Advantages: alot of features and power
Disadvantages: lack of analog output

...ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro is the perfect graphics adapter for the budget gamer. This card is in my system consisting of Gigabyte M52L-S3 with the AMD Athlon 64 3500+ and with 2 GB of DDR2 singelchannel RAM. In this setting, I have the standard 256 mb shared to 512 mb, with the top of 1 GB. This card is very fast. In my processor review, the fps shown for these games are done with this card. Only drawback is the lack of analog output. There are two HDMI outputs and a s-video, so you can hook up 2 HD TV sets. I tested it with two 32" HD screens and the card played a 2K film without any lag and distortion. Currently, I have a 19" widescreen LCD on it and it runs anything smooth and undistorted. My only problem is with 128 bit memory interface. As I use solid edge and other editing programs, this is not as smooth and fast as expected... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Huge VGA ram, Runs vista aero smoothly
Disadvantages: NOT a gamers card, but will handle light gaming

...This is a good Card for Vista because of its 512mb of VGA ram. I was taken by surprise when games woudnt run that much faster than on the card that this card was designed to replace (x1600pro) so I am slightly disappointed, but keeping in mind this is a budget/value card, this isnt soo bad. Was very easy to install and drivers are very nice to work with. VERY quiet after a weeks of use, people will experience a high noise output for the first weeks of use, and they may tell you about this, but this is only because the thermal compound under the cooler needs to settle to make the cooling fan and heatsink as efficient as its going to be. After a week of use(not constant use), the fluctuating fan settles down (perminently) and remains very quiet and only noticable at start up. HD 3850 should be considered over this card!!!... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: excellent memory capacity, improved games performance
Disadvantages: GDDR3 instead of GDDR4

...░▒▓ SAPPHIRE RADEON HD 2900 XT ▓▒░ In my view, there is nothing more important on a high powered entertainment PC than a graphics card that will give you the performance that you deserve for running high speed and highly detailed and memory intensive games. I recently decided to upgrade my graphics card to a Sapphire Radeon HD 2900 XT, and I am so glad I did. My graphics when playing games are now so much better. The card is very well built with a pretty red design on top. One thing that I am surprised about is that with the advent of a new era in memory following the creation of GDDR4 memory, that they have settled for only GDDR3 memory for this card. On top of that, there is only 512mb on the card in comparison to some of the latest cards which have around 640mb. Other than that... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Great Value, Relaible
Disadvantages: No as good as 9800 series

...I wanted to buy a video card that could handle cames such as Call of Duty and NFSU2 easily with a bit to spare. I didn't want to break the bank, and although I was tempted by the 9800 series I opted to go for a sapphire 9600 pro(256mb). I must emphasize the importance of purchasing a pro model as opposed to a standard 9600. Although the pro is not as good as the xt, the price increase from the standard 9600 was minimal(a mere 2 pounds in my case!), so the performance upgrade was well worth the bit extra. I was constrained by the fact that I didn't have a pci express port only an agp, but I have been assured that I do not lose out by buying agp compatable technology at this stage. It is recommended to use this card with an 8x agp slot but using a 4x is fine. The all important core clock speed of the 9600 pro is 400mhz, compared... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Lovely Aroma. Nice Bottle
Disadvantages: A tad Expensive

...One of the most highly revered gins is Bombay Sapphire Gin- a British gin in the so-called "" London Dry" style. It comes in a most attractive blue looking bottle but the sapphire blue colour actually comes from a plastic film-the bottle itself is a white transparent colour. Why do much respected magazines and reviewers give such a high rating to Bombay Sapphire Gin ? It cant be for the sapphire blue plastic film can it ? No most decidely it is do with the gin itself ! This English gin is actually made with no less than ten natural botanicals and this is reputedly the most of any gin. The botanicals include the likes of paradise, almonds,lemon peel,licorice,juniper berries, cubeb berries,orris,coriander,angelica, cassia bark and 100 per cent grain neutral spirits. These botanicals are what give the gin its flavour so now you can... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Fast FSB and support for DDR2 at 1066MHz
Disadvantages: Only IDE support for one HDD and one CD-DVD drive

