ATI HD2600 vs NVIDIA GEFORCE 8600GT

[mhawk]

Which is better a 512mb ATI HD2600 or 256mb nvidia geforce 8600gt? By which I mean which will handle games better and which will handle crysis better (on medium of course)?

Thanks,

mhawk

 

[Undying89]

Forgot about 8600 and 2600!
Go for 9600GT or HD 3850 for 25$ more...

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

I agree with Undying, better to get other options if you can, especially if you even remotely consider playing DX10 titles.

Between the HD2600 and the GF8600 is depends alot on the memory speed not size. They are very close.

 

[mhawk]

Forgot about 8600 and 2600!
Go for 9600GT or HD 3850 for 25$ more...

I can't afford a 9600gt or a HD 3850. I was told on here recently that the 8600 would do fine with crysis on medium if using a sensible res?

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

Yeah, it'll do fine, but the resolutio does need to stay at 1024x768 or less.

However if the HD2600 is an XT with GDDR4 it will be faster than the GF8600GT, however if they are both GDDR3 usually he GF8600GT will be faster. Neither will be very effective with AA in more modern games which kinda focuses your attention somewhat.

Hope that helps.

 

[rolli59]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150275
Just another option if the price is right.

 

[mhawk]

Yeah, it'll do fine, but the resolutio does need to stay at 1024x768 or less.

However if the HD2600 is an XT with GDDR4 it will be faster than the GF8600GT, however if they are both GDDR3 usually he GF8600GT will be faster. Neither will be very effective with AA in more modern games which kinda focuses your attention somewhat.

Hope that helps.

What is 'AA'? Plus the HD2600 is a HD2600 pro if that helps? Sorry I'm not too tecnically minded.

These are the 3 graphics cards I have to choose from (there are 4 but the other one I believe is not even worth considering):

512Mb ATI HD 2600PRO graphics card DX10
256Mb Nvidia 8600GT graphics card DX10
512Mb 8600GT Nvidia DDR DVI

Which should I go for? Which would perform better?

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

AA = AntiAliasing, ie reduce jaggies / staircase.

Of the options above you need to find out what TYPE of memory the GT has, if it is GDDR3 then it's the better choice. Otherwise then you're closer to equal again because there are some castrated GT cards out there. Size doesn't matter as much as memory type, and I'm sure that last one is a typo because anything with just DDR and not DDRII or GDDR3 is out of the question.

 

[Guest]

I just wanted to clarify this, the 8600 GT is better than the 2600 XT unless the 2600 uses GDDR4, correct?

My g/f uses a 8600GT but I have a 2600XT available and was curious myself which would be better out of the two using current Vista 32 drivers. I checked out the charts but they're a little outdated.

The two cards in question are:

http://www.xfxforce.com/web/product/listConfigurationDetails.jspa?series=GeForce%26trade%3B+8600&productConfigurationId=1062920

http://global.msi.com.tw/index.php?func=proddesc&prod_no=1236&maincat_no=130&cat2_no=137

 

[nkarasch]

No, the 8600GT will not play crysis at medium. I have a quad core at 3.6 ghz and 4 gigs of ram and with an 8600GTS crysis was not smooth on medium. It also looked sub-par even compared to COD4 or other new games.

 

[spoonboy]

Heres a review of the new radeon 3650, whats relevant here is that the cards it's reviewed against are the 2600xt (with ddr4) and the 8600gts (with ddr3).

http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/Sapphire_Radeon_HD_3650_512MB/?page=1

The 8600gts is overpriced for what it is so stay away from it at all costs, but the 8600gt is much better value, although a little slower than the gts shown in the tests. If you feel like experimenting with overclocking most 8600gt cards should be able to reach gts speeds without too much trouble. So your choice if you want any kind of gaming enjoyment is either a radeon 2600xt or an Nvidia 8600gt. Whatever you do stay away from any versions with ddr2 as they are slower than ddr3/ddr4 cards, and dont buy any card from these ranges with MORE than 256mb as the GPUs are not powerful enough to properly make good use of this much video ram, and its more of a marketing gimmick than anything.

From the review I gave the link to, the 2600xt is behind the gts most of the time, but its quite alot better in crysis. 18fps at 1024x768 (for the 2600xt) doesnt look very thrilling, but this is dx10 mode all high, which is very hard on current video cards. Running in dx9 mode in vista or just running it in windows xp you should be able to play 1024x768 or maybe even 1152x864 with all on medium and shaders and physics on high with a comfortable amount of frames per second. The difference between all on medium and medium with physics and shaders on high is really quite alot, and looks alot better (high shaders gives much better, brighter lighting, which really helps image quality and high physics lets you blow up buildings and have a bit of fun with objects and explosives in general).

Hope that helps.

 

[basketcase]

No, the 8600GT will not play crysis at medium. I have a quad core at 3.6 ghz and 4 gigs of ram and with an 8600GTS crysis was not smooth on medium. It also looked sub-par even compared to COD4 or other new games.

What resolution do you run at. Because with everything else in your system, you should be able to get decent FPS, as long as you don't get greedy with the resolution (or AA).

 

[TheGreatGrapeApe]

The problem with most benchmarks is that they wish to use AA on everything rather than higher quality, and with the AA hardware in the GF8600 you have that boost that doesn't occur when the titles get more stressful, where as you go further into their lifespans you will not be enbling AA as much. For old games like this you're able to use AA fairly penalty free, but as Crysis shows, future titles will likely cause significant performance slowdown especially on the slower GT.

It really depends alot on the length of time these cards are to be used. Short term and older games I'd say the GF8600 is likely the better choice, longer term the HD2600 may be the better choice.

For Crysis, as shown AA is not going to play a role and the HD2600 would be the choice.

Really though if you have access to US pricing it would be better to spend a few extra bucks and get better cards.

 

[4745454b]

512Mb ATI HD 2600PRO graphics card DX10
256Mb Nvidia 8600GT graphics card DX10
512Mb 8600GT Nvidia DDR DVI

Which should I go for? Which would perform better?

Care to enlighten us as to what the fourth card is? Sometimes its better to get a good card from the previous generation then a midrange card from the current one. (meaning an x1950pro/7900GS is often faster then the 2600/8600)

 

[mhawk]

512Mb ATI HD 2600PRO graphics card DX10
256Mb Nvidia 8600GT graphics card DX10
512Mb 8600GT Nvidia DDR DVI

Which should I go for? Which would perform better?

Care to enlighten us as to what the fourth card is? Sometimes its better to get a good card from the previous generation then a midrange card from the current one. (meaning an x1950pro/7900GS is often faster then the 2600/8600)

The fourth was a 7300.

 

[yay]

Wow, well dont go the 7300. Is DX10 completly nessesary? if not definetly consider a 79XX or 19XX card instead.

 

[spoonboy]

If you wanna play crysis you should go for the 2600, or at the least the 8600gt (not gts = waste of money). I tried crysis with a 7900gt oc'd to 700mhz core, 850mhz memory, all on medium at 1152x768 was in the mid 20's fps range, and that was at the start of the game so the frame rate would be all down hill from there. The x1950pro would make a better go of it, but even so the low end dx10 cards would have it beaten there too. For all other gaming the older dx9 cards are still very good at low resolutions (up to 1280x1024), for instance that 7900gt got 45fps average in quake wars, all maxed, no soft particles with 2xaa @1400x900, but trying to play crysis on it really changed my mind about keeping hold of the card for longer and I upgraded. If your budget really is very low and you don't mind playing without AA on, then I would go for the 2600xt in all honesty. Its just got that bit more shader power than the 8600gt. Then again for 50 bucks more you could get a 3850, which would take a long langid wee-wee over all the cards the op mentioned.