2900XT arrived

[Blacklash]

Enjoy your card. Try the below link to get an App to overclock it:

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=33447

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: lopri
Topic went off-topic. :laugh:

Well, I'd think a site the size of AT has a lab with dozens of systems running automated(scripted) benchmarks for hours. You don't think someone's sitting in front of a monitor and mouse-clicking every few minutes, do you? Of course it'll depend on the parts being tested. Only when there is an outlier a person will actually try to figure out what's going on with the system.

On topic (?): What is the most reliable brand for 2900XT? Of course warranty and CS wise.

actually i DO think someone is sitting in front of the monitor clicking the mouse ... some benchmarks require watching the screen. You can study all the graphs afterward, but it doesn't compare to "seeing" on the screen ... and you can instantly tell if something is wrong.
--Naturally, by the second or third run ... you can walk away and do something else still checking the results or 'spot-checking'

i think that is "why" there aren't as many reviews as we would like ... it just takes TIME - even for a top-three tech site and multiple reviewers.

Brand ? i am price guided ... i would have got any one on sale ... bear in mind that Sapphire has a $15 extra charge if you need to RMA and some companies have horrible RMA turn-around times.

this VisionTek seem solid and built like a tank.

--thanks Blacklash, i'll check out the OC utility

 

[Stumps]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
No you still don't get it !!! I don't want three different reviews, using 3 different rigs. Just use 3 frigging rigs, and plug a different card in each, as to speed up the benchmarks, it will cost you 1/3rd of the time That's my whole point.

I understand what you are trying to get at....run all three different video cards etc at the same time in the identical rig, to reduce the benchmarking time, but it is an expensive thing to do and it actually works out quicker just to use a single rig and swap out each card...you also need to factor in rig building time and OS preparation...by the time you get through setting up 3 rigs (unless you are an octopus of course), you would already be halfway through doing the benchmarks on the single rig.

 

[dreddfunk]

No test is ever really perfect. I think you've got a good idea, Marc, but I think Keys and apoppin have pointed out some probable issues.

Modern Q&A for most products is pretty good, but three identical rigs means three times as many components--as you indicated with the PSU example--that could either be bad from the outset, or go bad at some point during testing.

In order to make sure that there weren't any obvious problems, you'd probably have to assemble all three rigs, and sequentially insert one video card into each rig in turn, running an initial benchmark to ensure that the performance between the three were within a small window of natural variation. That would be the only real way to verify that the rigs don't have any obvious problems. That itself would also take just almost as much time, if not more, than running the three different video cards in one rig.

Certainly we can always just throw all three together and have at it, and just assume that the various manufacturer's Q&A departments have done their job. It's likely to work, it would just be expensive. If any problems arose, it might make more headaches, but it would get fast, reasonably reliable results.

I think Keys' response about GPU enthusiasts, though, is spot-on: if I'm doing a review for that audience, I'd want as few variables as possible left in the test.

Interesting thought though....I can just see three rigs with three 30" Dell monitors splashed across my living room floor...and my three year old daughter introducing her own, special 'variables' into the benchmarking process.

Cheers.

 

[apoppin]

i am running the OC utility suggested by Blacklash ... it is a beta tool
--anyway the author seems pretty well-regarded and there are safety precautions

BUT .. just for fun ... i set the fan to 100% ...
OMG ... i thought it was the loudest "whoosh" i ever heard inside a rig .. i thought it was trying to escape!
--it is DAMN loud ... worse than ANY card i ever heard
[with the exception of nv30's ultra dustbuster "whine" ... HD2900xt is a definite "whoosh"]
--first time i heard 100% and YES, it would bother me if it stayed at 100%

now i know *exactly* what the reviews are talking about - LOUD!
-at 100% ... i don't think it ever gets there in normal gaming ... my temps are still hanging in the 70s as the test continues to find the max core
[i think it is doing something]

BTW - it is one HELL of an efficient fan at 100% - nevermind the noise -
My RIG temperatures dropped as air blew out of my case !!

EDIT: the utility has a neat little dynamic fan control ... seems to control the fan speed better then CCC and it is actually quieter most of the time ... it becomes a bit more noticeable - listening for it - during the heat-up phase

-but yeah, the reviews are right - at 100% 2900xt is a helicopter
-"moot" as you will never reach 100% during any game

 

[dreddfunk]

apoppin - is it louder than the x850xt at 100%, in your mind? I set mine to 100% when playing Oblivion because, well, I need to...

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: dreddfunk
apoppin - is it louder than the x850xt at 100%, in your mind? I set mine to 100% when playing Oblivion because, well, I need to...

amazingly the FAN is not loud ... the volume of air being moved - the "whoosh" is incredible however ... i did not expect to see my case temps drop when it went to max revs

i was actually startled

BUT ... even while it is doing the "heat up" phase for several minutes at a time - the fan has never gone over 38% while i am watching it ... verrrry quiet

i doubt you would ever need it at 100% ... even for a screaming OC
- but i don't know ... i still can't seem to "apply" the OC

maybe i will just ground the damn plug

 

[dreddfunk]

what happened to the good, easy old days when a simple BIOS flash would do, eh?

