForce 8600 cards has dropped since we first reviewed them. The result is the number of dollars you have to spend for each frame-per-second the card delivers, on average. We feel it’s useful to look at performance and price in another way-as “dollars per FPS.” We averaged together the frame rates of all the games we tested at each resolution, and divided the card’s average cost by that amount. Raw performance is one thing, but most consumers looking for a graphics card in the $100 to $200 price range are greatly concerned about bang-for-the buck. The GeForce 8600 GTS does.This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this page. The Radeon 2600 XT also doesn't require a direct connection to your PC's power supply. Nvidia's card can almost do the same thing, but because it lacks a built-in audio chip, it requires an additional internal connection to route the audio signal over the HDMI cable.
RADEON HD 2600 XT VS GEFORCE 8600 GT PC
Thanks to an onboard audio chip, if you use ATI's included DVI-to-HDMI adapter to connect your PC to your television, you can also send the sound from your PC out through that same connection. If you're a complete videophile, you'll still find a dedicated player to be your best bet, but for most of us, the video output from these cards is completely acceptable.ĪTI also has a leg up as far as convenient installation in that it requires no internal cable connections to the other parts of your PC. For raw image quality, ATI's new chip fares just as well as Nvidia's GeForce 8600 GTS, which is to say, it's excellent. With the ugly 3D performance truth out of the way, we can focus on HD video, where the Radeon HD 2600 XT really shines. And by the time more next-gen PC games come out that really use it well, you'll likely have another generation of 3D cards to choose from. And because those next-gen DirectX 10 games aren't really that impressive yet, we don't consider losing out on DirectX 10 a major loss today. For this card in particular, unless you're a dedicated Company of Heroes fan, you can get better overall 3D performance from Nvidia's GeForce 8600 GTS (which still isn't great), or any of a number of cards from the previous generation, if you don't mind losing out on DirectX 10 capability, and if can still find them in stock. As usual, GameSpot's Sarju Shah came through for us with the benchmark scores, both for us and for GameSpot's own summer graphics card roundup, which we recommend you check out. We'd encourage you to look for any performance boost, too, considering the Radeon HD 2600 XT's stock 3D scores. Our stock model came with an 800 MHz clock on the core, the memory, and the shader pipeline, so any boxed card with a higher clock speed on any one of those parts should benefit with faster 3D performance. In addition to the memory type and amount, the various retail models of the card will vary by core and memory clock speeds as well. You may see DDR4, or even DDR2 versions as well as pricier models with 512MB of RAM.
Like its Nvidia competitors, most boxed versions of ATI's new card will come with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM. We suspect Nvidia may get a lot of business in that high midrange/low high-end market segment as a result.įor the Radeon HD 2600 XT, its basics compare favorably to Nvidia's GeForce 8600 GT and GTS. That also means that if you have a particular loyalty, ATI has left you fewer options with this new generation of Radeons. That leaves GeForce 8800 GTS cards with no true competitor at the $250 to $300 price level.
Unlike Nvidia, ATI has a very fragmented lineup with its new Radeon HD 2000 series.
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