Hardware News

Sapphire Radeon HD 2600 XT GDDR4 Edition Review

Patrick "MACMAC" MacMillan

2007-08-27 23:52:06.0


As you may have noticed, Radeon HD 2600 XT’s come in both GDDR3 and GDDR4 versions. Is there a noticeable difference the two? Let’s find out. MKV Tech has posted a review of the Sapphire Radeon HD 2600 XT GDDR4 Edition.

Let’s see what they had to say:

“At our first encounter with the Radeon HD 2600 series, we weren't impressed at all, but that really didn't depend on the manufacture but rather with ATI and their chip design. And although the specifications look good, we can't hide our disappointment when it comes to the actual gaming performance. Since then we have to revisit our statement, and frankly say that ATI has done quite well with making their drivers better and lift the Radeon HD 2600 series to a higher performance level. These new drivers and the Sapphire Radeon HD 2600 XT featuring the more expensive though faster GDDR4 memory has paid off very well. The performance on our benchmarks and actually gaming suites has gone up and brought the Radeon HD 2600 series at a similar level as the GeForce 8600 series, taking into account that the GTS is still the champion of the mid-range segment.”


Thanks to superior memory clocks, the GDDR4 edition does provide a healthy performance gain. However, the GDDR4 versions are often priced $20-40 more than their GDDR3 counterparts, and at that price they are not worth it, in my opinion.

Click here to read the full review.

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