...I swapped to this from a slightly older Asrock 775i65GV, because the Asrock had only an AGP slot and no PCI-E - which I wanted for a decent graphics card. I also wanted a P35 based board for future upgrade to a quad core and in the meantime to use my existing 3.00 GHz P4 dual core. The board supports 64 bit processors, which Linux makes use of, but XP Pro doesn't. There are 5 SATA connections, but only one IDE so there is only support for one HDD and one CD-DVD drive. I got a Sapphire Radeon HD2600 Pro to go with it and now all my games run smoothly with every option turned on, including Next Gen and full screen anti-aliasing (VSYNC only slows it down and I don't need it with the DVI digital input anyway). Tomb Raider Legend looks really good, but takes too long for good game-play at maximum resolution. The BIOS can be updated... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Fast, superb graphics
Disadvantages: Expensive

...The ATI RADEON 9800xt has a new video processing unit called the R360, it was manufactured on a 0.15 micron process with 115 million transistors and has a VPU speed 412 MHz, the onboard memory has raised from 128mb to 256mb running at 730 MHz and capable of delivering up to 23.3 GB per second. The top of the card has a copper plate, covered with rolled copper fins, and top by a plastic cover, the bottom also has a copper plate used to absorbed heat from memory modules. This video card has a very big fan and it adjusted according to the cores temperature and includes a thermocouple to monitor the card’s temperatures. The Sapphire includes all of the complementary hardware you need, including a power extension, a DVI-to-VGA adapter and an S-Video to composite output for the television plus a Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness and coupon... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: No trouble with latest games, cool and quiet
Disadvantages: Does not have DirectX10

...I bought this card about a month ago and since then I have had sufficient time to test it and see if my money was well spent, here is my short review of the Sapphire Radeon X1950PRO. The Radeon X1950 Pro was designed to replace ATI's older midrange card, the Radeon X1800 GTO. With a 580 MHz core clock speed and 512MB of GDDR3 RAM running at 1,4GHz, the Radeon X1950PRO boasts a faster core clock and memory speeds than the Radeon X1800 GTO. Like most midrange to high-end graphics cards, the Sapphire Radeon X1950PRO requires a link to your PC's power supply. Most PCs with a 300-to-400-watt power supply should be able to handle a single card, and ATI recommends at least a 550-watt power supply for CrossFire mode. The Sapphire Radeon X1950PRO's fan runs very quiet under stress and did not generate too much heat which was perfect for me. I... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Great deep plots and good acting, weird!
Disadvantages: Do you understand what's going on?

...“All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension”. So started each episode of Sapphire and Steel, that wonderfully crap ITV sci-fiction attempt from the late 1970s / early 80s. This was ITVs low budget answer to all the Star Trek series that America was churning out to such success at the time. Well, I used to love Sapphire and Steel, simply because it was so different, so baffling, you felt this must be a programme on another intellectual plane from the one the rest of us are on. And make no mistake it was popular at the time, lasting several series, and even getting a comic strip in Look-In magazine (remember that!?) Basically, Sapphire (played by Joanna Lumley) and Steel (David McCallum) are time detectives. They are part of the elemental body guards who are ensuring that time travels... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: 1. Performance 2. DX10.1 and SM4.1 support 3. Runs cool with the new 55nm architecture.
Disadvantages: It doesn't need a dual-slot, it would run cool even with a single-slot cooler.

...AMD's HD3870 is probably the best price-performance card on the market at the moment. The performance of this card is close to the 8800GT, which costs about £25 more in most cases. The card offers many new features, like support for DX10.1 and SM 4.1. What I really like about this card is that it's based on the new 55nm core architecture which lowers temperatures and keeps the noise down. The performance is really good, it won't beat the 8800s from Nvidia but it comes close and I can easily max out every game I own. The only bad thing I can see is the dual-slot cooler, I don't think the card should need it. It is a 55nm card afterall. I would really recommend this card for anyone, it offers so much performance for the money. I can't find a reason not to buy this beauty.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful