Introduction

Well we are glad to finally been able to partner with Sapphire, which earned as a company already a great name within the ATI community. So we will take you on a journey to show a bit more on what Sapphire is all about and which products they are currently offering on the market. Pioneers in a new era of how data is displayed and games are played, Sapphire shepherds the performance oriented with ground breaking solutions to an environment that remains in a constant state of flux and ultimate evolution. For over ten years Sapphire has held true to its unwavering commitment, the commitment to deliver the most feature rich and soundly engineered products. Because of Sapphire's firm position on achieving excellence with each product that leaves their factories, you can rest assured that customers will recognize their commitment to selling only the highest of quality components.

Captured within the circuitry of each of Sapphire's graphic cards and mainboards can be found the collective feedback from generations of enthusiasts in every market niche. Brought to life through performance oriented innovation and an emphasis on quality control, Sapphire designs, manufactures and distributes the most complete range of ATI video boards and mainboards, from the mainstream products that afford the casual user the opportunity to enjoy enriched graphics and affordable platform solutions to the state-of-the-art technological marvels that drive fantasies to before unattainable thresholds of realism, and offer the pinnacle of stability and performance! And Sapphire refuses to compromise quality by cutting corners at the expense of its customers experience with their products. Sapphire strives to the very best, both to their customers and to society, thereby making a brighter future for tomorrow.

The wait is finally over. Not 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. Now that we are a couple of months further the Radeon HD 2600 series are 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. The Radeon HD 2600 series come in actually two different main 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. With the Radeon HD 2600 XT we somehow expect that ATI can turn the tables and become one of the popular DirectX 10 accelerators.

Main Features

• Radeon HD 2600 XT (RV630 at 800MHz)
• 256MB 128-bit GDDR4 Memory (2200MHz)
• High-Speed 128-bit Memory Interface
• Memory Bandwidth of 35.2GB/s
• High-Bandwidth Digital Content Protection
• H.264 Playback with Avivo HD Engine
• Multi-CPU CrossFire Interconnect Support
• DVI-I Connector for Analog/Digital Display

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. 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 Sapphire box comes with some plastic shrink wrap around it, which gives an extra protection of the package as a whole against damages. The box itself details very clearly the product that you are buying as well as the main features, that it is a PCI Express card with high performance GDDR4 memory. A meanly black colored box and some blue/red which are the main colors of Sapphire. It is a nifty bow with a Lara Croft inspired woman on the cover. The box is a somehow standard package, though quite small compared to the other graphics cards we have seen so far. Although that might just be natural as the Radeon HD 2600 XT is a smaller card than the high-end accelerators. And a smaller box means also less paper, plastic and therefore better for the environment.

Turning the Sapphire box around we find out even more details on the product enclosed. The back of the paperboard package lists all the features of the Radeon HD 2600 XT graphics card, some highlights of the enclosed product and what is included in the package. Further checking the box reveals also some more information on the sides that might come in handy upon purchase of the Radeon HD 2600 XT GDDR4 edition, like the system requirements. All these add up in the first impression of the Sapphire package, a very detailed and professional box. As far as the box goes, it certainly is very attractive following a similar color scheme and design as the front of the box features those lovely blue colors.

The Sapphire version of the Radeon HD 2600 XT follows the reference design just like any other. The first versions of the Radeon HD 2600 series all come from the same production and each of the brands puts their own colors and logo on it. Although not all of them put full sticker on the cooler, so it depends a bit what each manufacturer does as extra to show their colors. These cards are bigger than the previous Radeon X1650 series with the actual PCB almost completely hidden away behind the single slot cooling solution. As we have seen with the previous series, the cooler has once again been redesigned to come up with an efficient thought silent cooling solution.