Official HD 2900 Discussion Thread

[JB87]

I’m glad that there aint a lot of (heavy) games worth playing, so I can wait just a little longer.. I hope that the R650 does a lot better.. Didn’t have a lot of luck with Nvidia cards in the past and don’t want to buy one of theirs…

[nibble]

Ha, its all a little up in the air at the moment whether this card is worth buying or not, I'm sure most will agree it looks to be somewhat of a dissapointment though. I bought my 8800GTS a few weeks ago and I'm not exactly hearbroken that I didn't wait for this.

[fornowagain]

All the reviews so far

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...hitecture.html
http://it-review.net/index.php?optio...1336&Itemid=91
http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=4946
http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/11...ves/index.html
http://www.ocworkbench.com/2007/asus/EAH2900XT/g1.htm
http://www.tbreak.com/reviews/article.php?id=511
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39580
http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/431/
French translated review
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/articl...50aHVzaWFzdA==
http://www.beyond3d.com/content/reviews/16/
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=8687
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/HD_2900_XT/
http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/...Has%5FArrived/
http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/...iewz/index.php
http://www.frazpc.pl/artykuly/537/AM...ot/konkurencji
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/449
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pa...&item=715&num=1
http://www.fx57.net/?p=662
http://www.chilehardware.com/Revisio...5131808/4.html
http://www.bjorn3d.com/read.php?cID=1101&pageID=3442
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...2128867,00.asp
Translated French with DX10 segment
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/?article_id=601352
http://firingsquad.com/hardware/amd_...mance_preview/
http://www.nordichardware.com/Reviews/?skrivelse=510
http://www.techreport.com/reviews/20...t/index.x?pg=6
http://tweakers.net/reviews/690
http://www.3dcenter.org/artikel/rade...xt/index13.php
http://www.hartware.de/review_707.html
http://www.gpureview.com/Radeon-HD-2...-card-518.html
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2988
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/...-part3.html#p1
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/h...on_hd_2900_xt/
http://www.ixbt.com/video3/r600-part3-d.shtml#p31[/QUOTE]
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/2007/0..._uk/index.html
http://www.altgamer.org/?p=1374&page=4
French translated matbe.com
http://www.hardware.info/nl-NL/artic..._2900_XT_test/

[AbelJemka]

Digit-Life's review shows impressive numbers with and XT clearly beating GTS. Moreover contrary to a lots of reviews we can see an XT card wich handle filters much better. This review appeared very late in the day and seems to use far better drivers. However everyone prefers to use numbers from "old" reviews even if Shamino himself said in his review at vr-zone that new set of drivers brought huge performance each time. I repost the link again and i hope that reviews wich appeared during the week will show those types of numbers.

http://www.ixbt.com/video3/r600-part3-d.shtml#p818

[Baron]

You can change the stared out one fornowagain its not banned here.


Its this one by the way people

http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=8687

[del_fuego]

All the ones I've found so far

Wow, thats quite an extensive list there, nice one. Just do everyone a favour though and remove gibbo's link

I mean, i can see the words and letters in his post but all i read is: ''buy this from me, it must be bought from here, overclockers are the best, blah, blah, blah.''

[Noobie]

LOL in the other review because you dont like the numbers Its fAKE or they cheat


this pcgameshardwre.de numbers you like so its not FAKE and its the real thing (btw: if that its the real thing so 8800GTX not so good in DX10 because have the same FPS that 8800GTS , so ppl who want a card for future DX10 games should buy GTS and not GTX )





we already know you like 8800GTX and 8800GTX its better then X2900

you didnt realise yet that x2900 compete with 8800GTS 640mb not with 8800GTX???

Sapphire X2900XT in portugal = 375 euros

8800GTS 640mb in portgal = 399 euros

8800GTX in portugal = 550 euros


....

Lowest NL prices (euro):
Sapphire 2900XT - 337,50
Sparkle GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB - 328,95
Sparkle GeForce 8800 GTX 768MB DDR3 - 496

Lowest DE prices (euro):
MSI RX2900XT - 368,59
Sparkle GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB - 308,66
Sparkle GeForce 8800 GTX - 476

The German pricewatch is always slow with updating prices, so expect to see the 2900XT to get cheaper there.

[update] And some crazy Gainward GF 8800GTS 640MB for 263, 267, 271, 275 euro (4 different store prices, all including 19% tax)

[Shintai]

Poor mascaras is working overtime

[largon]

Good prices within 24h of launch if you ask me.

The measured power consumption of R600XT is somewhat strange though, Anandtech measured R600XT to ~20W above G80GTX at load which means R600XT only draws about 150W since G80GTX is known to consume 130-135W.

[Noobie]

Good prices within 24h of launch if you ask me.

The measured power consumption of R600XT is somewhat strange though, Anandtech measured R600XT to ~20W above G80GTX at load which means R600XT only draws about 150W since G80GTX is known to consume 130-135W.

It's strange that Anandtech didn't say how they kept the 8800 busy. The 8800 can shut down circuits in order to save power. If you use a very simple program that doesn't utilize the entire card you might not get the maximum amount of power the 8800 can draw.

I dunno if the 200 watt that was specified for the 2900XT in that one review was accurate tough. It was hear-say.

[Tim]

What do you guys think of this? ATI cheating with IQ in COJ DX10? Hmm...

http://tertsi.users.daug.net/temp/R6...ia_vs_ati.html
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/504/2/

[Scimitar]

Doesn't look like cheating at all to me. Several of the reviews said that the AF was better on the NVIDIA cards and that is what that first link shows.

