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ATI HD 2600XT - comparable to nVidia 8600GTS - not bad!

Sharky II

Sharky II

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 6, 2004
1,002
405
United Kingdom
How's everyone feeling on the stock graphics card?

The 8800 is a beast but as the machine has gone up $300/£150 overall, that's eaten up the money i planned to spend on a graphics card upgrade (£130 in the UK).

But i had a look at the HD2600XT - and it looks pretty decent?

What do you guys think?

I am an audio guy, but was thinking of buying aperture in the future, as photography is my hobby. I'm also getting a mb/mbp in a couple of weeks so i need to budget for that as i'd rather have a mbp than a mb, and the graphics card in the mac pro can always be upgraded later when i can afford it....

I was hoping to get the stock octo 2.8 with wifi added. It will push a 24inch dell 2405 and a 17inch LG TFT. Although right now the 17inch is begin used with my powerbook, so just the 24incher actually!
 
Hmmm, actually isn't this the same graphics card that's in the 2.8ghz imac my friend has... which gets trounced by the older 2.33ghz imac when it comes to games... hmmm

Well, either way, i don't think i can afford the 8800, so really i'm just looking for what you guys think of the hd 2600XT being the stock card...

Cheers

EDIT: Actually the imac has a HD 2600 PRO not the XT... not sure how much difference this makes...
 
Actually, it looks like this article talks about the GDDR4 version of the card? So I don't know what's up now. But I would imagine that the GDDR3 version of the XT is still a step up from the GDDR3 version of the PRO.
 
Speaking of games, I am not a hardcore gamer, however, I would like to play a few of the newer games out there. Given the new MP specs and new vid card options, what would be the best setup for me to accomplish this? Other than the games, I will also be running CS3, Final Cut Pro, and Maya... in case it matters.
 
OnePumpChump said:
Speaking of games, I am not a hardcore gamer, however, I would like to play a few of the newer games out there. Given the new MP specs and new vid card options, what would be the best setup for me to accomplish this? Other than the games, I will also be running CS3, Final Cut Pro, and Maya... in case it matters.
Click to expand...

Single quad cpu and 8800gt for games. FCP and Maya may benefit substantially (in the future) from 8 cores, however.
 
Number one, what a surprise, this wasn't expected, now i have less things to get excited about for macworld!!!

Anyways, on the topic, recently, its been found out recently that the imac doesnt have an ati radeon 2600 pro, it actually has an ati radeon 2600XT, so the only difference between the two video cards is that the mac pro uses DDR3 ram, and the imac uses DDR2, plus the imac 2600XT is clocked down to something as fast as PRO, but the core chip is that of an XT, thats why apple calls the vcard in the imac a PRO
 
No, the iMac does not offer the HD 2600 XT. The 20" 2.0 offers the ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT and the 2.4 and the 24" offers the ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO. I believe that these are also special versions made for laptops and both are further underclocked.

The ATI card in the new Mac Pro is not found in any iMac.
 
netdog said:
No, the iMac does not offer the HD 2600 XT. The 20" 2.0 offers the ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT and the 2.4 and the 24" offers the ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO. I believe that these are also special versions made for laptops and both are further underclocked.

The ATI card in the new Mac Pro is not found in any iMac.
Click to expand...

That is what Apple says they are, who says their telling the truth? They have the 2600XT but the speed is underclocked, and the RAM isnt 512MB, its 256MB, seems like Apple also modded the ones in the mac pro to have 256mb instead of 512mb. But the core chip in the GPU in the imac is an XT. but since the speeds are slower and it has less RAM, Apple just says its a PRO.
 
ceres said:
Single quad cpu and 8800gt for games. FCP and Maya may benefit substantially (in the future) from 8 cores, however.
Click to expand...

I disagree... it costs a lot more to upgrade the CPU's late on that it does the graphics card... one day all games are gonna be properly multithreaded and the 8 cores will be invaluable...

If you think of the long term, and you're a professional who wants maximum performance with MAYA and Final Cut... then go for the stock 8 core and upgrade the graphics card later when you can afford it - if you can't afford it now.
 
sims 2

How would the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT handle the sims 2?

I remember trying to play that on my Powerbook G4 with unsatisfactory results.

