System setup and notes
| Graphics cards | Sapphire HD 2600XT X2 1024MiB GDDR3 | Sapphire HD 2600XT Ultimate 256MiB GDDR3 | GeCube Radeon RV630XT X-Turbo2 256MiB GDDR4 | XFX GeForce 8600 GT XXX 256MiB GDDR3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GPU clock speed (MHz) | 796.5 | 796.5 | 796.5 | 620 |
| Shader clock speed (MHz) | 796.5 | 796.5 | 796.5 | 1355 |
| Memory clock speed (MHz) | 1584 | 1386 | 2196 | 1600 |
| Memory bus width (bits) | 128 | 128 | 128 | 128 |
| CPU | Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (2.40GHz, 4MiB L2 cache, 1066MHz FSB, LGA775) | |||
| Motherboard | Asus P5K Premium WiFi AP Edition (P35 + ICH9R) | eVGA NF68 (NVIDIA NF6 680i SLI) | ||
| BIOS revision | 0204 | 691N0P20 | ||
| Memory | 1GiB (2 x 512MiB) OCZ26671024ELDCGE-K PC5400 | |||
| Memory timings and speed | 4-4-4-8 @ DDR2-667 | |||
| Disk drive(s) | 160GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.9 (3Gb/s mode) | |||
| Mainboard software | Intel Inf Update 8.3.0.1013 | NVIDIA platform driver 9.53 | ||
| Graphics driver | CATALYST 7.9 final | CATALYST 7.7 final | ForceWare 158.22 | |
| Operating system | Windows XP Professional - 32-bit with SP2 |
|||
Tests
| 3D Benchmarks | Far Cry v1.33 Quake 4 v1.30 Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory v1.05 |
|---|
Testing notes
We've recently evaluated a couple of Radeon HD 2600 XT cards from Sapphire and GeCube and both the single-GPU Radeon HD 2600 XTs run at identical core speeds - 796.5MHz - but with differing memory clocks. We're going to be looking at both non-CrossFire and CrossFire performance from the Sapphire dual card, and we note that newer CATALYST 7.9 drivers are being used. Thinking about it for a second, non-CrossFire performance should be similar to the single-GPU Sapphire's.
Benchmarks were conducted at 1280 x 1024 4x AA 8x AF and 1600 x 1200 no AA 8x AF. These are likely resolutions and image-quality settings for mid-range cards and we've run the cards through three popular games.
As always, we ran each benchmark three times and then calculated the arithmetic mean. If any of the three results looked erroneous, we threw all three away until we could collect a set that was within a margin of statistical error. We report any major attempts needed to get three reliable results, of course. Apart from that, things are as noted on the graphs and in the graph commentary. Want to know more? Head for the HEXUS.community.
On we go!