 

[apoppin]

seriously ... i don't need to OC it ... i NEVER OC my GPUs ... well the last time was my 256MB Radeon 9800p i transformed into a true XT ... well, until the fan got accidentally unplugged ... and forced the upgrade to x850xt

i hate to resell my GPUs that were OC'd ... otoh, i never had a problem with my rather strongly OC'd CPUs ... they are still running strong - years later in friend's rigs.

and of course the 2900xt is designed to be OC'd with the 8-pin plug ... eventually i will post some OC'ing results ... but i would MUCH rather just get a 2nd one and keep them stock ... i will work on a further CPU OC, imagining that my current 3105Mhz might limit them a bit ... Penryn QC will "fix" that bottleneck.

 

[dreddfunk]

I'm with you there, apoppin; I'm not much for overclocking the GPU either. I've certainly played around with it, but I don't leave it overclocked for very long. I should probably update my signature, lol, because I haven't run my 850 at those speeds in a long time. It gets way too hot, even at 100% fan, I-can-hear-it-through-my-headphones, speed.

 

[Matt2]

Guys, I really have to say that I am starting to like this card more and more.

I'll be the first to admit that I was extremely skeptical about plopping down $400 for this thing, but damn, it looks like I am back into PC gaming thanks to the 2900XT.

I played a good bit of STALKER today and at 1920x1200, full AF, everything set to medium, Full Dynamic Lighting, I was always in the 40-70 fps range. Completely playable. This is with my GPU @ 775/875 and the Float32 mod.

The most impressive thing about this card is the cooler and the temps. At idle I am getting 47*C with the fan at a whisper quiet 27%. During gaming I bump the cooler to 50% which is audible, but about 1/2 as loud as my X1900XTX stock cooler. Temps with the fan at 50% are 70-80*C which is the same temps I was getting with the stock X1900XTX @ 100% which sounded like a damn F1 race car.

Hopefully with a few drivers AMD will squeeze more performance out of it and my $400 will truly be worth it.

As far as IQ goes, it's about the same as my X1900XTX which is nothing to scoff at. The 2900XT does introduce CFAA which I am not super impressed by, but it does add a couple of options for AA which are not available on other ATI cards. For example, with the X1900XTX I could run 4xAA, but 6xAA was often too slow. With the 2900XT I can select 6x Narrow-Tent AA which gives me 6x AA samples, with the performance hit of 4x traditional MSAA. CFAA does indeed blur the image a little, but the extra edge AA really helps in games that need it.

EDIT: Apoppin is absolutely correct about the cooler at 100%. Ridiculously loud. Loud, but a different kind of loud compared to my X1900XTX. When the X1900XTX was at 100%, it had this high pitch whine, hence the reason I call it the race car cooler. When the 2900XT is at 100% is just as loud, but without the high pitch whine.

 

[bryanW1995]

I just turned my x1950xt fan up to 100 %. It is scary. However, fan doesn't get above 36% until 88c, and 50 % is really needed to become even remotely annoying. 3dmark 06 doesn't get it over 88c, so I'm ok with it.

 

[lopri]

The X1950XTX I had for a short period of time before G80 came out wasn't that bad. It was louder than 7900 GTX for sure but in my subjective opinion it wasn't the type of noise that I heard from PC P&C 510 PSU. So my guess is X1900XT was loud but it was the tone of 'krrrrrrrrrrrrrrr', but X2900 is more like 'brrrrrrrrrrrrr' loud?

There is a brand new Micro Center open in my area and they had a couple brands' X2900.. I was so tempt to buy and still am. The performance number from OP (@1920x1200, I believe?) is somewhat disappointing compared to 8800 GTX, but I am very interested in this 'more stable Vista drivers' reports. If true, it will change my view on ATI drivers like to 180 degree.

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: lopri
The X1950XTX I had for a short period of time before G80 came out wasn't that bad. It was louder than 7900 GTX for sure but in my subjective opinion it wasn't the type of noise that I heard from PC P&C 510 PSU. So my guess is X1900XT was loud but it was the tone of 'krrrrrrrrrrrrrrr', but X2900 is more like 'brrrrrrrrrrrrr' loud?

There is a brand new Micro Center open in my area and they had a couple brands' X2900.. I was so tempt to buy and still am. The performance number from OP (@1920x1200, I believe?) is somewhat disappointing compared to 8800 GTX, but I am very interested in this 'more stable Vista drivers' reports. If true, it will change my view on ATI drivers like to 180 degree.

The performance is a little disappointing, but it's not any different than the 8800GTS 640mb at the same price point.

I upgraded from an ATI card and between the X1900XTX and the 2900XT, I have no experienced one driver issue.

 

[miker75]

Originally posted by: Matt2


One thing that really has me worried is that I think my PSU is just on the verge of not being able to handle this card. I'm running my CPU at 2.6GHZ, but normally I can run at 2.8GHZ just fine. When I tried to raise the OC on my CPU tp 2.8GHZ, 3Dmark06 started making my computer shutdown in the middle of the test. it's pretty apparent that this 560w PSU with 36a on the 12v rails is about as low as you can go with this card and an overclocked CPU.

