Introduction
AMD's release of the Radeon HD 2600 XT - in a couple of flavours differentiated by memory speeds - has put a fistful of well-rounded technology into products that retail between £65 and £90. The pricing is such that cards based upon this SKU make for a tempting upgrade from, say, the integrated graphics (usually mediocre) found in many systems.
So, which Radeon HD 2600 XT should you consider and is it as compelling as its immediate rival, NVIDIA's GeForce 8600 GT?
Sapphire and GeCube each dropped off a special-edition 2600XT and their different approaches to creating non-reference designs will appeal to users with slightly different tastes.
Read on to find out if either will make a good stocking-filler (yes, we're at that time of year now!).
