ATI RADEON HD 2600 XT, 2600 PRO AND 2400 XT REVIEW AT PC PER - "Here is the 2600 GPU in its block diagram glory. While the flagship 2900 XT architecture features 320 stream processors, 16 texture units and 16 ROPs, the 2600 architecture (for both 2600 XT and the 2600 Pro) is powered by 120 stream processors, 8 texture units and 4 ROPs. As you might guess, that gives the 2600 series considerably less horsepower though at a lower price and lower power consumption."
POWERCOLOR RADEON HD 2400 PRO REVIEW AT TECHPOWERUP - "Powercolor is a brand of Tul corporation which has been in business for many many years. Being one of AMD's premier AIBs they have received a license to design and build their own Radeon HD 2400 and 2600 cards. Today we have on the testbench their Radeon HD 2400 Pro 256 MB which looks like it is a great choice for media PC systems because of its small form factor, integrated UVD HD Video decode acceleration and great price. AMD's RV610 GPU is very similar to the RV630 in design and features, it's mainly the performance that differs to make this a lower cost part."
ATI RADEON HD 2600 XT AND 2600 PRO REVIEW AT EXTREMETECH - "Though the HD 2900 XT was the only card actually released six weeks ago, the rest of the HD 2000 line was announced. We discussed those briefly. Today, ATI begins selling those long-promised cards, the HD 2400 and 2600. We'll take a look at two of the cards in the HD 2600 series: the Radeon HD 2600 Pro and 2600 XT. These two cards are meant to fill the $100–$200 price range, making them the primary competition for Nvidia's GeForce 8600 GT and GTS."
ATI RADEON HD 2600 XT AND 2400 XT REVIEW AT OCW - "Today, we take a look at this mid range offering from PowerColor. Powercolor 2600XT is based on the mid range GPU core ATI HD 2600XT supporting DX10. This GPU delivers incredible gaming performance for Windows Vista™ and DirectX® 10 Includes ATI Avivo™ HD technology for hardware HD video processing and HDMI with built-in 5.1 audio for big-screen entertainment. Native CrossFire™ upgradeability makes it easy to scale up graphics performance."
ATI RADEON HD 2600 XT AND 2400 XT REVIEW AT HOT HARDWARE - "On the pages ahead, we’ll go into detail on the new Radeon HD 2600 XT GDDR4, the Radeon HD 2600 Pro, and the Radeon HD 2400 XT, and compare their performance to a number of current and previous generation cards. But first, here are the Radeon HD 2600 and HD 2400 series’ features and specifications, as per the folks at ATI."
ATI RADEON HD 2600 XT AND 2400 XT REVIEW AT HEXUS - "Today sees the official launch of AMD's latest mid-range graphics cards. The Radeon HD 2600 and 2400 family aim to dethrone NVIDIA's GeForce 8600/8500/8400 by offering a greater feature-set, better performance and a lower comparative street price."
ATI RADEON HD 2600 XT AND 2400 XT REVIEW AT GURU3D - "Oh good gosh people, that certainly took a while didn't it? But yes, today finally is the day we can bring you an in depth review of AMD's ATI Radeon HD 2400 and 2600 products. Two products armed with loads of features to attack the budget and mid-range market with prices that are really interesting. AMD has now launched no less than five desktop graphics cards, in the high-end range you'll see the 80nm fabrication process Radeon HD 2900 XT, a product that is still discussed a lot for sure. But there are four other products as well. ATI is also launching an all new Radeon 2400 and 2600 series (low- and mid-range). These products will be based on the newer 65nm fabrication production process."
ATI RADEON HD 2600 PERFORMANCE AT FIRINGSQUAD - "After announcing the Radeon HD 2000 series a little over a month ago, today AMD-ATI and their board partners are pulling the wraps off their mainstream and value desktop GPU lineup, namely the Radeon HD 2600 XT and 2600 Pro, and the Radeon HD 2400 XT and 2400 Pro. Due to time constraints, today we’re going to focus on the former cards in ATI’s mainstream lineup, the Radeon HD 2600s."
