Sapphire HD 2400XT Videocard ReviewAugust 8th, 2007
So the DirectX 10 revolution still has yet to begin. Still, that hasn't stopped the gaming community from preparing themselves for tomorrow's games with today's purchases as DX10 videocards continue to flood the market. But up until recently, choices were limited as AMD/ATI remained curiously absent from this outpouring of next-gen hardware, allowing nVidia to reign supreme. That's still the case in the high end arena, but not so for the mainstream and budget consumer, the target audiences for ATI's new HD 2400, 2600, and 2900 series videocards. Leading the charge is Sapphire, a company that continues to churn out more ATI hardware than any other manufacturer:
All SAPPHIRE ATI video boards are manufactured under 100% ATI production criteria including QC and outgoing system. Our monthly video board production capacity can reach a lofty 1.8 million and often topples this landmark figure. Our factory has always been the major manufacturer on ATI boards for most of the top ten tier 1 OEMs worldwide. With this background, you should undoubtedly be guaranteed of the impeccable quality, production capacity and product reliability of all ATI video boards and mainboards from SAPPHIRE. Be they business oriented or something just off center of the crosshairs, Sapphire has a solution for you and we look forward to an exciting and prosperous relationship with you!
Today we look at the Sapphire HD 2400XT videocard, which represents ATI's budget offering in the DX10 arena. With a spec sheet as sparse as the price tag, can this lightweight put on a scrappy performance, or is it better suited for the scrap heap?
| Model |
- Sapphire 100205L HD 2400XT
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| Core |
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| Memory |
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Memory Speed
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Core Clockspeed
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Memory Interface
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Dual Link DVI
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Vista / DX10 Ready?
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HDCP Ready?
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We don't expect much out of budget oriented bundles, so we weren't surprised to not see a game or other fluff throw in as value fodder, but we did find the lack of a driver disc to be a curious omission (Sapphire assured us that retail shipping units will include the disc, and Newegg's picture shows one being included as well). The items that did find their way into our retail box include a quick installation guide, HDTV cable, DVI to VGA/D-sub adapter, DVI to HDMI adapter, and S-Video to composite adapter.
As with most sectors in the PC industry, we've become accustomed to the leap frog effect between ATI and nVidia, as the two race toward the performance crown, only to lose it to the other each subsequent round. This time around, however, ATI seems to have lost their legs, and rather than jump to the front of the class where the hardcore gamers sit, they're targeting more budget oriented consumers. On the lower end of the performance spectrum, we have today's HD 2400XT. Built around ATI's 65nm RV610 core with 180 million transistors, this card packs a respectable 256MB of memory along with decent clockspeeds checking in at 700MHz (core) and 1400MHz (memory). But lest we get our expectations up, the 64-bit interface quickly reminds us that this card is geared more towards HTPC duties than next gen games.
64-bit limitation aside, we were surprised to see Samsung's K4J52324QE-BC12 chips on the 2400XT. These 1.25ns chips are spec'd to run at 1600MHz, and can be found on some 8800GTS videocards, a considerably higher end videocard.
We don't get dual-link DVI on the 2400XT, but we do get support for resolutions up to 1920x1080, along with HDMI output support and an HDTV encoder, making HTPC enthusiasts the primary target for this card. Of course, we're talking about ATI's Avivo HD technology, not the least of which includes a Universal Video Decoder (UVD), which offloads HD processing duties from the CPU to the GPU. Especially attractive to budget builders, offloading from the CPU leaves those clock cycles to focus on other chores, and should help to prevent intermittent hiccups during HD playback.
Keeping with the HTPC theme, the Sapphire HD 2400XT comes equipped with a passive heatsink, resulting in a completely silent, single slot cooling solution. And for those not content to have their cake without eating it too, we recorded temperatures much lower than what we'd expect from a fanless heatsink. Temps were so low, in fact, that we question the accuracy. But keep in mind that the 2400XT sips a mere 25W of power, and testing was performed in an open-air testbed.
OverclockingWe're not too keen on overclocking videocards with passive cooling solutions, but because the temperatures were so low, we decided to whisk caution to the wind and see how far we could push the GPU. We also took interest in pushing the RAM, as they're spec'd to run faster than they came shipped. And because the heatsink also covers the chips, we felt comfortable increasing their clockspeed. We weren't able to achieve mind blowing results, but did manage to go from the stock 700MHz/1400MHz to 800MHz/1500MHz, representing a 100MHz overclock on both the RAM and GPU.
A Word about DriversWhen we first received our review sample, we initially concluded it was a defective card. We were unable to get the videocard recognized in two separate testbeds (AMD 3800+ X2 and Intel E6300), trying both Vista and XP on each one. We also tried both the latest Catalyst 7.7 driver sets, as well as the previous 7.6 package, all to no avail. After contacting Sapphire regarding our lack of success, we were sent a link for Press that contained working drivers, and all testing was performed on those. This is not entirely uncommon when receiving engineering sample hardware, whether from an immature BIOS or other tweaking that takes place before a final shipping product hits the retail sector. However, we bring up our experiences with publicaly available drivers at the time of testing in the spirit of full disclosure.