And no, I'm not purchasing the system for the Sims :)

I will mainly use it for Maya, Adobe Flash, Matlab, Final Cut, and some others and I plan to buy the 8800 GT later, as I really don't want to wait the 3-5 weeks. (I never owned a mac pro (or a desktop for that matter), how easy is it to replace the card?)

Thanks
 
mrbc19 said:
Actually, it looks like this article talks about the GDDR4 version of the card? So I don't know what's up now. But I would imagine that the GDDR3 version of the XT is still a step up from the GDDR3 version of the PRO.
Click to expand...

The only difference between the Pro/XT GDDR3 is a GPU clock difference of 100MHz (700MHz on Pro, 800MHz on XT). It's nothing to sneeze at but not a huge jump (no extra shaders, etc).
 
Mercuric Oxide said:
How would the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT handle the sims 2?

I remember trying to play that on my Powerbook G4 with unsatisfactory results.

And no, I'm not purchasing the system for the Sims :)

I will mainly use it for Maya, Adobe Flash, Matlab, Final Cut, and some others and I plan to buy the 8800 GT later, as I really don't want to wait the 3-5 weeks. (I never owned a mac pro (or a desktop for that matter), how easy is it to replace the card?)

Thanks
Click to expand...

A HD 2600XT would be able to play most of today's games on moderate settings. It isn't even as fast as the last gen X1950XT from ATI, though.. which is kind of sad.
only $200 more for the 8800GT would be a reasonable choice, though.. that card is one of the fastest out there right now.
 
Just another note,

the HD 2600XT is generally equal in performance to the X19x0 series of GPUs. Only things that are very bandwidth intensive (high resolutions &/or high levels of FSAA/MSAA (especially MSAA) & AA) tend to favor the previous line of cards due to their 256bit bus and faster memory.
 
Mercuric Oxide said:
How would the ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT handle the sims 2?

I remember trying to play that on my Powerbook G4 with unsatisfactory results.

Thanks
Click to expand...

Even the base MP would blow the Sims 2 away like a supernova.

(Assuming that there's no graphical glitches like with the new iMacs)

Edit: OK, I don't know what your standards are, but supposedly The Sims 2 runs great on the new iMacs, and I'm sure it'll do better on the MP.
 
Andrmgic said:
A HD 2600XT would be able to play most of today's games on moderate settings. It isn't even as fast as the last gen X1950XT from ATI, though.. which is kind of sad.
Click to expand...

...Not exactly. It's generally expected that previous-gen high-end cards will be faster than current-gen mid-level cards due to greater bandwidth and faster memory. The difference is that the new mid-level cards support new features that the old cards don't. In the case of the Radeon HD 2600XT its trump over the X1900 series is support for DX 10, which, as it happens, means nothing for users of Mac OS X. But the difference matters when choosing a video card.

It is true that the current crop of mid-level cards aren't great - but as you can see they're still good; the 2600XT is twice as fast in Doom 3 as the the previous base card in the Mac Pro (the GeForce 7300GT). I would have preferred to see a Radeon HD 3850 as the base card, but it was probably released too recently and too expensive for Apple to consider it.
 
Lord Blackadder said:
...Not exactly. It's generally expected that previous-gen high-end cards will be faster than current-gen mid-level cards due to greater bandwidth and faster memory. The difference is that the new mid-level cards support new features that the old cards don't. In the case of the Radeon HD 2600XT its trump over the X1900 series is support for DX 10, which, as it happens, means nothing for users of Mac OS X. But the difference matters when choosing a video card.

It is true that the current crop of mid-level cards aren't great - but as you can see they're still good; the 2600XT is twice as fast in Doom 3 as the the previous base card in the Mac Pro (the GeForce 7300GT). I would have preferred to see a Radeon HD 3850 as the base card, but it was probably released too recently and too expensive for Apple to consider it.
Click to expand...

The 3850 is cheaper than the 8800gt they did pick, though.

Maybe they couldn't get it in the quantities they wanted to make it available, but in the retail market it is cheaper and in-stock at newegg.com
 
Hey guys, I had a question about the graphic cards. I'm expecting to do a lot of video editing (HDV) and I might try games here and there. I've seen the cards options on the mac pro and they offer the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT and also 3 or 4 x ATI Radeon HD 2600 XT. Putting more than one graphic card will benefit me to do what exactly? Just if I want to have more than one display or is it doing anything more? Thanks!
 
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