DIAMOND VIPER ATI RADEON HD 2900 XT 1GB GDDR4 AT GOT FRAG - "Diamond's Viper Radeon HD 2900XT 1024MB GDDR4 graphics card looks to be the final incarnation of ATI's long-awaited R600 core. Does this card have what it takes to overcome NVIDIA's 8800 Ultra?"
ATI CATALYST v7.6 DRIVER AT AMD-ATI - "Official AMD Product Support for ATI Radeon™ HD 2900 series, ATI Radeon™ HD 2600 series and ATI Radeon™ HD 2400 series. Performance Improvements - Half-Life 2: Episode 1 and Dark Messiah Might and Magic performance improves on the ATI Radeon™ HD2900 XT Crossfire. Improvements of 16% or more can be seen with HDR enabled."
ATI CATALYST v7.6 PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS AT TWEAK TOWN - "The HD 2900 XT graphics card is well and truly out there and we imagine it would be on top of the to-do list for the driver folks in Canada when it comes to increasing performance – suffice to say, hopefully we see a good bump this month. Before we move on to the benchmarks, let’s have a quick look at the latest release notes and take it from there. Performance Improvements - Half-Life 2: Episode 1 and Dark Messiah Might and Magic performance improves on the ATI Radeon™ HD2900 XT Crossfire configurations. Improvements of 16% or more can be seen with HDR enabled."
MSI NX8500GT-TD256E GEFORCE 8500GT REVIEW AT PCSTATS - "The MSI NX8500GT-TD256E videocard is based on the reference nVIDIA design, but it comes in MSI's signature colour, red. MSI equip the videocard with a compact aluminum heatsink and tiny 50mm fan. Should you want to put a different heatsink on the NX8500GT-TD256E, there are mounting holes around the GeForce 8500GT GPU to accommodate most after market coolers. During our testing the videocard ran pretty quietly though. There are no heatsinks installed on the 256MB of GDDR2 BGA Hynix memory, it's simply unnecessary at stock speeds. Noticeably missing from the MSI NX8500GT-TD256E is a SLI bridge connector on the top left hand corner of the videocard. Don't fret though, the NX8500GT-TD256E can still run SLI through the PCI Express bus, should you happen to have a second GeForce 8500GT videocard and a motherboard which supports SLI."
ZOTAC 8400GS REVIEW AT FUDZILLA - "GeForce 8400GS is based on the G86 GPU, the same one that is used on GeForce 8500GT cards. Core clock is the same, 450MHz, although our Zotac 8400GS works at 459MHz. We mentioned that Zotac has two versions of 8400GS cards, the passively cooled which we have on in our lab today, and another one, cooled by a small fan. The second card is a low profile design, and has a higher core clock, 630MHz. Memory clocks are the same on both Zotac 8400GS cards, 800MHz, the same clock found on reference 8500GT cards. The fan cooled card doesn't feature sound over DVI so you don't get the HDMI adapter in the box."
THE CORE 2 DUO E6750 REVIEW AT PC PER - "Today, we are previewing the upcoming CPU release with a new Core 2 Duo processor: the E6750. This processor isn't going to be put on sale today: actually the official "launch" of the 1333 MHz FSB processors will come towards the end of July. But because Intel was confident in their ability to build these faster bus CPUs, they are giving us a quick preview of the hardware today."
INTEL'S CORE 2 DUO E6750 PROCESSOR REVIEW AT TECH REPORT - "Few things sit still in these parts for long, though, and things are about to change once again, as Intel's recent introduction of the P35 Express chipset signaled. The new P35 and upcoming X38 chipsets from Intel are capable of supporting front-side bus speeds of 1333MHz, and Intel plans to introduce a slew of Core 2 processors primed for the faster bus. Although those CPUs won't officially debut until later this summer, we have a preview today of one of those chips, the Core 2 Duo E6750. We have, of course, run the E6750 through our gamut of CPU performance tests, and we've also checked out its overclocking potential—which turns out to be rather considerable."