Benchmarks
HardwareLogic's GPU testing includes the following benchmarks:
- Doom 3 - Doom 3 is an "older" game that is still makes for a good benchmarking tool. For benchmarking the HD 2400XT videocard, we use TimeDemo1 with the graphics settings on MEDIUM.
- Far Cry - The HardwareOC FarCry Benchmark is an easy-to-use tool, that makes Far Cry videocard benchmarking fast, easy, and accurate. In 2004 Far Cry earned the "Best Game of the Year" award because of its awesome graphics and gameplay. We run Far Cry's 'Regulator' benchmark.
- F.E.A.R. - One of the punishing games when it comes to stressing hardware, F.E.A.R has been said to be a "Graphical Masterpiece". Its use of High-Dynamic-Range-Lighting (HDR), and shadows pushes visual effects to an entirely new level. We set F.E.A.R. to MEDIUM settings with both volumetric lighting and soft shadows enabled, then repeated the same benchmark runs with them turned off.
- Supreme Commander - Along with revitalizing the RTS genre, Supreme Commander manages to push high end systems, giving both the processor and videocard a workout. Because of the demands this game puts on a PC's subsystem, we've recently added it to our collection of gamin benchmarks. We use the built-in benchmark as outlined by ExtremeTech.
- 3DMark06 - The only synthetic benchmark in our bunch, Futuremark's 3DMark06 pushes every aspect of 3D performance to give users an idea of how a videocard will perform. We run the full version of 3DMark06 with all tests selected.
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1024x768
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1024x768, 2xAA, 2xAF
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1280x1024 |
1280x1024, 2x, 2x
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1280x1024, 2x, 2x, OC'd
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3DMark06
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*WNR
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*WNR
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*WNR
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*WNR
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*WNR
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Doom 3
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51.8
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32.9
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33.7
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21.1
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23.5
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Far Cry
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48.7
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28.69
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33.59
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18.83
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21.13
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FEAR
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16 (25**)
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13 (24**)
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16 (25**)
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15 (15**)
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17 (17**)
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SupCom
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*WNR
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*WNR
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*WNR
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*WNR
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*WNR
| *Would Not Run
**Score in parenthesis measured with Volumetric Lighting and Soft Shadows turned OFF
As we expected, the HD 2400XT didn't win us over in the gaming landscape, forcing us to drop down to 1024x768 with no AA or AF to get consistently playable framerates. Increasing the resolution or VQ settings proved to be too much of a workload, reiterating that this card is geared towards HTPC duties rather than game playing. Part of the fault also lies with Vista, but since this is a DX10 videocard, we chose to forgo XP in favor of the DX10 friendly OS.
| Section |
Score |
Comment |
| Stock Performance |
20/30 |
- Gaming performance better than onboard video, but had trouble at anything higher than 1024x768
- DX10 capable
- Great picture quality
- Offloads high-definition encoding from the CPU to the GPU
- Handles HD content with aplomb
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| Overclocking |
6/10 |
- We managed a 100MHz OC on both the GPU and memory
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| Cooling |
18/20 |
- One-slot cooling solution
- Being a passive cooler means it's completely noiseless
- Incredibly low temperatures, thanks in part to the low power draw
- Heatsink covers RAM chips too
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| Bundle |
7/10 |
- Tons of adapters, mostly geared towards high definition content
- We'd bemoan the lack of game bundle, if the 2400XT was geared towards game playing
- Any software related to HTPCs would make a worthy addition
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| Price / Value |
20/20 |
- Streets for a mere $80 on Newegg, less than what you'd spend on a dinner and movie date
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| Warranty & Support |
6/10 |
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Our RecommendationFor a card not geared towards video games, gaming performance was about on par with what we'd expect. A 64-bit memory interface is just too narrow to handle even a mid range experience, but will be just fine for the casual gamer. The sweet spot rests in at 1024x768 with no AA or AF for consistently playable framerates. But gamers aren't the target crowd here, and it's the HTPC enthusiasts that will benefit the most from the HD 2400XT. That doesn't mean we can ignore gaming performance (it is a videocard, after all), but if we were evaluating strictly on the merits of a home theater setup, we'd likely add another 10 points to the score. For a budget price tag, you get big cinema performance, thanks in large part to ATI's Avivo HD technology. Playing back high definition content was smooth and vibrant, and the Universal Video Decoder (UVD) ensures that the processor never gets bogged down, offloading HD processing duties to the GPU instead. Combined with a completely silent and competent cooling solution along with a rock bottom price tag, HTPC enthusiasts will be giving the Sapphire HD 2400XT two thumbs up. Gamers, on the other hand, need not apply. But then again, gamers shouldn't be looking in the sub $100 pricing tier anyway.
Other Reviews of NoteIt's always nice to have more than one opinion on a component before you spend your hard earned money. For one, we may see something others missed, or vice versa. As with all reviews published at HardwareLogic, we'll not only give you our recommendation, but also point out some reviews from some other great sites from around the web. Guru3D
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