The were a number of typos in the "Testbed and Methods" section (e.g., incorrect PSB speed and indication of a beta driver), which have been corrected. We used Catalyst 7.9 WHQL drivers, which are normal drivers.

Given that it takes a lot of time to benchmark over ten graphics cards in a number of games and write the whole article as well as the fact that ATI Catalyst 7.10 drivers released on the October 11 (so, your information about availability for over 20 days is incorrect) increased performance primarily on CrossFire configurations, it was not our priority to employ them for this particular review.

my bad then about the 20+ days, but I've been using it for like a long time, and didn't feel like counting. but your bad in the Beta 7.9 typo as well ;)

Still, at least do some updates with the dx.10, not all benchmarks at once of course, but 2 benchmarks should be enough to see if there is really some REAL world performance increase or not.

If i were you, I'd take a game that favors ati's hardware/drivers and another that favors nvidia's setup "generally speaking of course" at a moderate resolution 1280x1024 to see if there is a difference or not, if not, that might drop the 7.10 posts or give them a rest a bit till the next review or something, if yes, i think you should do the tests again, from the ati's newest catalyst point of view.

Call of Juarez DX10: CrossFire™ performance improves up to 42% and single card performance improves up to 34% on all ATI Radeon™ HD2x00 series of products

Company of Heroes DX10 CrossFire™ performance improves up to 80% on all ATI Radeon™ HD2x00 series of products and single card performance improves as much as 31% on ATI Radeon™ HD2900

Lost Planet DX10 CrossFire™ performance improves 20% or greater on all ATI Radeon™ HD2x00 series of products

World In Conflict DX10 CrossFire™ performance improves 14-67% or more and single card performance improves 20% or more on ATI Radeon™ HD2900XT and ATI Radeon™ HD2600 products

Have you actually tried to read the article and see performance figures?

Performance of the ATI Radeon HD 2600-series is so low that generally the new drivers are unlikely to bring up its performance so substantially that it would be possible to use it.

When it comes to the Radeon HD 2900, only Call of Juarez and Company of Heroes (note that ATI names Company of Heroes, not Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts) could actually benefit from the version 7.10 drives (the HD 2900-series does not perform well, to say at least, in the World in Conflict).

Given that it takes a lot of time to benchmark over ten graphics cards in a number of games and write the whole article as well as the fact that ATI Catalyst 7.10 drivers released on the October 11 increased performance primarily on CrossFire configurations, it was not our priority to employ them for this particular review.

Lame excuse.....
just post your article a few days later
problem solved.....

if you cant bench with latest drivers,you better dont bench at all.....

Agreed... if the benchmarks you post are already incorrect, then the comparison presented is a moot point.

You are an idiot. AMD releases new drivers every month. If they postponed the review, the day it came out, a bunch of nitwits like you would have something complain about.
"OH, why didn't you use 7.11 drivers, HD 2400PRO CROSSFIRE sees a %32 increase in call of jaruz @ 2560*1600 with 16AA"

AMD CARDS SUCK, plain and simple.

indeed AMD/ATI releases drivers every month
if you cannot finish an article in 1 month,it is kinda sad you know.....

you should kill yourself with your point of views. did you even see the charts? the comparison between x2600xt and 8600GTs? it is all about 3-6 frames difference MAX. so if the new driver improves 10% to 30% in some single card situations, then the 8600GTs will be the town's dog as the 2600xt series HD playback features/performance are just out of this world.

Go read a book about clothes and sawing, before spreading your mental germs among the posters.

Given that it takes a lot of time to benchmark over ten graphics cards in a number of games and write the whole article as well as the fact that ATI Catalyst 7.10 drivers released on the October 11 (so, your information about availability for over 20 days is incorrect) increased performance primarily on CrossFire configurations, it was not our priority to employ them for this particular review.

you should take care anton, this reply is just a copy and paste from the one you posted for me, this guy didn't even claim the drivers where out for 20+ days.

:) take care when you copy/paste next time

Given that it takes a lot of time to benchmark over ten graphics cards in a number of games and write the whole article as well as the fact that ATI Catalyst 7.10 drivers released on the October 11 (so, your information about availability for over 20 days is incorrect) increased performance primarily on CrossFire configurations, it was not our priority to employ them for this particular review.

Well, in fact, we try to use MSRP as a starting point for comparison. On the other hand, when it comes to the Radeon HD 2600 XT, the GeForce 8600 GTS and DirectX 10, it seems that the HD 2600 XT is actually a competitor for the GeForce 8600 GTS :) Which means that we compare them head to head.

There are more DirectX 10 articles coming later on, so, we may reconsider some of the comparisons.

that's exactly my point, with a little driver update, this head to head comparison with 8600GTs may turn out to be in favor of the ATi's 2600XT.

Problem with colored figures, ppl forget to see the numbers, they think 8600GTs performance is just too supreme for ati to catch up, while the FPS numbers are clear showing a difference of 3-6 frames or so, which can be maintained (IMO) by Ati's new drivers release.

Windows Vista behaviour is pretty much predictable when it comes to gaming.

It looks like you do a bit of tweaking before running any tests, like disabling file indexing and stopping system restore service. Otherwise I can suppose that there will be slowdowns and spikes in games performance.

hahahaha

this reply just made my day :D
its so plain stupid,i am still laughing with it

Well, I've bought mostly nVidia graphics cards, but it would just suck if AMD/ATI leaves the market because the prizes will go up and development would also go slower...
Anyway, because 7.10 was not used the comparison in this article is not 100% correct imo

bye bye yourself. What are you? Nvidia's girlfriend?!

anyway, you should re-read the article + user comments here before being so full of yourself and so conclusive with so little data.

Also, if bye bye AMD, would you enjoy a market with one vendor that you'll always have to buy its products?! Get a new brain, as obviously yours stopped working long time ago.