INTEL CORE 2 DUO E6750 PREVIEW AT ANANDTECH - "First it was the introduction of the value E4xxx series, then the larger cache Exx20 series, followed by the even cheaper E2xxx CPUs and now the new 1333MHz FSB processors. The new 1333MHz FSB CPUs will end in the number 50 (e.g. E6750), with the exception of the E6540 which is also a 1333MHz CPU. Although Intel isn't announcing pricing at this point, we don't expect the new 1333MHz FSB CPUs to cost any more than their predecessors; in other words, we expect the E6750 to carry the same price tag as the E6700 does. We've included the post July 22nd price cuts for the unreleased Intel processors in the table below (note that current processors will fall in price as well, although the table reflects present day pricing for currently available CPUs), as well as pricing for chips to be released in Q4."
ENEMY TERRITORY QUAKE WARS BETA PERFORMANCE AT AMD ZONE - "Splash Damage's long awaited follow up to Wolfenstein Enemy Territory has been released in beta. Last year at Quakecon we covered their talk on the game, and finally we have our hands on a copy we can test out for ourselves after playing it at E3 and Quakecon last year. We decided to begin taking the game for a spin to see how it performs initially on 7 video cards with high end settings. Will Quake Wars destroy your system if you don't own an 8800 or will megatexturing keep you in the game? We shall see."
AMD 2400 XT YIELDS GOOD 3DMARKS AT THE INQUIRER - "WE HAVE RECEIVED a picture of a 3DMark score from a system running the late and upcoming ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT card. This board was planned to cost around $80, but in reality, you can expect prices to be way lower. The 65 nanometre process is finally working, and we are not surprised to see retail prices around $60 or €60 for a 256MB GDDR-3 card with two DVI ports and a S-VHS out. "
ECS AMD690GM-M2 AMD 690G MOTHERBOARD REVIEW AT PCSTATS - "The ECS AMD690GM-M2 supports AMD Sempron and Athlon64 X2/FX processors which use the Socket AM2 form factor. There are two DDR2 DIMM slots for a maximum of 4GB of DDR2-800 memory. Onboard video encompasses both a DVI and analog monitor connection, but regrettably not HDMI. HDMI is supported by the chipset, but if the manufacturer does not implemented a jack you're going to have to find a DVI-to-HDMI converter cable yourself. Integrated goodies include Gigabit network card, 7.1 channel High Definition Azalia compatible sound card, ten USB 2.0 slots, four Serial ATA II ports which support RAID modes 0, 1 and 0+1. Should you need more than this, the ECS AMD690GM-M2 motherboard supports a PCI Express x16 slot for videocards, a PCI Express x1 slot for high bandwidth devices and two 32 bit PCI slots for legacy hardware. "
XFX GEFORCE 7950GT 512MB REVIEW AT BJORN3D - "Ah yes, our good friends at XFX have done it again. They have brought my PC back from the brink of the junk yard. Just when I thought I wouldn’t be able to get any more performance out of my computer, XFX gives me one more reason not to build an entirely new rig just yet with the XFX 7950GT 512MB 550M. This card makes my PC feel like the young stallion it once was. Playing Command and Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars or Quake 4 was alright before the card but now, it is like the difference between night and day. Seriously, this card is a diamond in the rough."
INNO3D GEFORCE 8600 GTS ICHILL REVIEW AT OVERCLOCKERS CAFE - "Aside from the $200 question we already posed, we also want to look at the Inno3D card and see what separates it from the rest of the field. The big thing right off is that the Inno3D card is offered in iChill trim. iChill is Inno3D's signature selection of higher end cooling models that makes these products much more performance oriented. The iChill XStriker3 we have today is a copper heatpipe/aluminum finned cooler assembly that offers a performance balance between that of raw cooling performance and silence. So let's start out with the specs and a closer look at Inno3D's XStriker3 equipped GeForce 8600 GTS."
COMPANY OF HEROES DX10 COMPARISON AT BIT-TECH - "Microsoft wants us to believe in Vista and the DirectX 10 technology that goes hand in hand with that. Game developers want us to believe in it too. Hell, even your PC wants us to believe in it – but we're cynics. Cold, hard, grumpy cynics with walking sticks who go around prescribing medicines to people based on very little evidence."
