ATI 2600HD Review

at all max settings @ 1440x900 in bioshock I got an average of 15fps

 

i meant that 1280*1024 makes the scores lower, as u can already tell
it does, however, prove that 2600 is a good card indeed. with some new drivers, it will be able to compete with 8600 at its fullest potential. it did, however, score 200 less parrots than the usual 8600 (3072(2600hd) vs...3200-3300(8600m))

 

yeah I thought the score was decent... Are you talking about gddr3 8600's or ddr2? I thought most ddr2's didn't get over around 3000-3200 @ 1280x800.

Oh I'm running a TL-60... bit slower than most of the core 2's so that has an effect as well don't forget

 

i have a ddr2 version.... get around 32xx at 1280*1024

yup, that is true

 

speaking of which (off topic...) anyone know any programs for overclocking my CPU? and how safe/effective it is on a my particular CPU?

 

I still dont get this. There is a XT-version with DDR2?
Sorry if I am a bit slow.. I just wanna get this right.

//Fabian

 

They're not talking about the HD2600 XT, they're talking about the regular one that's available with both DDR2 and GDDR3 memory. The XT is only available in the 20" HP HDX.

 

Vista or XP? I've never heard of a DDR2 8600 GT getting a score that good. Nice!

 

Fabarati. Well thats the weird thing. HP/swden sayes the HP HDX with HD 2600 XT uses ddr2. I am trying to figure out if this is correct.
If it would use DDR3(GDR3?) i just might buy it...

//Fabian

 

depends also on other components like CPU, RAM etc. Have a HP8510p (specs in sig) and score 3378 3DMark06

 

that is true, my bad guys... i got a 2ghz proc....

 

(it's GDDR3, DDR3 is something else) I'm pretty sure that HP is just BS'ing.

 

he has the habit of *cough*exaggerating*cough*

 

what's that suppose to mean?
Here are the reuslts with 163.69 whql, i'll post screens with 163.75 in a few...

3DMark Score 3202 3DMarks 10 0 0 -1
SM2.0 Score 1309 10 0 0 -1
HDR/SM3.0 Score 1129 10 0 0 -1
CPU Score 1793 10 0 0 -1
Game Score 0 Points 10 0 1 N/A -1
GT1 - Return To Proxycon 10.6214819 FPS 10 0 0 0 SM2.0 Graphics Tests
GT2 - Firefly Forest 11.19667435 FPS 10 0 0 0 SM2.0 Graphics Tests
CPU1 - Red Valley 0.564732432 FPS 10 0 0 1 CPU Tests
CPU2 - Red Valley 0.910829723 FPS 10 0 0 1 CPU Tests
HDR1 - Canyon Flight 10.27495003 FPS 10 0 0 2 HDR/SM3.0 Graphics Tests
HDR2 - Deep Freeze 12.30827904 FPS 10 0 0 2 HDR/SM3.0 Graphics Tests
Fill Rate - Single-Texturing -1 N/A 10 0 1 N/A 3 Feature Tests
Fill Rate - Multi-Texturing -1 N/A 10 0 1 N/A 3 Feature Tests
Pixel Shader -1 N/A 10 0 1 N/A 3 Feature Tests
Vertex Shader - Simple -1 N/A 10 0 1 N/A 3 Feature Tests
Vertex Shader - Complex -1 N/A 10 0 1 N/A 3 Feature Tests
Shader Particles (SM3.0) -1 N/A 10 0 1 N/A 3 Feature Tests
Perlin Noise (SM3.0) -1 N/A 10 0 1 N/A 3 Feature Tests
8 Triangles -1 N/A 10 0 1 N/A 4 Batch Size Tests
32 Triangles -1 N/A 10 0 1 N/A 4 Batch Size Tests
128 Triangles -1 N/A 10 0 1 N/A 4 Batch Size Tests
512 Triangles -1 N/A 10 0 1 N/A 4 Batch Size Tests
2048 Triangles -1 N/A 10 0 1 N/A 4 Batch Size Tests
32768 Triangles -1 N/A 10 0 1 N/A 4 Batch Size Tests

 

Ehm but the thing is they (HP) say the swedish HDX has a HD 2600 XT with DDR2.
Istnt DDR2 "worse" than GDDR3? Thats what confusing me. I am trying to figure out if its a "good" or not so good gpu in the HDX.
Am I totally missing something here? Could be.

Tell me to bugger of if Im messing up this thread.

//Fabian

 

DDR2 can't be clocked as high as GDDR3. That's the difference. And I doubt that DDR2 can be clocked high enough for it to be used in a HD2600 XT.

 

here u go, 163.75:

 

Whats not believable about that?

 

*sighs* something like that... ish.

