Official HD 2900 Discussion Thread

[Tim]

Why should it? In DX9 a static config of vertex/pixel configuration in choses by the driver. I think you can imagine that a lot of tweaking / game / graphics settings can be achieved. I for one am convinced that just changing the name of the executable of a game to 3mark06.exe (for example) changes the performance of the card in that particular game.

I'm expecting the 64*5 shader config of the R600 to be more powerful than the simpler 128*1 config of the G80, but I have no facts to back it up. It's just that ATI probably knows more about unified architecture design now than Nvidia did many month ago before releasing the G80. If 64*5 wasn't faster then ATI would have chosen the simpler 128*1 design.

Hmm, although I'm not really that technical, shouldn't we see even with a fixed config some degree of that stream processing power? And I wouldn't say ATI knows more about unified architectures then nVidia, I mean, the thing that they had is the Xenos GPU in the Xbox360, so yes this is their second gen, but R600 was already under development when that happened. So I wouldn't say that they have more knowledge too loud. Whatever nVidia did, they did it well. If all those stream processors are unified in DX10, then it should boost performance even more, instead of the fixed ratios, shouldn't it?

What's important to me is the present. DX10 benches mean nothing when games are not even out. By the time Crysis and other DX10 games roll out, the R650 on 65nm will be out, which will reduce costs, be cheaper to manufacture, and have less power consumption......so I don't exactly see the point in jumping the gun and spending for an R600 which allegedly has awesome DX10 performance. DX9 wise, its not much better at all than the x1900xtx. thats a dissapointment

Well I wouldn't say that, people have been waiting very long, so I don't think they want to wait for R650, I'm not going to that's for sure. Anyway, the 2900XT is much much better then the X1900XTX in a lot of benches, sure in some the difference is small, but the GTS for instance seriously beats the X1900XTX around in just about every game.

And I think Crysis is nearer then everyone thinks, I put my money on late June for a playable demo, R650 will be September like, which is another 4,5!! months from now.