Visiontek Radeon HD 2600XT Graphics Card-RADEON HD2600XT AGP 512MB CTLR2PORT DVI-I TV/HDTV OUT

...

a bargain...

using Colin McRae's Dirt as a benchmark, I'm able to run it with all the options maxed out, and all the special effects enabled, at a resolution of 1024 x 768 x 32 @ 85HZ refresh rate, without any slowdown whatsoever...

you will need a very powerful system to take full advantage of all the features of this card though... I had to upgrade my RAM and my sound card to achieve these results, so pay close attention to my system specs:

Compaq Presario 8000
3GHZ Intel Pentium 4 single core CPU
800MHZ FSB with Hyper Threading
2GB Kingston Hyper X single channel DDR RAM (upgraded from 512MB RAM)
512MB VisionTek ATI Radeon HD2600XT 8X AGP video card (upgraded from 128MB ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 8X AGP video card)
Sound Blaster Audigy 4 sound card (upgraded from Sound Blaster Audigy 1 sound card)
430W Thermaltake Purepower PSU (upgraded from 250W PSU)
Windows Vista Home Premium (upgraded from Windows XP Professional)

so in light of all the upgrades that I had to perform on my system, just to make the switch to Windows Vista and Direct X10 gaming, you might want to just buy a whole new system, or build a new one yourself, as that's effectively what I had to do... the only thing that I haven't had to upgrade yet is my CPU and motherboard, and I really should've upgraded both of those before I upgraded anything else... however, the cost of upgrading compared to the cost of building or buying a whole new system was a big factor for me, and I expect that it will be for most people... next time they literally change everything on us like this again though, I will wait until I can just build a whole new system, as I don't think I really ended up saving that much money by choosing the upgrade path, even doing all the work myself, but at least I didn't have to pay for labor...

all that aside though, I'm very happy with my purchase, and all the other upgrades that I performed to restore my system to its former glory... at the time that I bought it nearly 5 years ago, it was one of the best that money could buy, but needless to say that wasn't the case nearly 5 years later... I was able to run any game with all the options maxed out, and all the special effects turned on, and now I'm able to do it once again...

in summary, if you're on a budget, but you still want to experience the best of the best that modern PC gaming has to offer now, this is the card you want, unless you have a PCIe mobo and you can afford the HD2900XT...

Visiontek Radeon HD 2600XT Graphics Card-RADEON HD2600XT AGP 512MB CTLR2PORT DVI-I TV/HDTV OUT

...

a bargain...



using Colin McRae's Dirt as a benchmark, I'm able to run it with all the options maxed out, and all the special effects enabled, at a resolution of 1024 x 768 x 32 @ 85HZ refresh rate, without any slowdown whatsoever...



you will need a very powerful system to take full advantage of all the features of this card though... I had to upgrade my RAM and my sound card to achieve these results, so pay close attention to my system specs:



Compaq Presario 8000

3GHZ Intel Pentium 4 single core CPU

800MHZ FSB with Hyper Threading

2GB Kingston Hyper X single channel DDR RAM (upgraded from 512MB RAM)

512MB VisionTek ATI Radeon HD2600XT 8X AGP video card (upgraded from 128MB ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 8X AGP video card)

Sound Blaster Audigy 4 sound card (upgraded from Sound Blaster Audigy 1 sound card)

430W Thermaltake Purepower PSU (upgraded from 250W PSU)

Windows Vista Home Premium (upgraded from Windows XP Professional)



so in light of all the upgrades that I had to perform on my system, just to make the switch to Windows Vista and Direct X10 gaming, you might want to just buy a whole new system, or build a new one yourself, as that's effectively what I had to do... the only thing that I haven't had to upgrade yet is my CPU and motherboard, and I really should've upgraded both of those before I upgraded anything else... however, the cost of upgrading compared to the cost of building or buying a whole new system was a big factor for me, and I expect that it will be for most people... next time they literally change everything on us like this again though, I will wait until I can just build a whole new system, as I don't think I really ended up saving that much money by choosing the upgrade path, even doing all the work myself, but at least I didn't have to pay for labor...



all that aside though, I'm very happy with my purchase, and all the other upgrades that I performed to restore my system to its former glory... at the time that I bought it nearly 5 years ago, it was one of the best that money could buy, but needless to say that wasn't the case nearly 5 years later... I was able to run any game with all the options maxed out, and all the special effects turned on, and now I'm able to do it once again...



in summary, if you're on a budget, but you still want to experience the best of the best that modern PC gaming has to offer now, this is the card you want, unless you have a PCIe mobo and you can afford the HD2900XT...