Brief 2900 xt review - no bench results, but pricing and info

[chrismr]

PC Advisor 2900 XT

Sapphire Radeon HD 2900 XT

If we've learned one thing about the graphics card market, it's that delays are rarely a good sign. Having waited for the first ATI DirectX 10.0 card since, well, DirectX 10.0 itself, we were therefore sceptical about the eventual results. But ATI and AMD's first collaboration looks like being a huge success.

ATI traditionally launches a new range with its most powerful card first, but not this time: we'll have to wait a bit longer to see how the XTX fares. In the meantime, the HD 2900 XT, a card that goes head to head with the 640MB version of the GeForce 8800 GTS, gives us plenty to ponder.
Memory matters

Given that ATI did so much to bring about GDDR4 memory, it's surprising that the firm settled for GDDR3 here ? and only 512MB of it at that. This compares with the top-flight GeForce 8800 GTS's 640MB. But the XT's specs are otherwise impeccable.

Whereas the 8800 GTS cards make do with core and memory clocks of 500MHz and 800MHz respectively, the 2900 XT pushes the boat out with figures of 740Mhz and 825MHz. Throw in a 512bit memory interface and you get a card with a stunning memory bandwidth of 105.6GBps (gigabytes per second). That's getting on for twice the 8800 GTS's score. It even puts the top-of-the-line 8800 GTX in the shade.
Stream engine

The same could be said of the 2900 XT's processors. Its 320 stream processors (each capable of acting as either a pixel or a vertex shader) easily outnumber those of the 8800 GTS and GTX.

Fantastic specs don't always add up to a lead in real-world applications, but ATI has been able to convert its technological advantages into some lethal framerates. It didn't beat the 640MB version of the 8800 GTS in all of our game tests, but it did come awfully close (see chart, below). The advantage is greatest at a resolution of 1,024x768, which suggests that the less detail you want to stack on, the better this card will prove.

The XT's DirectX 10.0 support looks good but, as usual, we can't really test this until we see a glut of true DirectX 10.0 games. The 2900 XT's tendency to slow down at higher detail settings suggests it might not shine as much as we'd like. At this point in time, only the GeForce 8800 GTX looks to have the firepower for DirectX 10.0.
Verdict

Overall, though, the Sapphire Radeon HD 2900 XT is an excellent card with strong performance ? and it's cheaper than the 640MB 8800 GTS. With an enticing software bundle chucked in (including some decent games titles), this is a winner.

PS - am I allowed to place the entire (or any) article contents like this?

 

[swtethan]

Originally posted by: chrismr
PC Advisor 2900 XT

Sapphire Radeon HD 2900 XT

If we've learned one thing about the graphics card market, it's that delays are rarely a good sign. Having waited for the first ATI DirectX 10.0 card since, well, DirectX 10.0 itself, we were therefore sceptical about the eventual results. But ATI and AMD's first collaboration looks like being a huge success.

ATI traditionally launches a new range with its most powerful card first, but not this time: we'll have to wait a bit longer to see how the XTX fares. In the meantime, the HD 2900 XT, a card that goes head to head with the 640MB version of the GeForce 8800 GTS, gives us plenty to ponder.
Memory matters

Given that ATI did so much to bring about GDDR4 memory, it's surprising that the firm settled for GDDR3 here ? and only 512MB of it at that. This compares with the top-flight GeForce 8800 GTS's 640MB. But the XT's specs are otherwise impeccable.

Whereas the 8800 GTS cards make do with core and memory clocks of 500MHz and 800MHz respectively, the 2900 XT pushes the boat out with figures of 740Mhz and 825MHz. Throw in a 512bit memory interface and you get a card with a stunning memory bandwidth of 105.6GBps (gigabytes per second). That's getting on for twice the 8800 GTS's score. It even puts the top-of-the-line 8800 GTX in the shade.
Stream engine

The same could be said of the 2900 XT's processors. Its 320 stream processors (each capable of acting as either a pixel or a vertex shader) easily outnumber those of the 8800 GTS and GTX.

