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The Verdict

It's weird isn't it? Both the 2400 and 2600 product series are a little hard to position. The bigger issue with graphics cards these days is that they surpassed their primary function, gaming. Yes graphics cards have obtained much more functionality and this is what we are facing in the future, we'll see more technology adapt and be merged together.

Let's analyze, it's fair to say that both the 2400 and 2600 cards do not live up to our initial expectations from a 3D performance point of view, no sir. Also performance wise there's just a huge gap in between the 2900 and 2600 series. AMD has not been able to kick the current performance crown holder in the mid-range segment from its lofty chair. And that's annoying. Honestly it would be intensely good for the consumer graphics card industry if, for example, bi-yearly we'd have a new performance leader. This is the reality though.

We've seen it happen with the HD 2900 XT and just like that 2900, what does AMD do? They lower the price significantly. And I have to agree here; that's the real trick to do it right as prices over the past few years have been shifted upwards by NVIDIA a lot. We're now at a level where people must pay 700 EUR for a high-end card (8800 Ultras) and for the best mid-range product we see prices of 220 EUR which is insane considering the performance you get out of it. Still for some reason we all consistently bend over and take it in the... well you know what I'm trying to say as really it's the monopolized situation we are currently in. This is why we need that hefty competition; to keep the product prices competitive and allow development to thrive in its endless evolutionary path of technology.

This is why I say that both the 2400 and 2600 series are refreshing. Unfortunately they are not the mid-range top performers we all have been hoping for, their 3D rendering capabilities are sufficient; sufficient for the money you have to pay for it. Realistically the HD 2600 XT compared to the GeForce 8600 GT gives NVIDIA a good lead. But the thing here is that all cards tested today are cheaper then that 8600 GT (based on MSRP).

The HD 2600 XT GDDR3 is launching at 99 EUR/USD. When you weigh its performance against the money you have to pay then that's value for the money. And then next to all these gaming features we have to weigh in the other features as well: HDMI, HDCP, audio over HDMI, DX10 and HD decoding. As our test have shown both the 2400 and 2600 series cards are leading bigtime when it comes to decoding HD content. Face it, for 99 bucks, you really can't go wrong there.

If the HD 2600 XT was priced at 199 USD then this conclusion would have been entirely different; but this is the reality that AMD is offering you and it's not a bad one. So to finalize this conclusion my verdict would be like this. If you are the kind of person that hardly plays games but occasionally does so at a resolution of 10x7, the 2400 series can be enough for you. But honestly, it's not a gamers card at all. You get to have fantastic HD decoding capabilities along with it, it's however a very budget card and starting at 49 USD, honestly you just can't go wrong with that considering what excellent features you are offered in both 2D and 3D functionality.

The slightly more avid PC users who play their games on a regular basis in a resolution up to say 12x10 can opt the 2600 series. If I were you I'd lean towards the XT though as starting at 99 USD you can play your games reasonably well in such resolutions which for the money is okay. Next to that for 99 USD you can have one wicked HTPC card. If you select a model with proper (silent) cooling this baby can decode your Blu-ray or HD-DVD movies easily up-to 1920x1080p which for the money is just brilliant.

So there you have it, guys and gals. Fact remains, as one of my editors reminded me on, this site is targeted heavily at gamers and as a gamer I would have really liked to see far better overall gaming performance; yet this is the best AMD has to offer at the moment. I personally find the 256MB Radeon 2600 XT GDDR3 the winner of today's tested DX10 product line-up from AMD. You will be charmed with its features, okay performance and price. It's a fully HDMI/HDCP/DX10 product and at 99 USD/EUR the Radeon HD 2600 XT offers an good amount of bang for your bucks, heaps of functionality and extremely good image quality. The entire 2400/2600/2900 product series will be available starting today and you'll see high volume availability over the next two weeks.

Many thanks to AMD for making this review possible and many thanks to PowerColor for supplying the Radeon HD 2600 XT GDDR3.

Radeon HD 2400 XT (ATI) - 59,95
Radeon HD 2600 XT GDDR3 (PowerColor) - 99,00Radeon HD 2600 XT GDDR4 (ATI) - 149,00