Upgraded to Sapphire HD 2600 XT from X800 XL ... yet slower???!!!

S

spuff

Big Geek
I upgraded my graphics card this morning. Problem is, the store didn't have any Sapphire X1950 Pro 512s in stock so the guy reccomended a Sapphire 2600 XT 256 as an alternative. So I installed it and expected a decent improvement in graphics quality, but it wasn't the case. It actually seems SLOWER than the X800 XL I already had! I've tested it on HL2: Episode 1 and Farcry so far and for both games, I had to turn the resolution and quality down to get a resonable framerate and to stop it stuttering. I'm just confused because on paper, this card is hella quicker than my other card.
So my question is this ... do I demand my money back and wait until the X1950 comes back in stock or are there things that I could be missing? I get a feeling that the card I originally wanted would be better suited to my PC.
I'm running XP Sp2 with Athlon 64 3200+, DFI LANParty NF4 Ultra-D, 1GB Giel PC3200 DRR and a Tagen 480w PSU.
 
have you tried reinstalling the graphics drivers? If that doesn't work, there may be a bottle-neck (the cpu) that's why there's a lag in performance. But still it doesn't make sense...
 
I initially installed the drivers that I downloaded from the website. But I uninstalled these and installed the drivers from the disc that came with the card. Seems to run a little better but it performs nowhere near as well as I'd hoped. No visable improvement over my old card from what I can see.
Just been playing HL2: Episode one at 1440x900, 2xAA, 8xAF and everything up to high. Plays OK but stutters quite regularly and the framerate drops a lot when lots of water effects are present or when going from inside to outside.
I have 1Gb of memory but would making this 2Gb make any difference?
 
maybe a little bit, but no miracles. Is it possible for you to give us 3dmarks for the two graphics cards? That way we can tell if the performance gap is how much it should be.

Thanks
 
Ha, this is where it gets interesting ... I posted some results as while ago when I first got my X800XL and got 20853 with 3DMark 2001 SE.
Since then, all I've added is the HD 2600 XT and overclocked the CPU slighly and got 20938.
That's not the biggest improvement in graphics that I've ever seen!
I'll get hold of a more up-to-date benchmarking tool and produce new results for both cards soon.

:edit: Can't seem to get 3DMark 06 to work, but just re-tested my X800 XL under the same circumstances as the 2600 XT with 3DMark 2001 SE and got 20759. I think those results prove that something isn't right though. Tried to swap the card for a X1950 but gotta go back of Friday when "the boss is in". Hmmmm :-/
Also, is having a 480w PSU likely to hinder performance in this way? I have no stability issues ... just speed issues.
 
Those 2 cards are in the same range in performance, i have and x800gt 512, upgraded to an 8600gt 512 and well some games ran a little faster some ran slower. My understanding was that since it was a newer gen card i would at least see a 10-20% inprovment as 8600 is a low end card in the 8000 series spectrum.

I would suggest taking it back and upgrading to the next level, its only then you will see an improvment.
 
there are some decreased spec cards, rather than the referenced hd2600xt ones that's might be your problem

and for a tip to improve your speed format the pc and re-install everything

use a tweaked driver rather than the official ati ones, they always perform better and i can suggest omega branded ones

www.guru3d.com/download might be the address i can't remember now
 
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