Fantastic specs don't always add up to a lead in real-world applications, but ATI has been able to convert its technological advantages into some lethal framerates. It didn't beat the 640MB version of the 8800 GTS in all of our game tests, but it did come awfully close (see chart, below). The advantage is greatest at a resolution of 1,024x768, which suggests that the less detail you want to stack on, the better this card will prove.
The XT's DirectX 10.0 support looks good but, as usual, we can't really test this until we see a glut of true DirectX 10.0 games. The 2900 XT's tendency to slow down at higher detail settings suggests it might not shine as much as we'd like. At this point in time, only the GeForce 8800 GTX looks to have the firepower for DirectX 10.0.
Verdict

Overall, though, the Sapphire Radeon HD 2900 XT is an excellent card with strong performance ? and it's cheaper than the 640MB 8800 GTS. With an enticing software bundle chucked in (including some decent games titles), this is a winner.

PS - am I allowed to place the entire (or any) article contents like this?

ROFL

 

[chrismr]

Originally posted by: swtethan


ROFL

Know what you mean. I seriously hope they are not trying to push this as the card that people gaming at 1024 x 768 REALLY want to have!

 

[IlllI]

"The advantage is greatest at a resolution of 1,024x768.."

people still play games at that resolution?

 

[Gstanfor]

It reads like an inquirer or fudzilla article.

The advantage is greatest at a resolution of 1,024x768

LOL! The GF3 with its memory crossbar controller smashed that barriers aeons ago (not that it was much of a barrier even to GF2).

Makes you wonder exactly what this rig bus controller & huge bandwidth is actually good for. One would have hoped that with such supposedly formidable assets, resolutions like 2560x2048 would be the ones showing advantages, not a legacy resolution such as 1024x768.

 

[the Chase]

Sure this isn't a spoof of some kind?

 

[v8envy]

Smells like another fake review. No real numbers, just vague handwaving about best performance at 1024x768 -- an area where CPUs not GPUs have been the limit for years now.

I call BS.

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: clandren
"The advantage is greatest at a resolution of 1,024x768.."

people still play games at that resolution?

Of course they do, and they buy a $400 graphics card to play them on their 15" CRT.

 

[aggressor]

I found this review:

http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1314&Itemid=1

Same news as everybody else: Disappointment

 

[Zenoth]

I don't see any pricing, anyone else ?

 

[safoo]

FYI...we got some in...check sig

 

[Zenoth]

$499.99 ? Is that officially set price by AMD ? I thought they were planning for competitive pricing, it's hardly competitive at all, in fact at that price the ASUS 8800GTS 640MB is $75 less at my local store, they got it for $425. I hope it won't be the case or else I'll have to consider switching side (not that it'd be a bad thing though, I don't mind change every now and then).

 

[Raider1284]

Originally posted by: aggressor
I found this review:

http://it-review.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1314&Itemid=1

Same news as everybody else: Disappointment

this review has been proving fake. If you look at the supreme commander results the rd600 magically gains fps going from 1920 to 2560 while the 8800 series loses 15+ fps. THAT IS NOT POSSIBLE! it is a fake review.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: safoo
FYI...we got some in...check sig

Take one out and bench it!!!

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

............ each leak keeps getting more ridiculous

So the 2900XT has a bandwidth of 102 GB and slows down past 1024? LOLZ

 

[humanure]

so this would be the perfect card if I had a 15" LCD. lol

 

[Pugnate]

What the hell is going on here?

 

[Nightmare225]

Second thing and the one that we'll elaborate more - the fact of the matter is that NVIDIA's 8800 series is obviously a very well thought-of product. We constantly have a feeling that the overall bandwidth, frequency, GPU frequency, number of Stream Processors and their frequency, Shaders, everything - has been designed so it uses the maximum available power. It has more then enough juice to compete with AMD's Radeon HD2900XT and beat it in pretty much every single test. It's even more worrying is the fact that 8800GTS 640 comes out as a winner in most of the tests, with 2-100% difference in overall score (Supreme Commander at 1920x1200 and 8xAA/16xAF does a 100% better), apart from a couple of FEAR scores and 2560x1600 scores that work in favour of AMD's Radeon HD2900XT in three out of eight tests (at this time, let's put Company of Heroes aside because of the first reason). This is rather logical because of the incredible bandwidth AMD's product has so no wonder 8800GTS 640 can't compete with that.

HERESY!