Official HD 2900 Discussion Thread

[n91htmare]

After countless delays, tis a sad day for AMD.

[OBR]

Yes thic card is totall ***

Higher power consumption then 8800GTS
Very high temps
Crappy performance (ATI has lot of time to make good drivers)
Not too low price

[onethreehill]

ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT @ Techpowerup
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/HD_2900_XT/

[xlink]

Yes thic card is totall ***

Higher power consumption then 8800GTS
Very high temps
Crappy performance (ATI has lot of time to make good drivers)
Not too low price

temps are relative...

[mascaras]

ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT @ Techpowerup
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ATI/HD_2900_XT/

the presentation with Video capture of Ruby Whiteout Demo, everything rendered in real time on R600 its cool






regards

[onethreehill]

@Hothardware
http://www.hothardware.com/Articles/...Has%5FArrived/

@Driverheaven
http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews/...iewz/index.php

[MAS]

is there a review with 8.38 driver?

[mascaras]

is there a review with 8.38 driver?

8.38 oficial driver only 22th


regards

[Budwise]

quite disappointing early results to say the least.

[Tim]

The Radeon HD 2900 XT is an inefficient power hog. Using the 2900 XT card will cost you more power than a GeForce 8800 GTX while delivering to you sub-8800 GTS performance.

The ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT however is more akin to NVIDIA’s GeForce FX 5800. It does not seem like this will have a very long life span in comparison.

With the Radeon HD 2900 XT however it seems that ATI hasn’t made any breakthroughs as far as image quality goes. On the antialiasing side ATI did not make any improvements to the standard MSAA modes. They have provided a higher level, 8X MSAA but took away the 6X AA option.

What we found in our testing of ATI’s current Narrow Tent and Wide Tent filtering options was that enabling them caused textures to become blurry. This was plainly evident in every game we played.

“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

As it stands right now the Radeon HD 2900 XT, in our opinion, is a flop. ATI needs to get its act together quickly.

The second negative just has to be the fan. It's not dramatic in 2D desktop mode, really. But once you start gaming, you'll definitely hear it. And God forbid, if your card overheats to 100 Degrees C (which is not that awkward) you'll have a local hair-dryer available to you.

All is not lost with the product though. Most of our main issues can be fixed by two changes; the first is a complete redesign of the cooling solution to create one which is as quiet, if not more so than it’s main competitors and the second is a drop of the retail price by at least £50 or $75 (from RRP $399) to compensate for the fact that overall the card is slower and has less memory than the nearest competition (The Geforce 8800 GTS 640Mb). If AMD or its partners can do both the Radeon HD becomes a much more attractive purchase, as it stands now however, we simply cannot recommend this hardware.

Utter disaster, I'm buying the GTS this afternoon.

[DilTech]

To those who waited for this card, my condolences.

Even I'm shocked by how bad this card really is.

Even in DX10(thank you guru3d) the 8800GTX wins.

I hope AMD doesn't lose too much due to this, as the R600 is now AMD's GeForceFX mistake.

[ahmad]

To those who waited for this card, my condolences.

Even I'm shocked by how bad this card really is.

Even in DX10(thank you guru3d) the 8800GTX wins.

I hope AMD doesn't lose too much due to this, as the R600 is now AMD's GeForceFX mistake.

Actually if you read it at all:

Breathtaking is what this benchmark is. Initially when ATI handed out this demo I was a little reluctant as well ... It could be tainted as it's handed out by ATI. So we started testing an 8800 GTX with this software, and stumbled into bad performance and weird performance issues. The HD 2900 XT and 8800 GTX where equal performance wise. And what this review definitely shows, is that it can not really be the case. Later that evening NVIDIA noticed that the press obtained the demo and one day later issues a driver which was showing excellent performance and no weird stutters or anything anymore. The driver is the 158.42driver which be will be released to the public this week.

G80 has been out for quite a while now, and just now they released some beta drivers optimized for the demo. I don't think ATI has the time to do things like this right now... not to mention that review was done with the older 8.37 driver. They chose to not use the newer ATI drivers, yet they used the latest nvidia beta not available officially for just that one benchmark and the rest of the review was done with 158.22. Lame.

All I can say to that is, at least ATI had it working perfectly from day one. Now they need to make it work better...

If you want to talk about untapped power, I think the 2900XT is the best example we got right now.

[OBR]

Poor performance is not in early drivers! ATi has long time to prepare good drivers, this card is just slower than GTX and better drivers cannot to solve this.

[Tim]

All I can say to that is, at least ATI had it working perfectly from day one. Now they need to make it work better...

OH my goodness, how can you even say that. This is driver HELL. Read HardOCP's comments on the card please! Working perfectly hahaha
I'm under the table here man, please.

Just ordered a GTS one minute ago. 'nuff said!

Seriously would have gone ATI this time if it wasn't this bad....nVidia gets my money again, I want a ATI card for a chance. But not this.

