Gaming Benchmarks

As we saw the synthetic benchmark results, the next logical step is to dive into the real gaming performance of the PowerColor Radeon HD 2600 XT edition video card. As reference we will use a standard GeForce 8600 GTS setup to check the performance differences. Each setup is going to run each game at different resolution settings using a variety of anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering 3D effects. We are using a variety of well known games which are quite popular amongst the gamer community. So in effect we are stuffing both cards in the same system, using the same settings and spending some time playing games and performing tests on the following game titles, let's check what we got...

UbiSoft Far Cry

Who doesn't know the game Far Cry? You should at least have heard about it... It's the game that came out right before Half-Life 2, Doom 3 and so on and set some new standards in gaming experience. Without a doubt, Far Cry was the most advanced graphics seen in any PC game. Everything in this game looks amazing, and the level of verisimilitude is unprecedented. Far Cry isn't just a stunning technical accomplishment. It's quite possibly the best single-player first-person shooter experience for the PC since Half-Life. Since Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 came out Far Cry had to share the welt on de gaming market.

Benchmark Results - 1280x1024 - E6300 2.80GHz - 2GB RAM
	GeForce 8600 GTS	Radeon HD 2600 XT
No AA/No AF	106.80 fps	66.91 fps
2x AA/4x AF	84.02 fps	32.23 fps
4x AA/8x AF	71.57 fps	27.86 fps
SM3.0/HDR	60.71 fps	N/A
Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better.

Well yeah we still like the hang of it with Far Cry, it just keeps amazing us this game with very nice visual graphics and stunning game play. Besides that it is an excellent game to checkout the performance of a graphics card and it does provide some great features and nice visual effects. Ouch, that is the least we can say about the rather poor performance of the Radeon HD 2600 XT, while the GeForce 8600 GTS does okay looking back at the gaming performance of the GeForce 8800 series. But our main concern lies with the Radeon HD 2600 XT which seems to be too limited, although it might be something with the drivers as the system wasn't running as stable as we would have liked and neither able to run through the game when HDR was enabled. We might just have to wait for the next drivers release to see if it will make a difference.

Benchmark Results - 1600x1200 - E6300 2.80GHz - 2GB RAM
	GeForce 8600 GTS	Radeon HD 2600 XT
4x AA/8x AF	48.43 fps	20.31 fps
SM3.0/HDR	43.05 fps	N/A
Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better.
Benchmark Results - 2560x1600 - E6300 2.80GHz - 2GB RAM
	GeForce 8600 GTS	Radeon HD 2600 XT
4x AA/8x AF	18.84 fps	10.38 fps
SM3.0/HDR	20.67 fps	N/A
Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better.

The new hype is all about the ultra widescreen gaming and that means very high resolutions to provide just that little extra gaming experience and feeling. That means we couldn't stay behind neither. And indeed ATI did re-brand their new graphics card series with the HD abbreviation in the naming of their graphics card products. So what does the Radeon HD 2600 XT bring in terms of HD gaming experience? Well, first of all we didn't have a good feeling about it and we did have it right. And although it does support the super high resolutions, that is as far as it goes. If you really want to enjoy the super resolutions, then PowerColor has as well the Radeon HD 2900 series to choose from. In the end we were quite impressed by the image clarity and quality, which has improved a lot over the previous series of graphics cards.

id Software Doom 3

Next on our list of favorite games is Doom 3 developed by id Software. Doom 3 is quite possibly the best-looking game ever, thanks to the brand-new 3D graphics engine used to generate its convincingly lifelike, densely atmospheric, and surprisingly expansive environments. At the same time, when you look past the spectacular appearance, you'll find a conventional, derivative shooter. Doom 3 is essentially a remake of the original Doom, though series fans will find reimagined versions of almost every monster from both previous versions in the new sequel.

Benchmark Results - 1280x1024 - E6300 2.80GHz - 2GB RAM
	GeForce 8600 GTS	Radeon HD 2600 XT
No AA/-- AF	111.2 fps	82.7 fps
2x AA/-- AF	78.6 fps	57.1 fps
4x AA/-- AF	53.8 fps	45.5 fps
8x AA/-- AF	34.2 fps	24.0 fps
Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better.

And here we are with the second gaming experience using the Radeon HD 2600 XT provided by PowerColor. In fact Doom 3 is already going a long way but is still considered a very good reference in terms of OpenGL gaming performance. We notice that the reported frame rates are in favor of the GeForce 8600 GTS video card which delivers high results. On the other hand, the Radeon HD 2600 XT shows that it has quite a lot of processing power, although trailing behind much faster when anti-aliasing is enabled. This is exactly what we mean by the unpredictable performance towards the competition. Both cards use the unified shader technology, by having their own version and logic of what is called stream processors responsible for various shader and pixel operations. As both cards feature a 128-bit memory interface, the main difference is coming from the stream processor implementation, which is for now in favor of the GeForce 8600 GTS accelerator.

Benchmark Results - 1600x1200 - E6300 2.80GHz - 2GB RAM
	GeForce 8600 GTS	Radeon HD 2600 XT
4x AA/-- AF	38.7 fps	32.8 fps
Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better.
Benchmark Results - 2560x1600 - E6300 2.80GHz - 2GB RAM
	GeForce 8600 GTS	Radeon HD 2600 XT
4x AA/-- AF	17.3 fps	16.4 fps
Results Interpretation: Higher index values are better.

Going one step further and going for the higher resolutions we can see that the Radeon HD 2600 XT is capable of supporting the Extreme HD gaming experience but with an impact to the performance. When we would enable the extra features like anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering the Radeon HD 2600 XT is dropping in performance, which is somehow natural. The same behavior we can see as well with the GeForce 8600 GTS graphics card, although it does deliver just that little extra. In fact when the widescreen resolutions come into play the main player becomes the graphics core to a certain extend, and on that point the Radeon HD 2600 XT is certainly ahead with its 800MHz core clock speed. We don't see these mid-range cards being used for the ultra high resolutions during game play but they have the capability if you take into account the performance drop. In the end we would leave the HD gaming up to the big boys who have been designed for that purpose.