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AMD Finally Launches Low-Price DX10 Cards

Posted by Zonk on from the now-you-just-have-to-get-vista dept.

Steve Kerrison writes "The Radeon 'R600' HD 2900 XT was late coming, and so by extension are the lower cost parts derived from it. The Radeon HD 2400 and 2600s are now available, just the same, with pricing aimed at knocking mid-range GeForce 8 series cards off people's shopping lists. There's more to a graphics card than price; performance and driver functionality are key too. HEXUS had some fun and games testing the new Radeons: 'The hardware designers may now be sitting back, content that their DX10-supporting midrange SKUs are at least as compelling as the competition's. But, and it's a big, big but, the current drivers aren't realizing the kind of performance we'd expect from a knowledge of the Radeon HD 2600 XT's setup.'" A very useful article ... unfortunately spread across a dozen pages with no 'print view' available.

24 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. Jump right to the end... by chris098 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Usually when I read these reviews, the first page that I read is the conclusions. I typically don't have the attention span to read through the whole thing, so this lets me get the drift of the article without sucking up too much time.

    The link to the conclusion page: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=9187&pa ge=12

    I found it humorous that the first line on that page is "Congratulations on getting this far, folks.".

  2. So how bout that open source? by YojimboJango · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I know that their drivers are crap, however what ever came of AMD's commitment to open sourcing their drivers?
    I'm pretty sure there's at least a couple hundred enthusiasts that could get these cards up to their maximum potential in a few weeks.

    1. Re:So how bout that open source? by TeknoHog · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Hell, even Intel's crappy integrated graphics work better in xorg than ATI.

      For very strange values of 'crappy'. Intel chips have opensource drivers, unlike those of ATI or NVidia, and most of them are already incorporated into official releases of Linux and Xorg. Intel's graphics chips may not be powerful enough for heavy gaming, but that should not be an issue for Linux users anyway. The Core 2 fiasco is a shame though.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
    2. Re:So how bout that open source? by erroneus · · Score: 2, Informative

      I cannot say AMEN BROTHER! loud enough!

      I have been making postings on every forum in which I regularly participate regarding ATI's horrible customer satisfaction performance. I tell everyone I can about my replacing the video device in my Dell Laptop with an nVidia board. (Fortunately, many Dell laptops offer that kind of flexibility and there is no shortage of eBay sellers selling the parts I seek.) Chief complaints:

      * Linux drivers not keeping up with the rest in features and supported technologies (like AIGLX and X.org 7.2)
      * Linux driver hardware support falling off with NO legacy support
      * ATI misleading (telling lies in my opinion) the Linux-using public (recall the slashdot article about ATI answering questions?)

      I too don't mind so much about the Free-as-in-beer thing... OSS would be better, of course but what are you going to do? Well I had made my decision. I voted with my dollars and spent $150 to move away from ATI. I didn't spend the money, so much, to move to NVidia... if I felt like the Intel option would perform as well, I'd have gone with Intel just as easily. No, I spent my money to move away from ATI and I think that's an important distinction to make.

      So again, I urge anyone with an opinion (similar to my own) to tell ATI about it. Make them know there's a lot of unhappy ATI users out there and those numbers are decreasing for the wrong reason!

    3. Re:So how bout that open source? by drinkypoo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Maybe but it is just possible that ATIs drivers where not written by idiots.

      Obviously you don't have any [real] experience with any ATI drivers written any time during their lifetime because you would know that no, that is not possible. The people writing ATI's drivers are, in fact, idiots.

      There were problems with Windows drivers for the mach32 and mach64! I mean these aren't even 3d chips! and they don't have much 2d acceleration, either.

      The Free drivers for ati tend to be more stable than the commercial drivers, although they don't support as much hardware. but they DO support hardware ATI doesn't, because ATI doesn't support Rage video devices. That's right, if you have a rage chip, ATI has simply abandoned you. Keep in mind that this represents a HUGE number of laptops.