[AbelJemka]

Why everyone compares HD 2900 with GTX in order to bash it? Is HD 2900 cost 500$.

[theteamaqua]

teh most hyped card .... RD600 = R600

[AbelJemka]

OH my goodness, how can you even say that. This is driver HELL. Read HardOCP's comments on the card please! Working perfectly hahaha

I'm under the table here man, please.

Just ordered a GTS one minute ago.

HardOCP is the only test where HD 2900 lost ALL the test versus GTS, THE ONLY TEST OF THE WHOLE INTERNET. This test it's a joke.

[Tim]

HardOCP is the only test where HD 2900 lost ALL the test versus GTS, THE ONLY TEST OF THE WHOLE INTERNET. This test it's a joke.

The only review? Not really.

Why everyone compares HD 2900 with GTX in order to bash it? Is HD 2900 cost 500$.

Nobody is, the 640mb GTS runs over it in the majority of benches. But 2900XT is their high end, so IMO it SHOULD be compared to the GTX. That's the way it always goes.

[Xion X2]

Poor performance is not in early drivers! ATi has long time to prepare good drivers, this card is just slower than GTX and better drivers cannot to solve this.

You just don't have a clue. Results have already been posted proving otherwise on this forum. There have been significant performance gains going from 8.36-->8.37-->8.38. As much as 20%.

[ahmad]

OH my goodness, how can you even say that. This is driver HELL. Read HardOCP's comments on the card please! Working perfectly hahaha
I'm under the table here man, please.

Working perfectly in context of what I said, yes. As in, works with DX10 without problems.

Performance issues do not relate to the stability/functionality of a driver.

And that HardOCP review was the worst. Guru3D was better. Heck even ocworkbench was better.

[MAS]

kinc proved 2900XT is very close to GTX when using Catalyst 7.5


expect 8800GTX price drop till the end of May

[AbelJemka]

The only review? Not really.



Nobody is, the 640mb GTS runs over it in the majority of benches. But 2900XT is their high end, so IMO it SHOULD be compared to the GTX. That's the way it always goes.

Give me the review, i already read so much.
Let's go comparing 1000$ HDTV from Sony to 1500$ TV from Panasonic coz it's their High End.
ATI say they compete with GTS. Nvidia they GTX have no competition. Both say true. That's the way it goes.

[onethreehill]

@Techreport
http://www.techreport.com/reviews/20...t/index.x?pg=1

[Richie P]

I think it can be summarised that DX9 performance is disappointing for a top model, high end part. The fact that ATi have priced this around the cost of a GTS make it considerable again, but power consumption knocks it back into the disappointing category.

Overclockability is great, but loud or aftermarket cooling is definitely needed. And again, power.

Me? I'm waiting. X1950XT is fine for me the moment, and I just got a nice boost from overclocking to 3.6Ghz. Firstly, I'm waiting for some big title DX10 designed games (e.g not a patched Call of Juarez) to really see how the two side's differing implementations fare then. Secondly, I'm waiting for subsequent driver releases to see what perfrormance gains can be had, becuase it's obvious that the driver is still very new.

Maybe by that time ATi will have brought a 65nm version of the card with better power and heat figures and/or a XTX version as well.

[Baron]

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/sho...38#post9318238

Hi there

Well this might have to be removed as this product is still under NDA until midday today. However as everyone else is posting reviews I shall post the findings I had with the early test sample I had about a month ago on 8.36 drivers.


System Specification
To begin with we started testing on an Intel based system to see how well the card managed with Intel fastest processor today, the QX6800. The system specification was the following:-
Intel QX6700 @ 3.00GHz (1333FSB)
DFI ATI RD600 Motherboard
Corsair PC2-8888 (1150MHz) CAS4 DDR2 Memory
WD Raptor 150GB 10,000rpm HDD
Creative SB Fatal1ty Sound Card
Antec P900 Case
Enermax 1000W PSU
Windows XP Pro
Windows Vista Premium
BFG GeForce 8800 GTX OC 768MB GDDR3 (600MHz Core / 1800MHz Memory)
ATI Radeon HD 2900XT 512MB GDDR3 (750MHz Core / 1600MHz Memory)


Drivers
Installation with the NVIDIA card was easy under both operating systems. In testing all applications ran but Farcry had minor corruptions under both Windows XP and Vista which must be an issue with NVIDIA’s drivers. Also the Farcry benchmark programme would not run with the NVIDIA card under windows Vista. Apart from that the BFG card gave good results under Windows XP but it was noticeably slower under Windows Vista which clearly says NVIDIA still have a lot of room to make improvements on their Vista drivers.

