Official HD 2900 Discussion Thread

[sladesurfer]

why waste time blaming? there is a problem that needs solving naybe bios related maybe driver ,or maybe production related. Wasnt the xtx core supposed to be 900 or something?

well you have to blame someone. In this business, being 2nd is not gonna cut it. 6-8 months delay and still cant beat your competitor. Its not like ATI/AMD did not know the performance of the 8800 series card.

[sladesurfer]

Interesting analogy from a member of OCN about this news..

I spent a few minutes thinking of a way to explain this.

Let me make an analogy.

Imagine the 8800GTX is Jeff Gordon. The current point leader in Nascar (I think) and usually finishes either first or top 3 in every cup.

Imagine the R600 is Tony Stewart. A very fast driver, has trouble finishing, some people argue he's the best, yet he has trouble actually winning a circuit.

Now, let's say shrink die size is the car you drive/engine and memory type is the amount of other cards on the road.

R600XT = Tony Stewart in a good car, not the best (80nm) with a decent amount of cars on the road (GDDR3). Jeff Gordan beats him, not badly, but he still beats him.

Everyone says, "Well dammit, I know Tony Stewart can win, he just needs a faster car and less people on the road to deal with."

They throw Tony Stewart in a better car (65nm) and his team mates take care of the other cards on the road, so he has no traffic to deal with (GDDR4), yet he still loses.

Now what do you figure is the reason? That's right, it's the driver. (The core architecture)

What you guys are thinking is, why is the card putting low numbers when it has 512-bit GDDR4 memory and 65nm?

Well, let me ask you something.

How much better do you think a 7600GT would be if it had 512-bit GDDR4 instead of 128-bit GDDR2? How much better would it be if it was 65nm instead of 90nm?

The truth is, not much better if at all and in some situations less performance. Why? Because of the architecture of the core. The core is designed to work a certain way and it always has limitations. The problem isn't the memory, the shrink size or drivers, it's the core and that's likely the reason the R600 has taken so long to come out in the first place.

The simple way to put it is, having GDDR4 and 65nm just moved the bottleneck from one part of the card to the other.

Now the limiting factor is the core itself, rather than the memory interface, type of ram used and shrink size. The core's architecture itself isn't powerful enough.

That's my last post tonight. Just don't flame me over this, all I'm doing is being honest and analyzing the card the way it is.

[NightCrawler™]

Its not like ATI/AMD did not know the performance of the 8800 series card.

Exactly... they probably have a few hundred GTX's in house and analyzed the crap out of them... hell they probably modded the card themselves to a "ultra"
There's no way in hell ATi could not know about the power of the GTX..

[sladesurfer]

I guess im getting a 8800 card then.

[theteamaqua]

hmm another X1800XT ... with higher core speed, but dont have much more to offer..

in the end it call comes down to ROP , TMU, and shader counts ..

btw 8800's shaders runs at 1500+MHz (Or 1350MHz i forgot) ... and afaik R600's shaders only runs at its core speed

so R600 has less ROP , unknown number of TMU, and has more shaders, but at at lower speed .. hmm

i honestly think this is another X1800XT.. but they limit themselves to not release a X1950 in this gen ... cuz in last gen X1900 was actually quite fast ...

X1800 = HD2900, whats X1900=? then, prolly will be name HD2950 ... cuz they start this gen with xxx900s, and dont have much room to go, but xxx950s

[sladesurfer]

Which brand should i get for 8800 series card???

[NightCrawler™]

I'm probably getting an EVGA.....

[sladesurfer]

i might get a card tomorrow. I cant wait anymore. my XFX 6500 card is killing me. Damn you ATI! Damn YOOUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!

[theteamaqua]

hahah so many peopel actually waited for this card, and this is what they get ...

[Booj]

I'm probably getting an EVGA.....

+1

All this wait for this.. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt until we see official reviews, but If 8800GTX drops in price, then it's Nvidia for me...

[Don_Won]

what a waste of those 7 months!!!

[Shintai]

hahah so many peopel actually waited for this card, and this is what they get ...

They could start waiting for 8900/9800GTX

[virtualrain]

why waste time blaming? there is a problem that needs solving naybe bios related maybe driver ,or maybe production related. Wasnt the xtx core supposed to be 900 or something?

