1GB GDDR4 HD2900XT coming later this month?

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: ShadowOfMyself
I see no point for this card other than pure marketing... You know most average Joes buy their cards thinking "wow 1 gb!! this must be the best!"... because I doubt there would be any real world performance improvements

In games that utilize more than 512MB, you should see "some" sort of improvement.
But, won't this extra 512MB consume more power? Or is the GDDR4 a lot less power hungry? They can clock this stuff to the moon, but AFAICT, this card is not bandwidth starved as it is.

 

[BFG10K]

I think ATi's biggest problem at the moment is driver immaturity, not hardware.

We are already starting to see glimmers of large performance gains from driver updates alone.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: Bateluer
Anyone notice how those Legitreviews tests were done with beta drivers? Those weren't performed with the latest 7.5 Catalysts.

And realistically, is anyone buying a 2900XT or 8800 for DX10? People are buying them for their DX9 performance.

The ATI Radeon 2900XT used the CATALYST 7.5 drivers that were released on May 31st, 2007 and all three of the NVIDIA cards used Forceware 145.45 drivers that were also released on May 31st, 2007.

Oops, misread part of the article. Changes nothing though.

Each revision of the 2900XT drivers thus far has increased performance, even the pre-release drivers brought improvements. We'll see what happens with the drivers in a few months.

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: Bateluer
Anyone notice how those Legitreviews tests were done with beta drivers? Those weren't performed with the latest 7.5 Catalysts.

And realistically, is anyone buying a 2900XT or 8800 for DX10? People are buying them for their DX9 performance.

The ATI Radeon 2900XT used the CATALYST 7.5 drivers that were released on May 31st, 2007 and all three of the NVIDIA cards used Forceware 145.45 drivers that were also released on May 31st, 2007.

Oops, misread part of the article. Changes nothing though.

Each revision of the 2900XT drivers thus far has increased performance, even the pre-release drivers brought improvements. We'll see what happens with the drivers in a few months.

Yeah, and then maybe this thing will do what everyone thought it was supposed to do.

 

[cm123]

don't forget at release time, people talked about the XTX that never released, really it was to be the HD2900 GTX - (sure thats not suppose to make it out and about) - was it not suppose to be June time frame in the end before we saw the big gun release?

Look for a refreshed card coming, like always it will, like always will at least be a little bit better and just maybe enough to really put it in the mix.

After all, with each driver release the 2900 has over short time improved some already...

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Cookie Monster
It wasnt a huge card to began with. That "XTX" is just the OEM version going to be used by dell etc. (3inch of the card is just for the fan itself)

i always thought the huge size of the OEM card was so that it'd be supported from the front and back of the chassis, so that it could survive UPS drop-kicking the package.




while i'll agree that neither memory bandwidth nor memory size are the problem (it's the traditional ati problem of not enough ROPs), things like "1GB" and "GDDR4" plastered all over the box make for a high spec'ed card sitting on the shelf at fry's. it's why there were 512 MB X1300s.

 

[HannibalX]

Plenty of games will use more than 512MB running at full detail and a high resolution. The move to 1GB was inevitable.

Thing about playing Supreme Commander on two monitors with full detail and a high resolution. That is going to need more than 512MB.

 

[Regs]

Though I don't think the 2900XT is a "marvel" of a card and sometimes the lesser performer in its segment, I will come to ATi's defense and say those DX10 tests are laughable at best. Just the same way they tested "Dx9" and games like HL2. By the time they actually got HL2 out the x800xt and 6800GTs were out.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
Anyone notice how those Legitreviews tests were done with beta drivers? Those weren't performed with the latest 7.5 Catalysts.

And realistically, is anyone buying a 2900XT or 8800 for DX10? People are buying them for their DX9 performance.

I would only buy them to do DX10 because a 7900GTX or x1950xt is perfectly fine for DX9.