[Tim]

Doesn't look like cheating at all to me. Several of the reviews said that the AF was better on the NVIDIA cards and that is what that first link shows.

AF difference on textures that nearby? Sounds unlikely.

[Noobie]

Doesn't look like cheating at all to me. Several of the reviews said that the AF was better on the NVIDIA cards and that is what that first link shows.

I concur and raise with an AnandTech link : http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2870&p=14

The nVidia 8800 has excellent normal and HQ AF, which far exceeds even the ATI x1900's rotationally-invariant HQ AF (it suffers from bleeding issue's under certain angles).

I believe the x2900 uses the AF from the x1900, and in that CoJ pic the wall in the fireplace is placed under the angle that makes ATI's HQ AF bleed (which is why this looks so veeeeeeeeeeeeery bad compared to other stuff around it). The blurring issue's are caused by the AA.

[Tim]

I concur and raise with an AnandTech link : http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2870&p=14

The nVidia 8800 has excellent normal and HQ AF, which far exceeds even the ATI x1900's angle-invariant HQ AF (it suffers from bleeding issue's under certain angles).

I believe the x2900 uses the AF from the x1900, and in that CoJ pic the wall in the fireplace is placed under the angle that makes ATI's HQ AF bleed (which is why this looks so very bad). The blurring issue's are caused by the AA.

No way man, it's way to nearby I reckon....

[Noobie]

No way man, it's way to nearby I reckon....

Checkout http://www.elitebastards.com/anipic....jpg&speed=5000 to see the difference between rotational/angle-invariant AF on (= HQ on) & off (= HQ off). You can already see that start of the differences (very small, but the angle of the grass isn't really enough to see the bleeding accurately) in the grass-patch in front of the dude with the gun.

If ATI cheats with it's IQ it would have been visible in other places, as well, but there isn't anything else.
http://tertsi.users.daug.net/temp/R600/iq/coj_nv.jpg <- I hate jpeg compression
http://tertsi.users.daug.net/temp/R600/iq/coj_ati.jpg

I frigging hate mouseover......

[deathman20]

Why say its cheating it could be just part of the driver optimizations for all we know. Theres so many dang drivers floating around and no "real" official ones til sometime next week probably.

[v_rr]

http://www.chilehardware.com/Revisio...5131808/5.html

[ahmad]

I dont believe this was allready posted:

CHECK OUT DRIVER VERSIONS!!




HD2900XT needs some serious drivers!!

Wowowow. I didn't think they could get that good. Damn, thats nice.

[Noobie]

LOTS OF PICS WE'VE SEEN LOTS OF TIMES BEFORE, SHOWING THAT THE 2900 CRUSHES THE 8800 GTS 640 & GTX IN Call Of Juarez
http://www.chilehardware.com/Revisio...5131808/5.html

They likely have the old 158.18/.22/.24 drivers (they only state they have 158 drivers) that perform badly in Call Of Juarez. nVidia released new drivers and with those the 8800 GTS 640 outperforms the 2900.

[Noobie]

Wowowow. I didn't think they could get that good. Damn, thats nice.

The latest 8.37.4.2_47323 drivers is supposed to implement a new intelligent algorithm that increases FPS while applying similar image quality when running Adaptive Anti-Aliasing. In Oblivion, performance several times faster than previous drivers using the new adaptive AA algorithm was claimed to have been acheived. New optimizations for HDR applications in general resulted in a 5-30&#37; increase in performance.

It's even better....

With the 8.37.4 driver as you can see above we found 1600x1200 playable with 2X AA and 25% grass with HDR. When we installed the alpha 8.37.4.2 driver we still find these same settings as the highest playable game settings. We tried 4X AA but found performance to be unplayable in the same places we found it unplayable with the 8.37.4 driver. We tried pushing the grass up higher but found the same performance problem with grass.

Or is it?

Screenshots of Oblivion with performance from http://www.computerbase.de/news/trei...ibervergleich/

[triple_A]

I dont believe this was allready posted:

CHECK OUT DRIVER VERSIONS!!




HD2900XT needs some serious drivers!!

Holy !!
where did you get these pics?
I hope these are true

[v_rr]

They likely have the old 158.18/.22/.24 drivers (they only state they have 158 drivers) that perform badly in Call Of Juarez. nVidia released new drivers and with those the 8800 GTS 640 outperforms the 2900.

You are complayning about Nvidia drivers don´t be the lastest xpto when ATI is runing pre-release alpha drivers with very performance flaws in many games....

[fornowagain]

You can change the stared out one fornowagain its not banned here.

Done

Wow, thats quite an extensive list there, nice one. Just do everyone a favour though and remove gibbo's link

I mean, i can see the words and letters in his post but all i read is: ''buy this from me, it must be bought from here, overclockers are the best, blah, blah, blah.''

Lol, made me laugh, done.

[Noobie]

You are complayning about Nvidia drivers don&#180;t be the lastest xpto when ATI is runing pre-release alpha drivers with very performance flaws in many games....

Your wrong! ATI is pre-release zeta drivers, whilst nVidia is pre-release beta drivers.

But time goes on, and history repeats like a river.....

Both general and game-specific driver-optimization goes on forever. Some new game arrives, they need to make optimizations for that game again. Call Of Juarez arrived, nVidia spent resources to make a new driver for it that boosts performance for that game. I haven't heard about any other game increasing in performance due to the new nVidia drivers. I am sure nVidia can do the same over and over just for that one game. I am sure ATI can do the same.

There's a point in here somewhere, but I lost it.

In conclusion: ATI will spent time to do driver optimization for Lost Planet and the performance will improve a lot!