Test System Setup

Processor(s): Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3GHz (333MHz x 9)

Motherboard(s): ASUS P5K3 Deluxe (Supplied by ASUS)

Memory: 2 X 1GB Corsair XMS3 DDR-3 1066MHz 7-7-7-21 (Supplied by Corsair)

Hard Disk(s): Hitachi 80GB 7200RPM SATA-II

Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP2

Drivers: Nvidia ForceWare 158.22 and DX9c

With the cards being in the mid-range sector we thought it best to test at the resolutions these people would be using. Testing at 1024 x 768 and 1280 x 1024, we have the resolution of choice for most mid-range gamers. Looking at price tags we then have to decide what to compare it against, so we have included the Nvidia 8500 GT to compete against the lower end HD 2600 PRO and the Nvidia 8600 GT for the higher XT variant.

We have also included a new graph that shows us the price difference of the cards in Australian dollars. This just gives everyone a better idea of where exactly the card sits on the market. We will explain this more on the pricing page though.

We had hoped to overclock but firing up ATI Tool resulted in VPU recovery popping up. No doubt when a new version of ATI Tool pops up it will support the new HD range and we will re-visit overclocking these cards.

3DMark05

Version and / or Patch Used: Build 130

Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com

Product Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmark05/

Buy It Here

3DMark05 is now the second latest version in the popular 3DMark "Gamers Benchmark" series. It includes a complete set of DX9 benchmarks which tests Shader Model 2.0 and above.

For more information on the 3DMark05 benchmark, we recommend you read our preview here.

We can see straight away that the HD 2600 PRO manages to kill the 8500 GT while the 8600 GT and HD 2600 XT battle it out with both cards performing almost identical at 1280 x 1024.