Introduction

PowerColor, unleash the gaming power. Somehow we figure that most of you know PowerColor already, which means an introduction might not be needed. But just in case for those who don't know PowerColor yet, we will share it with you. PowerColor, established by TuL Corporation in 1997, is a graphics industry leading brand name and also well known for its outstanding performance and innovative technology. As a leading provider of graphics cards, PowerColor offers powerful, reliable and cost effective solutions to customers worldwide. And to succeed in this competitive industry, great products need to be complimented by speed to market, cost and service. PowerColor strives to the very best, both to their customers and to society, thereby making a brighter future for tomorrow.

No so long ago AMD released the Radeon HD 2900 series and along with that introduction came as well the low-end and mid-range products to go up against NVIDIA. Well, now that we are a couple of months further the Radeon HD 2600 series are finally available. These cards are focused towards the mid-range graphics card market, and offer some extra choice to any potential buyers. These Radeon HD 2600 series have to take it up against the GeForce 8600 series, which have earned already their place on the mid-range segment. And this is exactly where the Radeon HD 2600 series come into the picture and ATI has actually two different versions. The first one being the Radeon HD 2600 XT, and a lower version with the PRO suffix. Next to that there are also some variations on the type memory chips used on these graphics card.

For the most part, the specifications of the Radeon HD 2600 XT directly resemble those of the recent high-end Radeon HD 2900 series. Based on the somehow successful Radeon HD 2900 series, the Radeon HD 2600 series brings DirectX 10 to the masses, empowering every PC gamer to enjoy the next generation graphical experience. The power of geometry shader, unique instancing, massive texture arrays and high dynamic range rendering will all be shown in an amazing line up of DirectX 10 titles coming out later this year. The Radeon HD 2600 series takes all the great architectural features of the Radeon HD 2900 series and makes it available at the popular $80-160 price point...

The Radeon HD 2600 XT is the successor of the Radeon X1600 XT, which had a hard time keeping up with the GeForce 7600 GT as best value DirectX 9.0c graphics card. With the Radeon HD 2600 XT we some expect that ATI can turn the tables and become one of the popular DirectX 10 accelerators. The Radeon HD 2600 series are available in two configurations, and several variations depending on the memory used. First you got the Radeon HD 2600 PRO which comes with DDR2 memory and can be equipped with either 256MB or 512MB memory. The better part is the Radeon HD 2600 XT featuring the faster GDDR3 or GDDR4 memory chips. The Radeon HD 2600 GPU contains 390 million transistors and implements a highly parallel, unified shader design, consisting of 120 individual stream processors.

Main Features

• Radeon HD 2600 XT (RV630 at 800MHz)
• 256MB 128-bit GDDR3 Memory (1400MHz)
• High-speed 128-bit Memory Interface
• Memory Bandwidth of 22.4GB/s
• PCI Express x16 Compatibility
• High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection
• H.264 Playback with Avivo HD Engine
• Multi-GPU CrossFire Interconnect Support
• DVI-I Connector for Analog/Digital Display

Now it took a while since the Radeon HD 2600 series got announced before these became available, but that is all over now with these cards widely available. The card is based on the new RV630 GPU which has prominent features such as an integrated UVD decoder which helps with decoding high definition video by offloading almost all calculations to the GPU. One of the most exciting features about the Radeon HD 2600 XT is the fact that it is based on a new 65nm manufacturing process. This not only improves yields for ATI but also allows the Radeon HD 2600 XT to theoretically draw less power and produce less heat and provide a higher performance per watt ratio. The architecture of the Radeon HD 2600 XT matches that of the Radeon HD 2900 XT in features and capabilities.

Due to the RV630 being a distinct new chip, based upon the same principles present on the Radeon HD 2900 series, it does set some expectations. And although the architecture is somehow deducted from the R600 chip, some changes are made to the manufacturing process. The RV630 GPU's on these cards are built using a 65nm manufacturing process, and they are the first shipping graphics cards to do so. Compared with the GeForce 8600 series, these ATI variants have a greater number of stream processors, but fewer raster operation and texture management units. Unfortunately, all these cards are held back by the 128-bit memory bus which does limit the memory bandwidth to a great extend. A greater memory bus of 256-bit would have been a better choice, giving these mid-range cards some extra added value.

The Radeon HD 2600 XT offers great DirectX 9.0c performance, comprehensive DirectX 10 support, industry leading image quality and the second generation video engine at the $100-160 price point. Yes indeed, the Radeon HD 2600 XT comes clocked at 800MHz core, stream processors clocked at 800MHz and the memory at 1400MHz effective. The card PowerColor is a dual slot design and requires no extra PCI Express power connector, which means less power consumption. We can see that PowerColor opted for their own cooling solution which resembles a lot to the Zalman silent coolers. The Radeon HD 2600 XT features two dual link DVI outputs for connecting to analog and digital displays. With the Radeon HD 2600 series, all gamers got a chance to experience the DirectX 10 gaming wonders...