GDDR2 and GDDR3, are the same memory chips, just built at different speeds. GDDR2 maxes at 499/998~(by labeling, many chips of course cant even do these speeds) and GDDR3 refers to 500/1000+ speed GDDR2 chips. A stupid little industry braggint difference. Sadly several GDDR2 things get randomly labeled GDDR3, because, well, its the same chips, whos gona notice-and yes its technicaly false advertising, dell has already been hit for that one once, when they SOLD GDDR2 8600gt m's as DDR3 8600gt m's, which... sadly has a bit of a preformance gap... in the bad way.

In short. Get your hands on the actual vram clocks, GDDR2/GDDR3 is just too unreliable a label due to them being the same damn thing at different speeds.

Why cant you hence just overclock GDDR2 8600gt m's to GDDR3 speeds?(or in this case, HD2600 to HD2600XT) Well, its actualy plausible you might find one or two that can. The chips however are unlikely to take it, and something about the ram bus design in the 8600gt doesnt tend to like more than 256mb of ddr3 i suspect. Abiet, the 8700m's are a workaround for such I'm thinking, that of course, being clocked so high AND having the 512mb, are power/heat ... whores.

Anyway. Thats that really. +/- a few theories that even if I ever find the truth out it'll probobly be under nda... XD... (for instance, i would swear the 8700 through 8400gt are all the same production core somehow... prehaps even the 8400gs as a reject of rejects of rejects... or just 8600gs cores cut in half somehow... hmmm, the pondering...)

 

GDDR2 isn't even proper DDR2, it's a midway post only found in Geforce FX (5800 I believe).
GDDR3 is optimized DDR2 meant for graphics. They do share the same technological base (as opposed to DDR3), but it's been tweaked.

 

Well, it doesn't really sound like you know what you're talking about. First of all, GDDR2 is an old technology based off of DDR system RAM, that is not used in current mobile graphics cards. The current standards are DDR2 and GDDR3. GDDR3 is based off of DDR2 tech, but optimized for graphics performance. GDDR3 is more expensive to manufacture as it is tested to much higher speeds than average DDR2 RAM, usually up to somewhere between 1200mhz and 1600mhz (effective). The vast majority of DDR2 RAM will not perform above 1000mhz to 1100mhz (effective).

And yes, the 8600M-GT and 8700M-GT are based off of the same core (the G84m), and the 8600M-GS is based off of that same core as well, though with half of the stream processors and TMUs disabled. The 8400M-GT and 8400M-GS are based off the G86m, with the 8400M-G being based off of it as well, again with half the stream processors disabled.

 

^ What odin said.

 

Uhum...^^what I said

 

Yeah I figured it was Windows XP. Running 3dmark in XP gets 200 points or more higher than Vista. So you need to add 200-300 points to every score in this thread to compare it to yours. Or just subtract 200 or so off yours to get your 'Vista' score.

So about 3000, which is still a good score. And my theory the underclocked HD 2600 is smack in between the DDR2 8600 GT and the GDDR3 one is still intact

 

Yeah, thats kind of what I figured. It is way underclocked, but i dont think I will overclock it. Its fine right in the middle of DDR2 and GDDR3

 

I'm pretty sure that the clock readings are wrong, btw.

 

I doubt its in the middle of the two. Its probably on par or worse than the ddr2. Atis gpus get higher 3dmark scores which dont reflect their in game performance well.

 

ATI doesn't get any higher than Nvidia in 3dmark... People say both ways all the time. I've heard that Nvidia gets higher in 3dmark more than I've heard ATI does. But who cares anyways?

And I'm pretty sure the stock settings are 500/600.

 

Im pretty sure you're wrong. Its in the middle of the two.

 

I'm not sure where you're getting this from, unless you're referring to the desktop comparisons, which are meaningless when looking at the notebook cards. And there are ample real life gaming benchmarks of the DDR2 HD2600 (in the Asus F3 notebooks and the Toshiba A200/205) and of the underclocked GDDR3 HD2600 in the 8510p. They all point to the HD2600 being about 5% - 10% slower than the 8600GT, when compared version to version.

Agreed.

 

odin, i'm not questioning ur intelligence or anything...but i think, forerunner was referring to the same thing u are. in both classes, 2600 seems to be on par or a little behind(at stock clocks) 8600. i'm not a nvidia fan, by the way, just happen to own one and curious as everybody else is about current competition.

 

If Forerunner was referring to the posts immediately previously to his, then he was saying that the GDDR3 HD2600 is "on par or worse than the ddr2 (8600M-GT)", which is not at all true.

 

but i think he was referring to ddr2 version

 

Nope, he was replying to Ackeron and Crimsonman, who are clearly referring to the (albeit underclocked) GDDR3 HD2600 in the HP 8510p.

 

well, we'll just have to wait for forerunner to clear things up for us. night

 

Ah I was referring to the ddr2 version. Didnt check what you guys were referring to before inputting into the conversation. I agree with the gddr3 being in the middle.