      If ATI would just give us the specs we (we the community, not we as in me and some other guy) wouldn't need them to open-source their drivers. Perhaps they're hoping to make themselves look less bad by releasing their drivers instead of specs and thus slowing down the OSS community :P

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    4. Re:So how bout that open source? by vux984 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Intel's graphics chips may not be powerful enough for heavy gaming, but that should not be an issue for Linux users anyway.

      Right. Because I have a completely separate computer that I use to boot windows games. Oh wait...

      I see your point, but this is slashdot... not "Microsoft office user formum and portal system framework v3.0" (At least that's what I'd imagine they'd call it.)

      Point is we are largely technology enthusiasts... and there is nothing in intel integrated graphics to be enthusiastic about. Their drivers yes... but the chips themselves... hell no.

    5. Re:So how bout that open source? by TeknoHog · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Point is we are largely technology enthusiasts... and there is nothing in intel integrated graphics to be enthusiastic about. Their drivers yes... but the chips themselves... hell no.

      I'm sure there is a wide spectrum of technology enthusiasm here. Sheer computational power is not always the most desirable thing. Many people also care about factors like power consumption, small size, low price and low noise, in addition to open specs and source.

      --
      Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
  3. AMD VS. ATI by CastrTroy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I was a little confused when I first read the headline, and the I saw the word Radeon and I remembered that AMD bought ATI. However, aren't they still using the ATI name when selling these cards? Wouldn't it be a little less confusing to say "ATI Finally Launches Low-Price DX10 Cards"? Anyway, if they have dropped the ATI name, I think it's a bad move. ATI had a pretty good reputation. Changing to a different name seems like a bold move.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    1. Re:AMD VS. ATI by MorpheousMarty · · Score: 2, Insightful

      ATI has a great reputation but AMD does too. However AMD has no negative reputation (ATI is thought to have poor production and overpriced)

    2. Re:AMD VS. ATI by Bob-taro · · Score: 4, Funny

      I think ATI/AMD should combine the two names and market the graphics cards under the name, "DAAMIT"

      --
      Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
  4. More Details, Analysis Here, HH Review by MojoKid · · Score: 2, Informative

    This HotHardware review goes into a bit more detail and other benchmarks as well - http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/ATI_Radeon_HD_ 2600_and_2400_Performance/

    FTA - "Throughout all of our in-game and synthetic testing the fastest of the three new mainstream Radeon HD 2000 series cards we tested in this article, the Radeon HD 2600 XT, performed about on par with or sometimes well behind a GeForce 8600 GT. The more affordable Radeon 2600 Pro came in a few percentage points behind the 2600 XT, and as expected the 2400 XT fell in behind the 2600 Pro.

    We also spent some time testing the AVIVO HD video engine in these new cards with a few SD and HD workloads, but weren't able to compile all of the data in time for launch. We will be updating this article in the next day or so, with the results from our AVIVO HD testing as well. "

  5. Where is ATI? by cerelib · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is AMD planning on absorbing ATI or keeping it as a separate brand? People keep using "AMD" in place of "ATI". The products are called "ATI Radeon HD 2xxx". The ATI website is now green and AMD branded, but the ATI name is still used on the products. Has there been any word from AMD about the future of the ATI brand? Are they just in transition to absorbing ATI completely?

    1. Re:Where is ATI? by ceeam · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why can't a company have several trademarks/brands? Oh, I see it in a shop: "I need a new PC. There are Intel CPUs and AMD CPUs. I'll take Intel please. Now there are video cards - nVidia and AMD. Since I bought Intel AMD won't work with it, right?".... Or something like that. Educating people is hard. Preventing confusion is easier.

