ATI Radeon HD2600 XT

This is ATI's mid-range DX 10 offering which is high on features. It comes
with 120 stream processor units and a 128-bit memory interface. It has a core
clock speed of 800 MHz and memory clock speed of 1100 MHz. Among the 2600 series
card, this one has the maximum memory bandwidth of 22.4 GB/sec. Like the HD 2900
XT, this too is a feature-rich product. It comes integrated with HDMI output
capabilities and supports HDCP, Blu-Ray, HD DVD decoding, and CrossFire. One big
relief in this series is the reduced power consumption as compared to ATI's 2900
series.

In 3D Mark06 it gave a score of 4294 (at 1280 resolution) which is very good,
though a little less than what XFX 8600 GTS scored (reviewed July 2007, p. 129)
mainly because this card came factory over clocked. Even in our gaming tests it
fared pretty well. In FEAR at max setting (at 1280 x 1024 resolution) it gave a
maximum of 61 FPS which is again good for a budget range card. The performance
does improve if you settle for a lower resolution. In Doom 3 a score of 159.2
FPS (at 1280x 1024 resolutions) is very good and higher than that of 8600 GTS.
The performance in Prey and Half life 2 episode 1 was also as per standards.

Bottomline: This card will find many takers purely in terms of
features it offers at this price.