If you have specific games or settings you want benched, let me know.

36A on the 12v rails? Damn! I think my power supply is overkill then! I've got 720W on the 12v rails (18A x 6).

Works fine for the 2900XT

 

[Zenoth]

Nice information Matt2.

Honestly, if it wouldn't have been for the power consumption and the inferior A-F algorithm I might have jumped for it, but considering I had a $50 rebate for my GTS, I selected that one instead. I'm curious though ... have they (ATi/AMD) tried to create anything similar to NVIDIA's Digital Vibrancy ? That thing is completely new to me, and I must admit that without it most of my games and even most of the web pages I browse look blend and dull, with that thing set to "Low" it already makes one heck of a difference, the colors "get to you". And I don't remember having such kinda of features for my X1800XL, so is it possible to do something like that on the X2K series ?

 

[LittleNemoNES]

NVM

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: Zenoth
Nice information Matt2.

Honestly, if it wouldn't have been for the power consumption and the inferior A-F algorithm I might have jumped for it, but considering I had a $50 rebate for my GTS, I selected that one instead. I'm curious though ... have they (ATi/AMD) tried to create anything similar to NVIDIA's Digital Vibrancy ? That thing is completely new to me, and I must admit that without it most of my games and even most of the web pages I browse look blend and dull, with that thing set to "Low" it already makes one heck of a difference, the colors "get to you". And I don't remember having such kinda of features for my X1800XL, so is it possible to do something like that on the X2K series ?

ATI has a color correction tab in the CCC. Not sure if that's what you're talking about as I havent used Digital Vibrancy in a long time.

 

[Stumps]

Originally posted by: miker75

Originally posted by: Matt2


One thing that really has me worried is that I think my PSU is just on the verge of not being able to handle this card. I'm running my CPU at 2.6GHZ, but normally I can run at 2.8GHZ just fine. When I tried to raise the OC on my CPU tp 2.8GHZ, 3Dmark06 started making my computer shutdown in the middle of the test. it's pretty apparent that this 560w PSU with 36a on the 12v rails is about as low as you can go with this card and an overclocked CPU.

If you have specific games or settings you want benched, let me know.

36A on the 12v rails? Damn! I think my power supply is overkill then! I've got 720W on the 12v rails (18A x 6).

Works fine for the 2900XT

I have the 2900XT that I "borrowed" from work connected to my Antec SP500 it only has 34A (17a+19a) so far it hasn't missed a beat (now that I've got the bios issue sorted with my P-D820/Asrock 4coredual setup).

 

[n7]

Kewl to see you got your card decided on finally.

I'm a bit surprised that your PSU is having trouble though...doesn't really make sense to me TBH.

What are the exact specs of the +12V rail layout?
If they were dumb enough to do a quad rail layout for a mere 36A max, then it makes more sense, but if it'd dual, i dunno...

I can't find any info on google or Silverstone's site on the ST56, just the ST56F.

As for the fan @ 200%... :laugh:

I'm surprised you didn't test that already apoppin.

It is indeed an absolute hurricane force with noise like an air conditioner
But fortunately, you really never should need more than 50-60%, which isn't bad.

 

[Matt2]

Originally posted by: n7
Kewl to see you got your card decided on finally.

I'm a bit surprised that your PSU is having trouble though...doesn't really make sense to me TBH.

What are the exact specs of the +12V rail layout?
If they were dumb enough to do a quad rail layout for a mere 36A max, then it makes more sense, but if it'd dual, i dunno...

I can't find any info on google or Silverstone's site on the ST56, just the ST56F.

As for the fan @ 200%... :laugh:

I'm surprised you didn't test that already apoppin.

It is indeed an absolute hurricane force with noise like an air conditioner
But fortunately, you really never should need more than 50-60%, which isn't bad.

Thanks dude.

I'm surprised about my PSU as well, it's been rock solid for over a year now. I thought it'd be more than enough for the 2900XT. In any case, it has 36a on dual rails at 18a each.

I disconnected all the case fans (4) and it didnt seem to help stability much. I am running a Koolance water system though. Funny thing is, I can't OC my CPU past a certain mhz/voltage level, but I've been running the card overclocked with only the 6-pins connected with no problem.

 

[nullpointerus]

Maybe the HD2900XT's drivers are more sensitive to CPU overclocks? :shrugs;

BTW, for anyone who was aware of my BSOD-on-video-playback problems, I pinned them down to my Vista/PVR-150 recordings being played back on Vista w/ HD2900XT under Catalyst 7.6 and 7.7. Apparently, there's some driver bug here, not a bad card or a more general MPEG2 playback problem.

 

[Matt2]

Anyone think it'll make a difference swapping the positions of 6-pins? The card would still draw the same amount of power from both rails wouldnt it?

 

[apoppin]

try it

 

[nullpointerus]

I would guess that the card draws power from the 8-pin connection slot first, so that's where I would put the 6-pin that's on a dedicated rail, but of course I don't have any hard information on this.