Whenever the big two in the graphics game launch a new card, there's the usual bluster about how fast this is against that, and this card can do such-and-such while that card can run the latest game faster than anything else on the planet.

Then comes the 64 million dollar question; how much does it cost? Generally speaking this makes everyone go quiet and then run away, muttering under their breath, to check their piggy banks.

While the high-end cards have all the blistering performance, their price is usually so high that we mere mortals can't justify the outlay and so the companies don't ever make much, if any, money on them. The real dogfight and the money-making opportunities come in the mainstream market. Think Ferrari vs Fiat: we'd all like something sleek in red on the drive but our budget means we can only afford a Bravo.

AMD's current flagship, the HD2900XT (R600), has spawned the HD2600 (R630) giving the company DirectX 10 support in the mainstream segment. Currently it is available in two flavours - the XT and the Pro - the fastest of which is the 2600XT and around which this Asus EAH2600XT is based.

The R630 is a pared-down version of the R600, albeit built on a thinner die (65nm as opposed to 80nm) but it still has an amazing 390 million transistors. The thinner die means that the R630 runs much cooler and uses less power than the R600, resulting in smaller, neater cooling solutions (more on that later).

The R630 uses the same ring bus memory architecture as its larger sibling, but cut down from 512-bit to 128-bit, and versions are available with either GDDR2 (Pro), GDDR3 (Pro and XT) or GDDR4 memory (XT). The 256MB of memory runs at 700MHz (1.4GHz effective) giving a memory bandwidth of 22.4GB/s.

Also cut down are the number of Stream Processors, down from the 320 in the R600 to just 120, clocked at 800MHz. Also running at 800MHz in the reference design is the core clock.

Built into the architecture is native CrossFire support so you don't need those awkward Master and Slave combinations anymore and, perhaps the number one reason for buying one of these cards, the updated Avivo HD technology.

Avivo has been updated so that it offers the lower end cards real HD playback capability (40Mbps with the HD2600 series) as well as support for HDMI v1.2 and HDCP via the Dual-Link DVI. A brand new feature is the UVD (Universal Video Decoder) chip which relieves the CPU when decoding HD content, meaning that you free up system resources.

Another trick up its sleeve is its integrated audio controller which, by using the audio on the motherboard, either an integrated chip or via a soundcard, pushes the audio signal via the PCIe bus into the R630 core to be outputted together with the video signal.

For the EAH2600XT, Asus has taken a GDDR3 reference design, got rid of the standard cooler and added one of its own, which, the company claims, keeps the core 10 degrees cooler than the standard design. It's quite an attractive looking card with the red PCB being nicely set off by the copper cooler.

The cooler's design doesn't look a million miles away from something Zalman might create; the circular copper heat-sink has a solid base with a ring of copper fins to dissipate the heat, and a quiet fan sitting in the middle of the circle. The memory chips are left uncovered as there is enough air being circulated by the fan to keep them cool.

Performance-wise, the EAH2600XT scores pretty well for a card in this price bracket, with a playable average frame rate in the intensive Oblivion of 50fps at a 1,024 by 768 pixel resolution (although it does struggle once you start turning filtering on), while F.E.A.R delivers an equally playable 52fps at the same resolution.

But if you are more interested in the HD support in the hardware rather than gaming performance, then the EAH2600XT would make an ideal card for a home theatre PC.

The performance may not be stunning (though it's not bad), but the EAH2600XT has so much more to offer when it comes to its built-in HD capabilities. This, combined with the attractive price, makes it one card to add near the top of your shopping list if you are putting together an HTPC.