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Written by Mikhail Ivanenkov
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Thursday, 28 June 2007 |
Since the 8600GT from Galaxy comes factory overclocked I didn't hold out much hopes for a big OC with this card. However, once I powered up ATI Tool I was pleasantly surprised. Although the card was windows stable at 660/900 it was only benchmark stable at 650/870.
Meanwhile, filling up the gap between the Radeon HD 2400 and the Radeon HD 2900 series is the Radeon HD 2600. Right now the card making up this series is the HD 2600XT and 2600PRO. This RV630-based graphics card comes with 120 shader units (in comparison to the 320 found on the 2900XT and the 40 found with the HD 2400 series), 4 x2 ROPs, 390 million transistors, 256MB of video memory, 128-bit video memory bus, and a core operating at 800MHz with the memory up to 1100MHz. There is also a GDDR3 and GDDR4 version of the Radeon HD 2600XT. The price for this creation is only $149 USD.
If we think back, it's easy to see where the ball started really rolling - Windows XP. The first company to really bridge the gap between physical ownership and digital rights was Microsoft with its Windows XP activation. Even if you had a fully valid license key, the software required activation afterwards. If you had activated it too many times before, a phone call to Microsoft was in your future. Trust me, I know - with the amount of time my system has been reinstalled thanks to various bit-tech testing procedures, I'm practically on a first name basis with those guys in India.
Opening the case is nice and easy; simply removing six screws allows all the panels to be removed from the case as you can see above. I would recommend removing the top panel first. The side panels can scratch the finish of the top panel when you are removing them if you are not careful. This design is really useful when you are trying to route your wires, very necessary when dealing with a case this size.
They've certainly got a quality feel to them. As soon as you open up the box with its posh, magnetised flap, you know that you've purchased some serious gear. The headband and circumaural earcups (the kind that sit over and around your ears) are wrapped in luxurious soft leather and are beautifully softly padded. The chunky hinges and headband, underneath their luxurious cladding, are constructed of hard-wearing steel and aluminium. The cable feels thick and hard-wearing and can even be replaced should you ever trap it in a closing car door. The whole set has a pleasing, industrial feel to it, like a pair of luxury, high-tech ear defenders.
An HD 2900 XT looks the part of a higher-end, but still mainstream video card. A little on the long side, but with a single-slot cooler, and generally sleek profile. The heatsink has an ATI red transparent plastic shroud with a silver hot-rod flame coming out of the, er, fan intake. Unlike the flagship HD 2900 XT, the card sports a few capacitors and doesn't have all solid-state power regulation. The capacitors are a mix of all-aluminum caps and more common goo-on-the-inside caps. Part of the heatsink extends over the solid-state VRMs, adding passive cooling to them.
At the time of the HD 2900 XT's debut, AMD also disclosed a multitude of details regarding mobile and mainstream GPUs derived from the R600 architecture. In our coverage of the Radeon HD 2000 series as it became known, we talked about not only the Radeon HD 2900 XT, but five other members of the family, including the Radeon HD 2600 XT (GDDR3 and GDDR4 versions), the 2600 Pro, and the Radeon HD 2400 XT and Pro. Unfortunately, cards weren’t ready in time to launch alongside the 2900 XT, but they are now and we’ve got a trio of them in house for a benchmarking throw-down.
The HD 2600 XT has two dual link capable DVI outputs, so you can connect up to two widescreen high-res LCDs, for example with 2560x1600 each. In case you need an analog output, you can connect DVI adapter to any port to use your older CRT. It is also possible to connect up to two HDMI adapters for HDMI+Audio+HDCP output. Yes, HDCP works on both outputs at the same time.
Like most other budget cards the HD 2400 Pro comes with one analog VGA and one DVI output. The DVI output can be used with an analog adapter to connect a second analog display. It can also be used with an HDMI adapter to get an HDMI+Audio+HDCP signal for your big TV.
At the other end of the SP-1000E, we find the rather large grouping of cables sticking out of the power supply. To allow air moved by the fan to flow easier, the entire back of the power supply is open with a large pattern of holes. One nice thing about the cables of the SP-1000W is that each of the cables coming out of it are sleeved. This not only adds to the appearance of the inside of your PC, but also helps air flow more freely past the cables.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 28 June 2007 )
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