Radeon HD 2600 XT Preview
You'll notice that the card features the now standard dual link connectors for Crossfire, but what we don't expect from a card this length is a lack of power connector. With the HD 2900 XT being such a power hog, I really expected the HD 2600 XT to need additional power as well. This is a bonus as it will be much more efficient.
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Card Specs & Info:
The RV630 Core is based on the 0.065 micron process. This is a much more efficient process than the older 0.08 micron that was quite "leaky" on the HD 2900 XT. In our earlier tests with this card, it runs about 40°C idle and into the low 60's when running fully loaded. The single slot cooler is quiet and the card is not audible over the rest of our test system.
 RV630XT - GPU Core |
 RV630XT - GDDR4 |
- GPU - RV630 - 0.065 Micron
- 390 Million Transistors
- 120 Vertex Shaders - Vertex Ver. 4.0
- 8 Textures / Clock
- 120 Pixel Shader Engines - PS Ver. 4.0
- Core Speed - 800MHz
- Memory Speed - 1100MHz
- Fill Rate - 6400 MTexels / sec
- Memory Bandwidth - 35.2GB / sec
The memory is Samsung K4U52324QE-BC09 memory that runs on a limited 128-bit memory interface. There is 256MB of this GDDR4 that powers the card at an impressive 1100MHz DDR. More information about the actual memory modules chips is below.
The K4U52324QE is 536,870,912 bits of hyper synchronous data rate Dynamic RAM organized as 8 x 2,097,152 words by 32 bits, fabricated with SAMSUNG's high performance CMOS technology. Synchronous features with Data Strobe allow extremely high performance up to 11.2GB/s/chip.
- 1.8V± 0.09V power supply for device operation
- 1.8V± 0.09V power supply for I/O interface
- On-Die Termination (ODT)
- Output Driver Strength adjustment by EMRS
- Calibrated output drive
- 1.8V Pseudo Open drain compatible inputs/outputs
- 8 internal banks for concurrent operation
- Differential clock inputs (CK and /CK)
- Commands entered on each positive CK edge
- Double pumping address
- CAS latency : 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22 (clock)
- Burst length : 8 only
The RV630 is said to consume 40-45W and overclocking is very limited in the Catalyst "Overdrive" settings. We will explore overclocking more in our full review in a week or so. For now, we've got some preliminary benchmark numbers ran under our Windows Vista Ultimate setup.
Test System Specs:
- Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 - Stock
- Radeon HD 2600 XT - Stock
- MSI 975X Platinum Motherboard
- 2GB PC2-8500 Ballistix Tracer at 800MHz 4-4-4-12
- Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit
- Catalyst 7.5 (8.38RC7) BETA drivers
Benchmarks:
We ran through some 3DMark tests as well as some Lost Planet and Company of Heroes in-game benchmarks. So far the performance of this mid-range card is, well - midrange.
For the preview, we'll only show you the 3DMark benchmarks so you come back and read the whole article.
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Conclusion:
The RV630XT - Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB shows some promise as a mid-range card. It offers full DX10 support without sucking too much power. It will be interesting to see how it performs with some eye-candy turned on at mid - to - high resolutions. Stay tuned!
Please feel free to comment on this preview over in our forum at the "Comments" link below.