Moving on the ATI HD 2900XT was also an easy installation under both Windows XP and Vista. All I will say is make sure that on release the cards also have the dotnet software as part of the installation too as to prevent any installation issues. Under Vista the ATI installation was very polished and superior to NVIDIA’s attempt.
Image quality was on par with NVIDIA for 2D and general windows applications. The noise levels of the card was quieter both at idle and underload, the card also ran cooler than an 8800GTX does as well, these are great points. Performance the card was every so slightly slower than the 8800GTX under windows XP, but this was less than 5%. However under Windows Vista the ATI card was quicker in both Direct3D and OpenGL application plus the card was more stable too and had no issues running my Farcry benchmarks unlike the NVIDIA card. Plus the ATI also displayed NO visual corruptions at all in Farcry wheras the NVIDIA card did.


Benchmark / Game results

NVIDIA BFG 8800 GTX OC (Overclocked) vs ATI R600 (HD 2900) at stock speeds (Overdrive ATI Speeds = 850MHz / 1800MHz)

Windows Vista

NVIDIA DOOM3 1600x1200, settings max, 8x = 57fps
ATI DOOM3 1600x1200, settings max, 8x = 68fps (71fps OC)

NVIDIA Farcry (1920x1200) = Crashes on benchmark programme
ATI Farcry (1920x1200) = Looks similar speed with better image quality and does not crash (54fps)

NVIDIA AquaMark Default Test = 154.28fps
ATI AquaMark Default Test = 155.36fps (159.54fps OC)

NVIDIA Fear 1920x1200, settings max = 33/64/140
ATI Fear 1920x1200, settings max = 22/54/108 (Possible driver issue here?)

NVIDIA 3D Mark 2005 Default test = 16,097
ATI 3D Mark 2005 Default test = 17,025 (17,457 OC)

NVIDIA 3D Mark 2006 Default test = 11,504
ATI 3D Mark 2006 Default test = 11,500 (12,504 OC)


Windows XP

NVIDIA DOOM3 1600x1200, settings max, 8x = 71fps
ATI DOOM3 1600x1200, settings max, 8x = 70fps

NVIDIA Farcry 1920x1200, 8x AF & 8x AA = 51fps
ATI Farcry 1920x1200, 8x AF & 8x AA = 55fps (ATI better IQ)

NVIDIA AquaMark Default Test = 163.43fps
ATI AquaMark Default Test = 158.37fps

NVIDIA Fear 1920x1200, settings max = 34/67/158
ATI Fear 1920x1200, Settings max = 23/57/142

NVIDIA 3D Mark 2005 Default test = 17,250
ATI 3D Mark 2005 Default test = 17,110 (17,554 OC)

NVIDIA 3D Mark 2006 Default test = 11,950
ATI 3D Mark 2006 Default test = 11,788 (12,617 OC)


As you can see from the results in brackets I overclocked the ATI card using the overdrive utility to compare against the BFG overclocked card. I ran the ATI overdrive utility which maxed out both sliders. The new clock speed were 850MHz Core and 1800MHz memory, even at these clock speeds the card still remained both cool and quiet. Now onto the results well I was very impressed as now the ATI card was pulling ahead of the NVIDIA card under Windows XP and under Windows Vista the R600 was considerably ahead of NVIDIA’s offering.
So in 3D Mark 2005, 3D Mark 2006, AquaMark, DOOM3, FarCry the ATI card won on both performance and image quality. It was only Fear where NVIDIA had quite a good lead which is no doubt due to the fact it’s a “best played on NVIDIA” game possibly or drivers?


Summary
Overall from my early testing the new ATI HD 2900XT 512MB looks like a serious contender to the GTX and GTS 640MB for gamers and benchmarkers. The only disappointing results were in the game called Fear but everything else was faster on the ATI product. The ATI card was also quieter and cooler running with fantastic overclocking potential. The product is a little more expensive than a GTS 640MB but cost considerably less than a GTX. So considering the card already has fantastic Vista drivers and far superior features to NVIDIA's offerings such as HDMI along with better video editing and DVD abilities does indeed make the HD 2900 XT worth while considering.

If your thinking of buying a new high-end card then I would suggest you don't make your decision based just on my review because my game testing is limited and as such I would recommend you check reviews done by professionals on a wider range of games before making your decision. If I was buying a graphics card and £300 was my limit then yes the HD 2900 XT would be my choice not only because its about the best performer in this price region but due to the fact it has great features, has little to no performance hit under Vista and is very overclockable. It appears most HD 2900 XT cards hit 850MHz-900MHz core and upto 2000MHz memory and beyond. However if you want the best then it does seem that the GTX does offer a performance edge on most games under Windows XP, but under Windows Vista the R600 based card is keeping pace with the 8800 GTX and for a lot less money in the programmes I tested.


Everybody already knows what the card looks like but here is one I took when I had the card a few weeks ago:-



I know my review does not go into great detail and the game testing is rather poor but at least you now know a little more about the card. We have 200+ R600 cards in stock at this moment in time and you can buy them after midday today.