techPowerUP! goofs and posts HD2900XT review early?

[apoppin]

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39580

the inq's "review"

1st of 5 parts - with XP

and

AMD blasts Nvidia for R600 FUD document

After AMD took over ATI, we have heard about cases where AMD folk were caught sending internal ATI documents to Nvidia, since they're now "partners". Seeing Nvidia's sales results and the downturn of graphics sales over at AMD, you can probably argue that the friendship turned into something for which Nvidia was very grateful.

But with the imminent launch of R600, Graphzilla got stuck into its old tricks. We were not surprised to see the firm calling up members of the press and piling on the smarm. During ATI's own Tech Day in Tunisia, Nvidian spinsters were buzzing mobile phones, promising trips to the USA in return for the chance of an ear-bending.

Some AMD people were shocked, to say the least. Old ATI survivors were in "we told you so" mode, so it was interesting to see how things were developing there. Spontaneously, e-mails started to fly around Satan Clara, featuring price comparisons - nothing weird here.

Eventually, an "Architectural Comparison" FAQ document, comparing R600 against G80 and showing how things look from perspective engineers and marketeers from Satan Clara, emerged.

AMD decided enough was enough and has sent an e-mail to journalists that had seen the document, blasting its "partner" in the process. We saw the document and were surprised by some parts of it. AMD points out not just architectural errors in the description of Nvidia's own DirectX 10 hardware, but also went on to explain where Nvidia missed the boat against the R600 GPU marchitecture.

Graphzilla, it suggested, had eaten too many mushrooms and saw some features inside the R600 GPU that were just plain wrong.

good one Gstanfor

 

[BFG10K]

Some of us don't need to guess or refer to reviews to see what the results might be...

Great, yet your screenshots confirm mine. And thanks for the 16xS shot which shows the smoke is even more reduced over 8xS.

What was the point of your post again, other than to prove how wrong you are?

I sincerely doubt you will see across the board driver improvement for every game, especially 42% improvement.

Not in every game and not 42% but I'd expect significant improvements in some games just like we saw on the G80 (and are still waiting for in certain games).

Now heat/noise will be a problem and I probably won't get one unless I see in-depth AA analysis showing that it's significantly better than the G80. I particularly want to see how well texture aliasing is dealt with compared to the xS modes and also a performance hit comparison.

It does look like G80 has the edge with AF though.

 

[apoppin]

from theInq's review

Problems? What problems?
Let's look at the facts. R600 is no less than nine months late. The chip was originally scheduled for launch on September 8th as our sources were implying at Computex. Whether they were misleading us or not, we'll leave to history to decide. That did not happen, and we are here, on Monday in mid-May - with product that had some compatibility issues with our testing systems.

Why are we saying this? Because of all the problems we had in the past two weeks. To us, it is unacceptable that drivers are often faster with 4xAA and 16xAF than without. It is extremely weird that we witness higher framerates in 1920x1200 and 2560x1600 than in 1280x1024. Drivers require some work, but already now, you can enjoy extremely good and soft 16xAA mode with major performance penalties, but still end up with enjoyable and playable framerate. If you don't like soft feel of the scene when ATI's FSAA is up'n'running at 16x (wide-tent), you can always opt for a mod that will put the scene in 24x and 12x, and those two modes bring the sharp AA.

the *more* info we get - the better

 

[Nightmare225]

Here's something else:

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTM...

quote:
The Bottom Line

?A day late and a dollar short.? Cliché but accurate. The Radeon HD 2900 XT is late to the party and unfortunately is bringing with it performance that cannot compete. The GeForce 8800 GTS 640 MB is $50 cheaper, performs better, and draws a lot less power than the 2900 XT.

This is as good as it is going to get for a while from ATI. The GeForce 8800 GTX will still dominate at the high end of the video card market. Of course we do not know about DX10 games yet, and there is no way to make any predictions how that comparison will turn out. As it stands right now the Radeon HD 2900 XT, in our opinion, is a flop . ATI needs to get its act together quickly. It needs to push out the mainstream cards soon and it needs to deliver a high end card that can actually compete at the high end of the market.

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

Originally posted by: apoppin
from theInq's review

Problems? What problems?
Let's look at the facts. R600 is no less than nine months late. The chip was originally scheduled for launch on September 8th as our sources were implying at Computex. Whether they were misleading us or not, we'll leave to history to decide. That did not happen, and we are here, on Monday in mid-May - with product that had some compatibility issues with our testing systems.

Why are we saying this? Because of all the problems we had in the past two weeks. To us, it is unacceptable that drivers are often faster with 4xAA and 16xAF than without. It is extremely weird that we witness higher framerates in 1920x1200 and 2560x1600 than in 1280x1024. Drivers require some work, but already now, you can enjoy extremely good and soft 16xAA mode with major performance penalties, but still end up with enjoyable and playable framerate. If you don't like soft feel of the scene when ATI's FSAA is up'n'running at 16x (wide-tent), you can always opt for a mod that will put the scene in 24x and 12x, and those two modes bring the sharp AA.

the *more* info we get - the better

Its pretty obvious the drivers are TOTALLY messed up, but how long will this take? No one is gonna buy the card either way until we see some SOLID performance numbers

 

[Gstanfor]

Just working my way thru tech-report's review and what should I stumble across but the following?

