Best Data Viper Radeon HD 2600XT Graphics Card - 2600XT256PE3SB
Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2600XT 256MB GDDR3 128-bit 800 MHZ PCI-E x16 HDCP Supported Video Card

I bought this card for a computer I built. I didn't have any major issues at first (other than an occasional hang with the HP monitor control software after installing that). Maybe it's because I right away downloaded all driver updates, Windows Service Pack, or some other reason. Maybe it's because most problems below seem related to Vista and I'm running XP? Also, I saw a couple of comments about noise. I have some massive fans for the system, so I can't tell whether the video card fan is making much noise. ;) I'm rating a 5 on value because I got it with the rebate. Taking that into account, it was easily the best value of any component in my new system.
 
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I had high hopes for this card despite the tech center that I work at having major issues with ATI products. The card was easy enough to install but when I tried to play games on it the card would give out in the middle of them. I tried both Titan Quest as well as World in Conflict. In both games the video would go completely back losing signal but you could still hear the game running. Overall this card is not worth it. I had better luck with the integrated graphics I had. I'll be switching back to Nvidia
 
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I bought this from Buy.com because of the low price after rebate. The card does not work well, although you should not expect something of great quality at the price it is being sold. Whenever I try to start dream scene in vista, the compu crashes. Sometimes all of a sudden the screen goes blank and I can do nothing but reboot. It is frustrating. Didnt see much of an improvement either in overall performance of the compu or the video. More over i feel the compu is running slow. The fan was ok in my case, contrary to other reviews. The installation was easy. But when I tried to play youtube in fullscreen mode it failed. Reinstalled the drivers, now it does display youtube in full screen mode. Hopefully ATI sorts out the bugs and make this investment for all of us a better experience. This card is not good.
 
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Got this video card with the rebate and you can't beat that price. Very inexpensive and does the job with my computer. I got it to play age of conan and the video card shipped with my computer was pretty useless. I have windows vista and it rates your computers performance...with the old video card, i had like a 3.3, with this one it bumped me up to a 5.8. Easy to install, and the fan is a little noisy when it runs but it rarely comes on while playing the game, watching dvds.
 
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Pros: Great card, brand is ok. and is a perfect sub for my 1600XT. Price is unbelievable. Ppl say things about the noise from the fan. I really don't hear anything. Sure louder than mobile card but hey, it's a desktop video card, top heater in the computer. Cons: No sources in Linux so far. you can configure catalyst 8.6 yourself but a lot of work. Said to have trouble in vista. I am using XP and no crash at all so far.
 
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...plays well with vista (for me, at least!)
 
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I have had the card for a month or so and it has not crashed. Install was great. Graphics are phenomenal for the price. Totally satisfied with this purchase.
 
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Had to fight my way through their web site to download drivers for Vista -- they had a link or two that didn't work, turning it into a production.
 
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Two complaints; Doccummentation (instruction)sucks but I am up and running and it works great. Can't use Netflix's instant movie now. It seems DRM (digital rights media) will not work with HDMI type cards. No it is not the cards fault, but Netfilx, Microsoft (naturally) and Hollywood film studios for requiring DRM. I am using a 350W power supply and every thing works great. I bought it because my "on-board" graphics was too slow and this speeds everything I do graphically up tremendously. And did I say the price was GREAT. Thanks for that Buy.com.
 
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I bought this from Buy.com because of the low price after rebate, but it has only given me problems. The fan is definitely on the loud side and it has crashed on me when it came to playing videos, particularly DVDs and .mp4 and .mov. After going through tech support, it was determined that I had a faulty video card and the product was still under warranty. However, it cost me $10 to ship it from NY and Diamond Multimedia asked me to write a $9 check so they can ship it back to me from CA. I hope that $19 makes it work, although I don't think I should pay a single dime since it is purely a manufacturer problem. Next time, I'm going with XFX. They paid for everything under their warranty when my previous 6600GT had a fan problem. Other than HDCP and DirectX 10.0, my 3 year old XFX 6600GT is better than the Diamond HD 2600XT. That's pretty sad. Hopefully I can revise this when I get the card back from Diamond.
 
