MSI RX2600XT Diamond Plus Graphics Card

Name: MSI RX2600XT Diamond Plus Graphics Card - Page 3
Brand: MSI

by Jeff Bouton — Sunday, November 11, 2007, 09:30 AM EDT

Performance Comparisons with 3DMark06 v1.1.0

Page 3: Performance Comparisons with 3DMark06 v1.1.0

The HotHardware Test Systems

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Powered

Hardware Used:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+
(2.6GHz)

GIGABYTE GA-M59SLI-S5
(NVIDIA nForce 590 SLI for AMD)

2x2GB OCZ PC-6400
(2x1GB)

MSI RX2600XT Diamond Plus - 512MB GDDR4
Sapphire HD 2600XT - 256MB GDDR4
Sapphire HD 2600 Pro OC - 256MB GDDR3
GIGABYTE GV-NX86S256H
MSI NX8600GT-T2D256H

On-board Ethernet
On-board Audio

WD 74GB "Raptor" DD
10,000 RPM SATA

Relevant Software:
Windows XP Professional SP2
DirectX 9.0c (August Redist.)
nForce Drivers v9.35

NVIDIA Forceware v162
ATI Catalyst v7.10

Benchmarks Used:

DirectX
3DMark06 v1.1.0
F.E.A.R. v1.08
Half Life 2: Lost Coast

OpenGL
Quake 4 v1.3
Prey v1.2

Performance Comparisons with 3DMark06 v1.1.0

Details: http://www.futuremark.com/products/3dmark06/

3DMark06

3DMark06 is the latest addition to the 3DMark franchise. This version differs from 3Dmark05 in a number of ways, and now includes not only Shader Model 2.0 tests, but Shader Model 3.0 and HDR tests as well. Some of the assets from 3DMark05 have been re-used, but the scenes are now rendered with much more geometric detail and the shader complexity is vastly increased as well. Max shader length in 3DMark05 was 96 instructions, while 3DMark06 ups the number of instructions to 512. 3DMark06 also employs much more lighting, and there is extensive use of soft shadows. With 3DMark06, Futuremark has also updated how the final score is tabulated. In this latest version of the benchmark, SM 2.0 and HDR / SM3.0 tests are weighted and the CPU score is factored into the final tally as well.

Comparing the MSI RX2600XT to other cards in its class, there is little in the way of surprises to be found. NVIDIA's GeForce 8600GTS wins the overall performance tests as well as Shader Model 2.0 testing, which favored both GeForce models. In Shader Model 3.0 testing, however, the scales shift in favor of the MSI RX2600XT and its siblings. With the MSI model being the faster of the three ATI based graphics cards, there was little to set it apart from the standard Radeon HD 2600 XT in this test. We saw no major advantages from the higher clockspeeds and the larger on-board frame buffer didn't yield measurable gains either.