Half-Life 2: Episode One
This one combines high dynamic range lighting with 4X antialiasing and still has fluid frame rates at very high resolutions. Unfortunately, though, we encountered some fog rendering problems on the Radeon HD 2900 XT in this game. AMD says it's working with Valve on a fix, but doesn't have one ready just yet.

Gee, there's a suprise for you (the artifact I pointed out occurs behind the fence in a fogged region).

One wonders if ATi will need to provide their own fix or Valve will suddenly decide their engine really does have a fog rendering problem now that involves ATi as well as nvidia?

 

[nullpointerus]

Originally posted by: ShadowOfMyself

Originally posted by: apoppin
from theInq's review

Problems? What problems?
Let's look at the facts. R600 is no less than nine months late. The chip was originally scheduled for launch on September 8th as our sources were implying at Computex. Whether they were misleading us or not, we'll leave to history to decide. That did not happen, and we are here, on Monday in mid-May - with product that had some compatibility issues with our testing systems.

Why are we saying this? Because of all the problems we had in the past two weeks. To us, it is unacceptable that drivers are often faster with 4xAA and 16xAF than without. It is extremely weird that we witness higher framerates in 1920x1200 and 2560x1600 than in 1280x1024. Drivers require some work, but already now, you can enjoy extremely good and soft 16xAA mode with major performance penalties, but still end up with enjoyable and playable framerate. If you don't like soft feel of the scene when ATI's FSAA is up'n'running at 16x (wide-tent), you can always opt for a mod that will put the scene in 24x and 12x, and those two modes bring the sharp AA.

the *more* info we get - the better

Its pretty obvious the drivers are TOTALLY messed up, but how long will this take? No one is gonna buy the card either way until we see some SOLID performance numbers

:Q

Looks like I was correct about the reason (i.e. driver bugs) for the odd numbers in the IT review apoppin posted days ago.

Funny how what's "PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE" can become "pretty obvious" in just a few days.

Oh, don't mind me--I'm just grumbling about certain other AMD...posters. Hopefully, we will see some recaps a few weeks from now doing driver comparisons between then and now. Seems like ages since we've waited for driver benchmark comparisons!

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Gstanfor
Just working my way thru tech-report's review and what should I stumble across but the following?

Half-Life 2: Episode One
This one combines high dynamic range lighting with 4X antialiasing and still has fluid frame rates at very high resolutions. Unfortunately, though, we encountered some fog rendering problems on the Radeon HD 2900 XT in this game. AMD says it's working with Valve on a fix, but doesn't have one ready just yet.

Gee, there's a suprise for you (the artifact I pointed out occurs behind the fence in a fogged region).

One wonders if ATi will need to provide their own fix or Valve will suddenly decide their engine really does have a fog rendering problem now that involves ATi as well as nvidia?

Valve will *admit* nothing ... as far as they are concerned, the Source Engine has no sssstutter ... never has

it's is the Source- "illusion" special

anything new? i don't see Anand's review

 

[Gstanfor]

Valve will *admit* nothing ... as far as they are concerned, the Source Engine has no sssstutter ... never has

Well, in their defence I've never heard VTM: Bloodlines' sound stutter....
Things seemed to change after that though... no idea why....

I remember the stutters being a lot worse in HL2 on my 6800GT than my 5900XT, even when in DX9 mode funnily enough.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: Gstanfor

Valve will *admit* nothing ... as far as they are concerned, the Source Engine has no sssstutter ... never has

Well, in their defence I've never heard VTM: Bloodlines' sound stutter....
Things seemed to change after that though... no idea why....

I remember the stutters being a lot worse in HL2 on my 6800GT than my 5900XT, even when in DX9 mode funnily enough.

you are right ... VtMB did NOT have the Source stutter ... it appeared first in HL2
- it was god-awful for many of us

and is still present in DM M&M ...
hopefully there will be a Source 'makeover' for ch2/tf2

i want to see a working flashlight ... and shadows

btw, the *dizziness* is gone ...

things are much clearer now

 

[deepinya]

e-penis graph > *

 

[Nightmare225]

Originally posted by: apoppin

Originally posted by: Gstanfor

Valve will *admit* nothing ... as far as they are concerned, the Source Engine has no sssstutter ... never has

Well, in their defence I've never heard VTM: Bloodlines' sound stutter....
Things seemed to change after that though... no idea why....

I remember the stutters being a lot worse in HL2 on my 6800GT than my 5900XT, even when in DX9 mode funnily enough.

you are right ... VtMB did NOT have the Source stutter ... it appeared first in HL2
- it was god-awful for many of us

and is still present in DM M&M ...
hopefully there will be a Source 'makeover' for ch2/tf2

i want to see a working flashlight ... and shadows

btw, the *dizziness* is gone ...

things are much clearer now

You'll be quite happy with Episode 2 and TF2, then...

Judging from all the other reviews of the XT on other sites, I should be in no rush to sell my king-of-the-hill GTX.

I am curious at DX10 benchies, though...

 

[Mem]

I think the poll over at Rage3D forums link says it all.

 

[apoppin]

they are all "Agreived"



nice poll