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: Bateluer
Anyone notice how those Legitreviews tests were done with beta drivers? Those weren't performed with the latest 7.5 Catalysts.

And realistically, is anyone buying a 2900XT or 8800 for DX10? People are buying them for their DX9 performance.

I would only buy them to do DX10 because a 7900GTX or x1950xt is perfectly fine for DX9.

This is relative.

Those cards may be fine for you, but my X1900XTX 690/800 pulls 13.5 fps average in STALKER at 1920x1200.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd

Originally posted by: Bateluer
Anyone notice how those Legitreviews tests were done with beta drivers? Those weren't performed with the latest 7.5 Catalysts.

And realistically, is anyone buying a 2900XT or 8800 for DX10? People are buying them for their DX9 performance.

I would only buy them to do DX10 because a 7900GTX or x1950xt is perfectly fine for DX9.

This is relative.

Those cards may be fine for you, but my X1900XTX 690/800 pulls 13.5 fps average in STALKER at 1920x1200.

not everyone plays at that resolution...I'm willing to bet upwards of more than 1/2 of the community doesn't

 

[Matt2]

wtf? I posted this message in the wrong thread!

 

[rise]

Originally posted by: Matt2

Originally posted by: Creig

Originally posted by: solofly
How could you guys miss that...

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=40048

Because it's from the Inquirer.


'nuff said.

What about Legit Reviews?

ouch :wince;

 

[Wreckage]

http://www.extreme-pc.ca/showp...id=39&productid=371414

EDIT: you may have to click the link twice, for some reason it will take you to the front page the first time.

The XT 1GB is listed as in stock for $699.50 canadian.

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
http://www.extreme-pc.ca/showp...id=39&productid=371414

EDIT: you may have to click the link twice, for some reason it will take you to the front page the first time.

The XT 1GB is listed as in stock for $699.50 canadian.

Thanks for the link. I'd really like to see one of these tested in some games.

 

[GPett]

All that card will do is cause the 32bit OS people to have less available main memory. Haha Have fun!

 

[n7]

Originally posted by: GPett
All that card will do is cause the 32bit OS people to have less available main memory. Haha Have fun!

Some of us have moved beyond 32-bit limitations
You can too!

I am amazed that we Canadians have a product to buy before teh US...it's impossible :Q

BTW, based on GTX pricing in Canaduh & my suspicion this 1 GB XT would perform similarly to the GTX (depending on the games of course), it's actually priced competively.

It kills me to say a $650 card is competively priced though :|

Very interesting though, i'd love to see reviews.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

why do they think that more memory + more memory bandwidth is going to do anything. the cards already kicking the G80 in the face with its bandwidth numbers but its not doing the same in overall performance.

increase the core clock instead!

 

[thilanliyan]

Originally posted by: n7
BTW, based on GTX pricing in Canaduh & my suspicion this 1 GB XT would perform similarly to the GTX (depending on the games of course), it's actually priced competively.

It kills me to say a $650 card is competively priced though :|

Very interesting though, i'd love to see reviews.

Exactly, considering the 8800Ultra costs CAD$900+, this doesn't seem so bad, depending on performance of course. At least they have increased the core clock to 825MHz.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer

increase the core clock instead!

The 2900XT is already a very power hungry card. An increase in clock speed won't happen until they die shrink to 65nm.

Hopefully, this is the last time that that ATI/AMD try for a brand new GPU design on an untested manufacturing process.

 

[apoppin]

http://www.extreme-pc.ca/showp...id=39&productid=371414

specifically

We are very proud to introduce our own EXCLUSIVE CANADIAN
SI High Performance Gaming GPU - The HD2900XT 1GB DDR4
SPEC. We're not just slapping our own brand on the card either.
As our business name implies, we're all about EXTREME
computing performance and everything we do is passion driven.


That means - higher Core and Memory speeds then anything on the market, our own legendary support and warranty.

