Conclusion – Radeon HD 2600 Pro twice as fast as HD 2400 Pro

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The Geforce 8400 GS and the Radeon HD 2400 Pro mark the entry level of DX 10 graphics cards for Vista. Their performance is easily sufficient for older DirectX 9 games. More complex games as well as higher resolutions become playable by reducing the quality settings, turning off shadows and deactivating FSAA.

ATI’s Radeon HD 2600 Pro is twice as fast as either of these cards and handles current games much better. Compared to Nvidia’s 8500 GT, it is a little more expensive – however, for only 10 Euros price difference, you get about 50 percent more performance.

The Geforce 8600 GT offers the best performance for your money in the sub-100 Euro class, followed closely by the Radeon HD 2600 XT. SLI and Crossfire simply don’t pay off with either the Geforce 8400 GS or the Radeon HD 2400 Pro. Single cards with chips from the next higher classes are faster and cost less.

MSI wins the shootout between the two Radeon HD 2400 Pro cards, as its card is a little faster and uses a completely silent passive cooling solution. If you prefer a little more overall performance, you’ll find that in MSI’s 8400 GS at the same price point. The choice between the two Radeon HD 2600 Pro cards is yours to make. HIS offers a very quiet IceQ cooling solution, higher clock speeds and 512 MB of video memory. MSI’s card meanwhile comes with a completely passive and thus silent cooler, a smaller (256 MB) but faster (DDR3) memory and dynamic overclocking through its D.O.T enhanced driver.

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Talkback
mactronix 06/10/2007 12:27
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mactronix
Im a bit lost for words really i had come to expect more from you guys.
How come i started reading a review about entry level cards yet when we get to the benchmarks we have the full Nvidea range on display including a 8800gts.Its just rediculous.The title clearly says DX10 on a budget so how is a 8800gts relevant?
I can understand having the 8600gts in the benchmarks but why no review ?is it by chance that the MSI card isnt really a 8600GTS as it dosent even have a referance chip and the pcb is different?
Even if im wrong on that and you havent used the T2D256E-HD-OC as i suspect you have from the results then why on earth is the 2600XT running 7.6 drivers and the PRO 7.9.
You cant possably hope to conduct a fair and unbiased set of tests if you are not using the same drivers.
There are so many holes in this im wondering if you havent taken the Nvidea dollar as it sems so biased towards them and there products.
Really Really dissapointed
Mactronix
danielcoles1989 13/11/2007 02:07
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danielcoles1989
Mactronix, I dont think that they are suggesting that a 8800GTS is a budget segment card. Instead i believe that they are using this card as a 'benchmark' to show how the budget segment shape up to mainstream. This way you can see the performance gap between 8600, 8400, and 2400, 2600 and how they relate to the 8800GTS. This will hepl people decide wether it is worth them investing a little more money. This is reinforced by the fact that they didnt include it in the 'look at performing cards' and at all in the conclusion either.
mactronix 13/11/2007 08:59
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mactronix
While i understand what you are saying it dosent bear out simply because they havent included the 2900 in the benchmarks and if they were trying to compare to the mainstreem then surley it should have been there?
Mactronix
flashmahn 17/02/2008 02:21
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flashmahn
While I do not assume to know everything PC related, this card has been a dissapointment in that no matter what config I try it does not boot to bios when using the DVI cables with LCD monitors.. No matter what I try I can not access BIOS and it will give a blank screen and then open Windows 30 seconds later. However when I use the VGA cables it boots to boot screen and I am able to get into bios.. Any ideas? I have tried different monitors and cables and the results are the same. I really dont want to have to use two converters when I have 2 dvi monitors and the outlets for them std. Feel like this should not even be an issue on such a modern board

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