POWERCOLOR X1950PRO AGP REVIEW AT FUDZILLA - "It has been half a year now since we've seen ATI's Radeon X1950PRO, the latest treat for AGP users. While in the meantime many things happened on the PCIe front, AGP still stands still. It seems it will stay that way until the first DirectX 10 AGP cards reach us sometime in the summer. ATI finished their reference design of Radeon HD 2600XT AGP card and it should be a good successor to their X1950PRO. That in itself should restore the lost hope of AGP users. On Computex some partners, like Power Color, showcased HD 2600 cards which should be available in two versions, 256MB and 512MB running at 800MHz. The core should run at 600MHz and you can take a look at first snapshots of this new Power Color HD 2600PRO card."
DIAMOND VIPER ATI RADEON HD 2900 XT 1GB GDDR4 AT DIAMOND - "Diamond's Viper X2900 is a magnificent beast. A 700 million-transistor processing powerhouse, a technology statement and dream come true for enthusiast gamers hungry for the fastest GPU ever made. Featuring a 2nd generation unified shader architecture, massive processing power and an unprecedented 512-bit GDDR4 memory interface, X2900 will deliver astonishing performance and the richest feature-set yet for a big ultra-high definition gaming experience with all of the bells and whistles turned up to the max. X2900 is quite simply a ticket to the future of PC gaming."
ALBATRON GEFORCE 8600GT 256 PCI EXPRESS REVIEW AT PCSTATS - "Albatron's 8600GT is a very inexpensive way to bring DirectX10 graphics into your PC, this PCI Express x16 videocard is also SLI compatible. From a technical stand point the GeForce 8600GT-256 supports two dual DVI video outputs, a standard TV and component output video jack and is matched with 256MB of GDDR3 memory. Don't expect much in terms of accessories however, Albatron only include one DVI to analog converter and the TV output cable."
EVGA 8800 ULTRA SUPERCLOCKED REVIEW AT XSR - "For those that don't know, the performance graphics card market is dominated by two rivals; ATI and nVidia. These two companies constantly play the game of "One Upmanship" with each other and recently it has been no different. As ATI released - after much delay - their HD 2900 series of cards, Nvidia brought to the market a hugely overclocked 8800GTX card, known as the Ultra. This card promised monster performance that would keep Nvidia as the performance king for that bit longer. Today I have the Superclocked version of this card from EVGA; lets see how it does."
INTEL PENTIUM E2140 & E2160 REVIEW AT TECHSPOT - "The Core 2 range has been highly successful for Intel, delivering unbeatable performance at a price many have been unable to refuse. It was almost a year ago that the original Core 2 Duo line-up was released, consisting of the E6700, E6600, E6400 and E6300 processors. And now a year later, the “Allendale” dual-core 65nm processor series have been released featuring an (slower) 800MHz quad-pumped FSB with even more affordable prices."
BEST GAMING VIDEO CARDS FOR YOUR MONEY AT THG - "Detailed video card specifications and reviews are great - that is, if you have the time to do the research. But at the end of the day, what a gamer needs is the best video card within a certain budget. So if you don't have the time to research the benchmarks, or if you don't feel confident enough in your ability to make the right decision, fear not. We at Tom's Hardware Guide have come to your aid with a simple list of the best gaming cards."
VIGOR FORCE REXCON QX4 : THE QUADFATHER REVIEW AT THG - "Several months after AMD released its Quad FX twin dual-core processor solutions, the hype and fanfare are largely absent. The big move that was to put AMD back on top was quickly squashed by Intel's single-socket quad-core solutions. AMD's price-lowering response has lead several builders to continue supporting the "4x4" platform as a potentially better-value high-end solution, with the secondary benefit of appeasing the AMD faithful. The Vigor Force Recon QX4's Thermaltake Armor chassis gives the system a similar appearance to that of AMD's Quad FX reference system, but many internal parts have been updated or otherwise improved to deliver the ultimate gaming and multitasking experience."
ASUS EXTREME 8600 GTS SILENT REVIEW AT LEGION HARDWARE - "ASUS has recently presented us with their Extreme N8600 GTS Silent graphics card. Yes, finally this is an all passive GeForce 8600 GTS graphics card! Of course passive cooling is not going to revive the poor performance of the 8600 GTS, but for the graphics card itself passive cooling can really do a lot. While products such as the GeForce 8600 GTS are primarily focused at gamers, they are also ideal for home theatre computers as this particular GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) has the unique ability to support PureVideo HD with VP2 (Video Processor 2), BSP, and AES128."
INNO3D GEFORCE 8600 GTS REVIEW AT GURU3D - "Inno3D obviously will sell multiple products, and that's what we will review today as well. We'll have a look at their regular 8600 GTS, which pretty much is reference based. And next to that we'll have a peek at the same card, and then at the iChill version. iChill basically boils down towards a better software bundle, cooling, overclock and a nice price. Within the Inno3D "iChill" range of products however, there are several product lines with different cooling options. Some cards have Zalman cooling, the others have Arctic Cooling products cooling the cards. Today's model has is a heatpipe cooler with active fan called the XStriker3."
INNO3D GEFORCE 8600 GTS REVIEW AT NVNEWS - "That brings me to what NVNEWS received in the mail today from Inno3D. From half-way around the world we received their elite rendition of the 8600 GTS, the iChill 8600GTS XStriker3. They have an up-front claim of air boost technology, heatpipe technology, and a silent cooler with large airflow. This is all wrapped up in one compact 8600 GTS package. Since I have been working on a personal 'low budget', high-performance gaming rig, anything concerning 'air cooling' gets my immediate attention. These cooling claims certainly did it! I am eager to see what is so special about this Inno3d iChill 8600GTS XStriker3 card compared to the rest of the pack. I will have to say it rates at least a NVNEWS 'Triple' just on the name title alone! So much for the naming let's see what makes up the basis for these claims."
AMD RUBY WHITEOUT DX10 DEMO AT AMD-ATI - "Ruby's latest adventure takes place in a rugged, mountainous terrain where her skills as a snowboarder are tested and may just save her life. This fast paced, action packed demo exploits the power of the ATI Radeon HD 2900XT to create a rich and expansive landscape of snow, rock, and ice. From the procedural snow accumulation on the harsh terrain to the wrinkles on Ruby's brow and the physics that drive each strand of fur on Ruby's fur collar, the ATI Radeon HD 2900XT can handle it all."
AMD DECLARES THE RADEON 2400, 2600 SHIPPING AT THE INQUIRER - "THE GRAPHICS arm of AMD said it has started shipping volumes of HD2400 and HD2600 graphics chips to its add-in board customers. The people to ship it include Sapphire, Power Color, Asus, Ge Cube, Club 3D, Gigglebite, HIS, and MSI. More interestingly, perhaps, AMD wants to "clarify any confusion" about the Unified Video Decoder in the HD2000 series. It's in the HD2300, the HD2400 and the HD2600 but not in the HD2900."
AMD ATHLON X2 BE-2350 REVIEW AT VIPER LAIR - "Today marks the addition of some new members to the Brisbane family of processors with the AMD Athlon X2 dual core BE-2350 (which will receive the majority of our coverage) and BE-2300 processors. Along with even lower power consumption than the 65W Brisbane CPUs, there is now a new naming convention that should reduce some of confusion surrounding the names of some of their current products."
XFX GEFORCE 8800 ULTRA REVIEW AT BJORN3D - "From our rather extensive experience doing XFX® product reviews we've seen this corporate philosophy transcend from merely words into a series of excellent, highly polished digital wonders that go a step beyond in not only performance but quality as well. We are hoping that our review sample, the XFX®GeForce™ 8800 Ultra XXX will continue to follow in the same lofty tradition."
ASROCK CONROE 1333-DVI/H MOTHERBOARD REVIEW AT LEGIT REVIEWS - "It is interesting to see how many of these boards Asrock has put out over the last year. We have looked at no less than three here at Legit, and there were more that we did not get a hold of. Asrock must be pleased with their performance in this market, but will you be pleased with the ASRock Conroe 1333-DVI/H? Let's take a look and see if this board catches your attention! First off, let's look at the specs!"
AMD ATHLON X2 BE-2350 PROCESSOR REVIEW AT PC PER - "AMD’s hope lies in a couple of new processors being announced today: the X2 BE-2350 and the X2 BE-2300. Both of these new processors fall into a new 45 watt power envelope making them a great option for low power and low noise applications. And unlike the previous low power processors that AMD might have released, they plan on having enough production power with these to make them widely available."
BFGTECH GEFORCE 8800 GTS OC2 640MB REVIEW AT HARD OCP - "BFGTech has a new video card in the wild; the GeForce 8800 GTS OC2 640 MB. It's highly overclocked from the factory, but just how will that actually improve the gameplay experience? We're about to find out with some of today's most demanding games!"
HIS OVERCLOCKED RADEON X1300 XT REVIEW AT HARDWARE SECRETS - "Officially called Radeon X1300 XT IceQ Turbo, this entry-level video card from HIS comes overclocked and featuring a good cooling solution from Arctic Cooling. We know that Radeon HD 2400 is around the corner, but let’s take a look on this entry-level video card from HIS and compare it with other entry-level and mid-range cards from both ATI and nVidia."
AMD ATHLON X2 BE-2350 PROCESSOR REVIEW AT TECH REPORT - "The story of the Athlon X2 BE-2350 begins with another low-power processor from AMD, a version of the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ with a TDP rating of only 35W, which we reviewed last summer. This processor, known fully as the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Energy Efficient Small Form Factor, fared well in our power consumption testing, besting anything Intel had to offer at the time and promising good things for builders of quiet PCs everywhere. In fact, at 35 watts, this CPU was essentially the exact same thing as a Turion 64 X2 processor, but ensconced in a desktop-style package and ready to drop into practically any Socket AM2 motherboard."
65NM VS 90NM: AMD ATHLON64 X2 5000+ REVIEW AT NEOSEEKER - "AMD quietly started shipping 65nm Athlon X2 parts some time ago; and recently they sent us a 65nm X2 5000+ to take a look at. In the past, we reviewed the 90nm X2 5000+ ... so now that we have its 65nm counterpart in hand, we will set up the exact same system and see what differences - if any - there are in performance and overclocking elbow room between the two chips. Now before we start, you may be wondering why AMD is doing such a "soft" launch of the new 65nm parts."
INNO3D GEFORCE 8500 GT REVIEW AT NVNEWS - "Targeting the mid-range and lower mid-range computer users, NVIDIA's GeForce 8500 and 8600 line of cards come with the core features of their bigger 8800 brothers stripped down to be affordable while still providing substantial bang for the buck. The GeForce 8600 GT can routinely be found for $150 or less while the 8500 GT is available for sub-$100 prices. Inno3D's offering of both cards stick to the reference specs outlined further down the page, but even with the power of the 8-series behind these cards, with their gimped specs including a 128-bit memory bus and small (by today's new standards) frame buffers, can they handle some of the most demanding games at the highest resolutions available?"
ATI CATALYST v7.5 DRIVER AT AMD-ATI - "DirectX 10 driver support for the Radeon™ HD 2900 XT (single card and CrossFire™ configurations) for Windows Vista This release of Catalyst™ introduces the ATI DirectX 10 driver for the Radeon™ HD 2900 XT, for both single cards and CrossFire™ configurations. The ATI DirectX 10 driver used in combination with the Radeon™ HD 2900 XT (and an application designed to take advantage of the power of the DirectX 10 API) delivers incredible graphics effects never seen before on the PC."
COMPANY OF HEROES GOES DIRECTX 10 AT LEGIT REVIEWS - "Last month we showed DirectX 10 performance on Call of Juarez and Lost Planet: Extreme Condition and showed that NVIDIA was leading ATI when it came to DirectX10 performance. This past week THQ Inc. released a patch adding Microsoft DirectX 10 support to PC game title Company of Heroes. This makes Company of Heroes is the first commercially available DirectX 10 Windows PC game and we have been busy benchmarking it over the last couple days to bring you some performance numbers on the latest and greatest DX10 video cards from both ATI and NVIDIA."