As Canada's Top System Integrator, AMD has recognized our success and adherence to our priorities of customer satisfaction & maximum performance and have rewarded us with this Exclusive Canadian Deal. In celebration, we've decided to offer a special deal on these Extreme PC exclusive cards. If our HD2900XT 1GB is integrated into a complete Extreme PC system using our system builder, we will drop the price on the HD2900XT 1GB from $649.95 to $599.95. This will save you $100 on a dual GPU Extreme PC Crossfire HD2900XT 1GB DDR4 based system!

more

Single HD2900XT 1GB DDR4 (Click on the score to see the performance settings and the 3Dmark score)

@default

3Dmark01.......................68753
3Dmark03.......................39360
3Dmark05.......................22842
3Dmark06.......................12944



@overclocking to 858Mhz Core / 1153Mhz (2306Mhz DDR4 Ram)

3Dmark01.......................69669
3Dmark03.......................43351
3Dmark05.......................23978
3Dmark06.......................14439


Dual (CrossFire) HD2900XT 1GB DDR4 S(Click on the score to see the performance settings and the 3Dmark score)

@default

3Dmark03.......................60120
3Dmark05.......................26586
3Dmark06.......................19390

For a comparison, here is the Nvidia 8800GTX Ultra in SLI score ($1880 + tax CND in GPUs):

3Dmark06 701/1163 SLi.............19819

Pay close attencion to the SM3.0 scores. They are very important in future games and the HD2900XT 1GB numbers are very strong there! Also you don't have to overclock to have incredible performance out of these cards! They are extremely fast just with our own pre-sets and AMD approved core and memory clocks.

For those of you that don't care about these extreme benchmarking scores, let us translate these numbers to some visuals.
EA is coming out with a new racing game called "Need For Speed ProStreet" that will be available on PC, Xbox360 and PS3! The game's engine will be EA's next gen engine built from ground up. You will need some serious system to run this game at 1080P (1920x1080) resolutions with all the settings set to high. EA promises photo-realistic graphics that will really take this genre to the next level competing with Sony's Grand Turismo 4 HD. We took one of the EA's promo images and we put our own (real life) Extreme PC promotional PRO STREET ride in the same setting. Can you guess which supercar one is real and which one is game generated?

the RX7

 

[tuteja1986]

woo yea !

 

[Creig]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: otispunkmeyer

increase the core clock instead!

The 2900XT is already a very power hungry card. An increase in clock speed won't happen until they die shrink to 65nm.

According to the website wreckage linked to, they did increase the core clock.

825Mhz Core | 1GB 2100Mhz DDR

According to the website, this is a special edition card made for eXtreme-pc.

Keep in mind AMD approved all our spec changes and they are even nice enough to manufacture these for us.

It is still on 80nm. Whether or not this card is representative of the 1GB HD2900XT supposedly coming out soon is anybody's guess. But I would think it would be.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: tuteja1986
woo yea !

in case you missed it:

Dual (CrossFire) HD2900XT 1GB DDR4 S(Click on the score to see the performance settings and the 3Dmark score)

@default

3Dmark03.......................60120
3Dmark05.......................26586
3Dmark06.......................19390

For a comparison, here is the Nvidia 8800GTX Ultra in SLI score ($1880 + tax CND in GPUs):

3Dmark06 701/1163 SLi.............19819

 

[tuteja1986]

some one buy this system and benchmark it now its only couple of grand :! What can you loose you say ... Your wife ? dog ? House ? ... who needs them when you can have a computer to use for what ever the reason : )
$1200 for 2x 2900XT 1GB DDR
$400 1W Coolmaster PSU
$400 4GB PC8000 ram
$650 QX6600
$250 DFI RD600 motherboard
$200 Windows Vista Ultimate OEM
$1800 dell 3007WFP
$600 2x Western Digital RAPTOR 150GB
$200 Coolmaster stalker
$50 ThermalTake 120 with 120MM fan