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My system crashes with the video card installed. Most likely it is my power supply being not adequate but who knows? I have a 250W power supply and it looks like the video card requires a minimum 400w. I plan to buy another power supply in an effort to cure the problem. Nonetheless, don't by the card unless your system meets all the specs. It'll be a waste of money and who knows -- it could be a waste even after I install a new power supply?
 
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I'm not sure about others but my card runs very hot and past 60C it becomes unstable. On a normal night it will run at about ~75C and approach 80C. This is not a case problem because my quad core cpu 5 inches away runs at 50C load. This problem is specific to the card itself. RMA wasn't an option because apparently this is how the card is built (and it's a general consensus over the internet that this card overheats and crashes a lot, but there are people that aren't affected so YMMV). The instability problem is solved by underclocking the card by a few MHz. I used ATITool (have to use version 0.27 or better or else it won't work) and underclocked the gpu and memory by 5MHz each and the card stopped crashing. Other than the heat and instability problems (which are probably caused by bad drivers) the card works very nicely, it's just a pain to set it up. It decodes video very nicely (leaving my cpu for other things) and I have a dual screen set up, usually with a movie playing on one screen and a game on the other screen and the card handles beautifully. I've had the card for less than a month so I don't know what to say about its ability to last long at ~80C. I'm hoping that I will get a good few years out of it (although probably not). It also hasn't failed me since I figured out how to make the card stable. Maybe in a year, the ATI drivers will be fixed so that the card will be usable without 3rd party fixes.
 
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The fan hasn't bothered me. Seems like a good card.
 
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Ok, its not a 8800GT, but its a good card for $30. I would NOT pay the full $82 or whatever they recommend, but when its on sale its definitely worth it. The fan isn't quiet/silent, you can definitely hear it. I wouldn't call it "loud" though. Its a good cheap alternative for a higher-end graphics card.
 
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The cooling fan on this Diamond video card is LOUD. I could not tolerate the noise to even get through the driver installation process. This card is definitely the noisiest card I have ever tried!
 
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Same here. Maybe the satisfied users don't write reviews, only the disgruntled ones. Still, the machine keeps crashing. Before it crashes, the games do look nicer. Maybe I'll be smart enough to take it out before it corrupts my hard drive. I hope the rebate comes.
 
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one word, it crash. Do you research before you buy it.
 
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I'm kinda new to the videocard realm, but this card works great for what I need. I'm running a 2.4Ghz quad core with an DVico HDTV7 tuner card. I mostly use this card for watchnig TV and movies. I've got a 50" plasma and a 24"LCD running off of this card. Things pass from screen to screen flawlessly. As I've read other reviews they are correct about the fan noise. The fan on this card is the loudest thing in my PC. I've got a large covered compartment in my entertainment center where the 36" tube TV used to be, so that is a nice space for the PC to go and almost aleviates all of the fan noise, so it does not bother me to much. Not sure about the gaming capabilities. Got this card for $15 AR. The price was very right for what I needed. I would recomend this card at 3x that price.
 
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No problems installing. I use it exclusively for gaming and its just fine. I got it with the rebate, and the price after that is just amazing. Its not a powerful card - its not going to run any new games on their high settings. I'm playing Age of Conan right now, and when I'm in a small area, it runs perfectly on medium (~30fps), but most of the time im out in larger areas with more characters and demands on the card, and I have to switch it to low to get ~15-(maybe)20 fps. So thats, my experience with it. Not a bad card, extremely good for the after-rebate price. Oh, and the fan isn't too loud, idk why other people said this was a problem.
 
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If you're looking for a low to mid-end video card to surf the net and play older games at a very very low price (thanks to buy.com rebates) you can't go wrong with this video card.
 
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Crash, crash, crash, crash, crash, crash, crash, crash. Corrupted disc. Crash, crash. And then, finally, it installs. But then, crash, crash, crash, crash, crash, crash, crash, crash. Watch a t.v. show, crash. Play a movie--crash. Another corrupted disc. Spend hours researching on the internet to try to get it to work. Oh, try to underclock it. Oh, try to use older drivers. Spend hours trying to get the thing to work. Still, the thing sits in your computer cooking away at 170 degrees at idle. It sounds like a jet engine at times. What an absolute piece of garbage. The manufacturer knows this, which is why its giving such a large rebate. Then, as you're looking around for ways to get the card to work, you find tons of complaints regarding crashes from other people on the net. Also, you find stories of people not getting their rebates. You find out that the card's manufacturer has received an F from its local Better Business Bureau because of problems it has honoring its rebates. Congrats, you just bought yourself what might amount to an 80 dollar rock. So, I just spent 13 bucks just to ship mine back. That was half the after-rebate price of the card. The other half might be taken up by restocking fees. That's the way it goes. I just wanted this piece of junk gone. It was either that or the garbage can. --xp media center 2005
 
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This card is not a powerhouse for gaming, but it isn't advertized as such. It does give you 256MB video ram, DirectX 10, and HDMI. The fan needs to be replaced and there are inexpensive ones that do a real nice job for under $10. With the huge rebate this is dirt cheap and well worth the money IMO.
 
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I am very pleased with the performance / price obtained with this card. Although I cannot comment on Windows-based performance as of yet, linux performance (Fedora 8) was just as expected based on reputable reviews and benchmarks. This card will adeptly handle most of what typical users could want at a very good price point. It draws all needed power from the PCIe bus (no external PCIe power required), indicating a relatively modest power consumption / PSU strain. In terms of features, you get DX10 bandwidth and hardware video acceleration. This card is not (and does not claim to be) a top-notch gaming device. However, the combination of low power consumption (roughly 50W) and its DX10 / video acceleration capability make it a great HTPC candidate (but see caveat below). <p>PLEASE NOTE: The GPU cooler on the unit I received bears little resemblance to that shown in the picture above. It is smaller and very likely louder, with somewhat less cooling capability. The unit I received was no louder than the rest of my system (but my system is not nearly silent). Based on the cooler design and experience with many other cards, I would not anticipate utter silence. However, given the low heat load provided by the 2600XT GPU (45W), it should be easy to achieve a cool and quiet system with a decent aftermarket heatsink. Fortunately, the reasonable price of this card should leave room in your budget to obtain one.
 
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First, know that the card does not look like the picture (red card with white flames). Instead, it's a bit shorter card with a picture of a female character on it. Too bad. Second, although the fan is not speed controlled, it is not THAT loud (as some have complained). If you're using it for an HTPC, it is not silent, but for a normal PC, it's certainly normal. Lastly, performance-wise, it's no 8800GT! Also, the ATI Catalyst Control Center won't come up even after updating the ATI CCC suite. Oh well. Good price!
 
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The drivers are good, albeit a bit bloated. The card does not need a PCIe power connector, which is nice if you have a modular powersupply. I bought this card (with the big rebate) to act as the center of a blu-ray/HD-DVD home theater PC. It does the job just fine, even outputs 5.1 channel audio over the DVI-HDMI output. ONE HUGE CAVEAT: The fan is very small, and spins at 2000rpms, with no fan-speed adjustment possible (only two-wire). It is VERY LOUD and not appropriate in any way for a HTPC. The card is very hot and since it does not exhaust the heat, heats up my entire HTPC. At full fan speed, the card idles at 58C and loads at 70C. (I ended up wiring a 12V-->5V adapter to the fan to slow the fan to a bearable 1000rpms, but the card idles at 65C and loads to 80C.
 
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