Not a nvidia fanboy buts its known ati usually scores higher in 3dmarks and thats why many people including myself use 3dmark as a reference for driver performance boosts rather than a cross comparison for ati and nvidia.

Sorry for all the confusion.

 

To really compare the 2600 to the 8600 we need temperatures and overclocking results. preferably in the same notebook so the environment is the same for both.

Im sure everybody has heard me say it before in another thread but there are alot of differences between the two that will no be apparent with just stock 3dmark scores.

Here are the things I want to see put to the test:

The 2600 is built on a smaller die process than the 8600 this in theory gives it less heat output, less power consumption, and a higher overclock ability.

The 2600 has a super scaler technology vs what nvidia uses (the name of the nvidia tech excapes me at the moment) Whats important with this is that in theory the ATI card has much more power than the nvidia card however super scaler is very difficult to use and requires perfect drivers. While nvidia requires alot less driver work. So while nvidia may get away with one small tweak to correct performance for a handfull of games, ATI needs a tweak for each game specifically.

This means over time the ATI card can win even if its behind now as drivers improve.

The last thing is that the ATI cards been showing that it scales better when overclocked than the Nvidia card.

You put all of this together and I think the ATI card can very easily beat the Nvidia card. Especially for those willing to overclock the card.

I get most of this information from the 8800GTX/GTS vs 2900XT arguments and discussions because these two cards are exactly the same tech just will lower clock speeds and cut down components.

 

And also, they didnt work on the 2 series as hard as their R series (i think thats what its called). So the R series should be intersting as well.

 

Nice scores Serpah!!! What is the exact laptop and config Uve ot??

Ive finally finished with fres Vista on mine 8510p so will be benching and o/cing after i download 3dmark. I will give o/c another shot as previously it didnt go very well - crashes of drivers and so on. I should update u all in couple of hours.

ps. seraph what drivers were u using??

 

I have an a7k-a1.

Modded 7.10 drivers

 

Ive got really funny scores after O/c
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showpost.php?p=2597232&postcount=23

 

Hello again

I read thru the thread again especially paying attention to Seraphs screens and Ive noticed a big difference! Ahaa!
Seems like both HP and Asus have different cards, from different sources, or most likely if they are from the same source they have different BIOS! checking upon GPU-Z screen and comparing to mine I noticed different BIOS version than mine. It has also different 2D clocks and different default ones.

HP is giving 125/250 core/mem for 2D where Asus is giving 300/400 for 2D while 500/600 - stock for 3D.

I need to check couple more thing with U seraph.
Could U run 3D mark with default resolution 1280x1024 with clocks set to 300/400 and 500/600??
and also do U see the difference after u change clocks in fill rate etc in GPU-Z?? close the tool between checking.

Also would U be keen to make a copy of your BIOS for me?? do u have DOS bootable USB stick??

THANKS!

 

The Asus bios can be found on the official asus site, but i won't run on the 8510p (amd cpu versus intel cpu, different mainboards...)! I bet that there's some sort of oc protection in the HP 8510p...maybe you write to hp and ask them?

 

LOL.
I dont want Asus CPU bios!! I need HD2600 bios from seraphs notebook

Update:
I wonder what would u get serpah about your gf card with that tool to copy bios...
let me know if u are interested

 

I got one of the 8510p units today and the GPU keeps crashing and resetting. I get a message saying the VRU graphics accelerator is resetting after my screen goes to garbage and then blanks out, and then windows xp comes back just fine.

It seems to be running hot, though not hot enough to burn my legs so I am not sure if the GPU is overheating. The fan kicks up high so I know for sure its running full out.

The question is , is it a hardware problem , a software problem, and is it the GPU or the laptop design if its hardware.

HP sent me to an internal link to download new ATI drivers that came out in the last week or two, but that did not fix the problem. Anyone hear about this 2600 GPU overheating in any laptop designs?

 

I haven't hear of them overheating. but make sure the air vent isn't blocked. Get a cooling pad, it won't overheat

 

sorry i haven't been replying... I can probably run some of that stuff for you guys later. Right now I'm off to bed. btw... GPU-Z reads the same clocks no matter what I do to it right now.

 

It was sitting on a Targus chillpad, HP is authorizing a DOA swap, though I don't know how that works just yet as far as how long or whether they preship a replacement or I have to ship the one I have back first.

 

I really like what's going on in this thread. Cant wait to see more overclocking results.

 

Mike: I've only seen one other person on the forums with 8510p BSOD GPU issues so hopefully it's pretty rare. My first laptop five years back was DOA and it really soured me, but the second shipment was great, so don't worry

But yeah, generally with a new machine the manufacturer will be pretty good about rushing a new one to you.