More Mainstream DX10: AMD's 2400 and 2600 Series
by Derek Wilson on June 28, 2007 8:35 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
The Cards
Just a day before publication, we were called up and told of revised pricing for different RV6xx based solutions. Our request to have the information emailed to us was declined, as AMD only wanted this information discussed over the phone. While there is nothing wrong with that, we did find it a little odd and at least worth mentioning.
We were told that price would be broken down as follows:
AMD Radeon HD 2600 XT: $120 - $150
AMD Radeon HD 2600 Pro: $90 - $100
AMD Radeon HD 2400 XT: $75 - $85
AMD Radeon HD 2400 Pro: $50 - $55
This means we can expect high priced 2600 XT cards to be priced just below 8600 GTS parts (which are currently available at around $170 online), and will also compete with some overclocked 8600 GT hardware. The 2600 Pro will compete with the cheaper 8600 GT cards. The 2400 XT and Pro will compete with different flavors of the 8500 GT. While we didn't include 8500 GT tests in this article, we will be including the low end NVIDIA part in future reviews.
As for the cards themselves, here are some images of what we are testing today:
AMD Radeon 2600 XT
AMD Radeon HD 2600 Pro
AMD Radeon HD 2400 XT
AMD Radeon HD 2400 Pro
The higher end cards will come with an HDMI converter that includes sound, but AMD has given board partners the ability to chose whether or not to include this with lower end parts (even though all the boards will support the feature).
Just a day before publication, we were called up and told of revised pricing for different RV6xx based solutions. Our request to have the information emailed to us was declined, as AMD only wanted this information discussed over the phone. While there is nothing wrong with that, we did find it a little odd and at least worth mentioning.
We were told that price would be broken down as follows:
AMD Radeon HD 2600 XT: $120 - $150
AMD Radeon HD 2600 Pro: $90 - $100
AMD Radeon HD 2400 XT: $75 - $85
AMD Radeon HD 2400 Pro: $50 - $55
This means we can expect high priced 2600 XT cards to be priced just below 8600 GTS parts (which are currently available at around $170 online), and will also compete with some overclocked 8600 GT hardware. The 2600 Pro will compete with the cheaper 8600 GT cards. The 2400 XT and Pro will compete with different flavors of the 8500 GT. While we didn't include 8500 GT tests in this article, we will be including the low end NVIDIA part in future reviews.
As for the cards themselves, here are some images of what we are testing today:
AMD Radeon 2600 XT
AMD Radeon HD 2600 Pro
AMD Radeon HD 2400 XT
AMD Radeon HD 2400 Pro
| AMD R6xx Hardware | ||||||||
| SPs | PPC | Core Clock | TMUs | DDR Rate | Bus Width | Memory Size | Price | |
| HD 2900 XT | 320 | 16 | 740MHz | 16 | 825MHz | 512bit | 512MB | $399 |
| HD 2600 | 120 | 4 | 600 - 800MHz | 8 | 400 - 1100MHz | 128bit | 256MB | $90 - $150 |
| HD 2400 | 40 | 4 | 525 - 700MHz | 4 | 400 - 800MHz | 64bit | 128MB / 256MB | $50-$85 |
The higher end cards will come with an HDMI converter that includes sound, but AMD has given board partners the ability to chose whether or not to include this with lower end parts (even though all the boards will support the feature).
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kilkennycat - Thursday, June 28, 2007 - link
nVidia is well into development of the 8xxx-family successors. If you don't like any of the current Dx10 offerings, keep your wallets in your pockets till late this year or very early next year. Double-precision floating-point compute paths (think a full-fledged GPGPU, fully capable of mixing and matching GPU-functionality and compute horsepower for particle-physics etc.) with HD-decode hardware-assist integrated in all versions. Likely all on 65nm. And no doubt finally filling in the performance-gap around $200 to quiet the current laments and wailings from all sides.Crysis is likely to run just fine in DX9 on your current high-end DX9 cards. Enjoy the game, upgrading your CPU/Motherboard if Crysis and other next-gen games make good use of multiple cores. Defer the expenditure on prettier graphics to a more-opportune, higher-performance (and less expensive) time. Do you really, really want to invest in a first-generation Dx10 card (unless you want the HD-decode for your HTPC)? For high-end graphics cards the 8800-series is getting long-in-the-tooth, and the prices are not likely to fall much further due to the very high manufacturing cost of the giant G80 die, plus the 2900XT is not an adequate answer. All of the major upcoming game titles are fully-compatible with Dx9. Some developers may be bribed(?) by Microsoft to make their games Vista-only to push Vista's lagging sales, but Vista-only or not, no current game is restricted to Dx10-only... that would be true commercial suicide with the current tiny market-penetration of Dx10 hardware.
Slaimus - Thursday, June 28, 2007 - link
Looks like ATI is giving up the high end again. The 2600XT/Pro is priced against the 8600GT/8500GT with the price drop, and the 2400Pro is well below them.It will work with the OEMs, but not with game developers and players.
I guess we will see a cut-down 2900GT or something like that to fill the $150-$350 bracket where they have no DX10 products.
Goty - Thursday, June 28, 2007 - link
Why are there no power consumption tests? I thought AT was all over this performance-per-watt nonsense?smitty3268 - Thursday, June 28, 2007 - link
Especially after the article made a point of saying that these cards were built to maximize power efficiency rather than speed.avaughan - Thursday, June 28, 2007 - link
Also missing are noise levels.SandmanWN - Thursday, June 28, 2007 - link
And overclocking...Regs - Thursday, June 28, 2007 - link
Just when I though things were getting better. This whole 6-12 months just one long disapointment.Mid-low range cards that perform sometimes worse than last generation?
All these guys are selling now is hardware with a different name. I never seen such ridiculous stuff in my life. I hope AMD didn't spend too much money on producing these cards. How much money do you have to spend to make a card perform worse than last generations line up? Complete lack of innovation and a complete lack of any sense. I just can't make any sense at all out of this.
I think a 7900GS or a X1800 is the way to go for mid range this year. Though to tell you the truth I wouldn't give AMD any money right now and hopefully then will they get rid of their CEO who seems to not be pulling his weight.
TA152H - Thursday, June 28, 2007 - link
I don't agree with all your reasons, but I agree with Hector Ruiz going. This ass-clown has been plaguing the company for too long, and he has no vision and only a penchant for whining about Intel's anti-competitive practices.He really needs to go. Now!
defter - Thursday, June 28, 2007 - link
They have the same problem that NVidia had with GeForce FX. They spent a lot of money to an exotic new architecture that turned to be very inefficient in terms of performance/transistor count.
DerekWilson - Thursday, June 28, 2007 - link
Except that this is their second generation of a unified shader architecture. The first incarnation is the XBox360 Xenos.