  6. Guess I won't be buying one... by uarch · · Score: 4, Informative
    ... not after that review:

    Whatever the game requirements, it's clear that Radeon HD 2600 XT performance is, frankly, horrible. It's comfortably bested by a Radeon X1650 XT and wilfully thrashed by a Radeon X1950 Pro - a card that comes in at the same price.
  7. This is upsetting. by Wicko · · Score: 2, Informative

    AMD.ATI really needed to have some good news with these cards, but they blew it with the first impressions. I can only hope they can stay in the game be releasing some quality drivers to take advantage of these new cards. From the looks of it, 8600 hardware is peanuts compared to the 2600. With the expected prices, they should be killing the mid/low range DX10 market. This does not bode well. I look forward to reviews of retail cards, but my enthusiasm has dropped. Seems as if nVidia was almost counting on AMD.ATI to release shitty drivers and hiked up the price of low end DX10 as much as they could.

    1. Re:This is upsetting. by PopeRatzo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I won't be needing a DX10 graphics card for some time. Microsoft has really let down their strategic partners by not building compelling reasons to upgrade into Windows Vista. If the main reason to buy one of these cards is DX10, and DX10 is Vista-only, and there's no good reason for me to upgrade to Vista, why would I want one of these cards?

      It wasn't that long ago that I really coveted the latest computer technology - software and hardware. But today, I look only for the best technology that fits my current needs, since I'll be buying a new system within a couple of years anyway. I don't know if it's because I changed and am not as impressed by the latest and greatest, or because the whole machinery of software and hardware vendors who used to work together to give us reasons to upgrade have fallen down on the job. I look at the PS/3, iPhone, Vista, and I just don't get that reflex that makes me want to run out and buy them.

      I've been thinking back to when XP came out, because I've seen the comment around here that peoples' experience with Vista being a disappointment also happened when XP was released. I've decided that it wasn't the case. I bought XP the second month it was available, and except for one minor application, I was able to use all of my hardware and software the day I upgraded. I did NOT have the ugly experience of being pissed off at the OS for bothering me about what I can and cannot do nor did I have the sickening feeling that DRM gives me. I recall being really happy about the performance improvement and the quality of the drivers that were available less than 60 days after XP came out.

      So for the next year or so, I'm going to spend more time being productive with my Core2duo/X1950 system and less time upgrading to a new OS. I will re-assess the situation in '08.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  8. Karma to Burn by jshriverWVU · · Score: 2, Interesting
    While the hardware does sound like a good bang for your buck. Personally I don't care what card is supported via any version of DirectX. Especially since DX10 is Vista only.

    Let me know when there are good Linux drivers out closed or not, and MesaGL plays happily with it.

  9. SKU You! by Joe+Snipe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Seriously, we are going to keep using SKU? This is an acronym worthy of being added to the everyday lexicon? It's not even a techie acronym, it's for marketing and accounting!

    --
    Sometimes, life itself is sarcasm...
    1. Re:SKU You! by Ant+P. · · Score: 2, Funny

      I say let them use it. It's easier to spot an idiot when they're using their native tongue.

  10. OSS drivers ? by BESTouff · · Score: 5, Insightful

    OSS drivers for Xorg ? No ? Not interested.

  11. Re:Truer words never spoken by GreenEnvy22 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Riiight... I've had the same XP install for 2 years now, and have upgraded the drivers dozens of times. First with my 9700 AIW, then X800 XL, now X1800 XL. No issues at all removing old drivers, or installing new ones. Including the capture drivers for the 9700 all in wonder.

  12. No print preview? Not a problem... by macraig · · Score: 2, Informative

    A very useful article ... unfortunately spread across a dozen pages with no 'print view' available.


    This situation is exactly what the "Repagination" extension for Firefox was created to thwart: it collapses multiple linked pages into one. It's not perfect (page headers and such are replicated, too), but with Aardvark or RIP or similar extensions the result could be cleaned up for printing or archiving.
  13. Re:A: NO! by Miseph · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Q: Does replying to the first post just to make your completely separate comment appear higher up in the discussion make you cool?

    --
    Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
  14. Re:I am cheap and behind in the times... by technopinion · · Score: 2, Funny

    You've got PCI? You lucky bastard, I'm still on a VESA card.