At this rate, by the time DAMMIT sorts this mess out, nVidia will launch the G90! What a joke! I feel sorry for ATI loyalists... it's not your day!

[KoHaN69]

I blame Canada, it's not a real country anyway!

[duploxxx]

unbelievable how people react here... its getting worse day by day

they see some benches from a pre-build product not on final clockspeed and manufacturing and already blaming ati and going to buy the 8800 series. (the 8800 was 20% oc'ed btw)

this is a 80nm base card, it will not be released within 2 weeks and the xtx will be available on 65nm with way higher clock.

get a grip most here sound like 15year old school boys.
wait until you see the real retail price of the new r600 series.....

[sladesurfer]

unbelievable how people react here... its getting worse day by day

they see some benches from a pre-build product not on final clockspeed and manufacturing and already blaming ati and going to buy the 8800 series. (the 8800 was 20% oc'ed btw)

this is a 80nm base card, it will not be released within 2 weeks and the xtx will be available on 65nm with way higher clock.

get a grip most here sound like 15year old school boys.
wait until you see the real retail price of the new r600 series.....

^^in denial

[virtualrain]

unbelievable how people react here... its getting worse day by day

they see some benches from a pre-build product not on final clockspeed and manufacturing and already blaming ati and going to buy the 8800 series. (the 8800 was 20% oc'ed btw)

this is a 80nm base card, it will not be released within 2 weeks and the xtx will be available on 65nm with way higher clock.

get a grip most here sound like 15year old school boys.
wait until you see the real retail price of the new r600 series.....

When ATI actually has product that is shipping and in real people's hands that can open a can of woop-ass on a GTX, then you can come in here and lecture us.

[sladesurfer]

I blame Canada, it's not a real country anyway!

[NightCrawler™]

the xtx will be available on 65nm

Really......?? As far as we know the first batch of XTX's will be on 80nm and possibly will be replaced by the R650 soon at 65nm....

[theteamaqua]

unbelievable how people react here... its getting worse day by day

they see some benches from a pre-build product not on final clockspeed and manufacturing and already blaming ati and going to buy the 8800 series. (the 8800 was 20% oc'ed btw)

this is a 80nm base card, it will not be released within 2 weeks and the xtx will be available on 65nm with way higher clock.

get a grip most here sound like 15year old school boys.
wait until you see the real retail price of the new r600 series.....

well ... i partially agree with u... i do think that R600XTX's performance is hurt due to the early driver ... and also its a STOCK HD2900XTX @ 750/2020 vs OCed 650/2000 8800GTX (btw many can do 660 to 675 on core , and 2200 to 2400 on mem)

but the Core WONT CHANGE ... simple as that ... and benchmarks/performance depend heavily on the CORE NOT the memory ...

unless retail actually OC higher than the ESes.. say HD2900XTX can do core at 900 to 1000Mhz ... i dont think there is any miracle that can make 2900XTX beat 8800GTX .... beside driver that is .. also they should test it on an intel board ..

[sladesurfer]

Im tired and im going to bed but i hope this thread is just some bad dream. nite all

[Tim]

the xtx will be available on 65nm with way higher clock.

No it's not, it's 80nm!

[virtualrain]

Im tired and im going to bed but i hope this thread is just some bad dream. nite all

You are not alone, I suspect.

[Ubermann]

If this is true then I as an ATI fanboy will go green.

It belongs here:


Get your own toilet computer, Pentium 90 64mb Ram and ATI 2900XTX

Im impressed how a company can spit out a card like the 8800 and get it as fast as it is, even with drivers problems and stuff its kinda amazing.

[Dainas]

You know, an established company simply not being able to compete with its initial release is not out of the realm of possibility.

It kinda happened with the first R500 even though it competition was almost a phantom product(7800GTX 512) and its happening right now with AMD high-end CPU lineup. The worse example was NV30 fx disaster.

GDD4 has been out for far too long to pin it as the cause(the memory itself and not it setup I mean), but another couple months to iron it out and they should be back on their feet. The XT should eat some GTS sales for sure anyways.