Official HD 2900 Discussion Thread

[cadaveca]

So you post numbers from unknown sites to refute very well known trusted sites?

Your "trusted" sites are in it for the money, where as the others...not so much. So yeah, to me those numbers hold more weight. Especially when they match what I am getting myself...

[Noobie]

Your "trusted" sites are in it for the money, where as the others...not so much. So yeah, to me those numbers hold more weight. Especially when they match what I am getting myself...

I see in the Lost Planet thread you have some good drivers. Can you bench NeverWinter Nights 2? It's another ATi gets crushed by NVIDIA game, plus the game is ow so darn hard to get good FPS on.

[Soulburner]

Wouldn't you think if there really was a 2950XT/XTX,there should be some kind of confirmation about them??I mean,the first messages about the R600(2900XT)started in february 2006....

No, because that will make some people hold off and wait, and they need these to SELL. Creating more hype about the next card will only hurt their sales.

[cadaveca]

I see in the Lost Planet thread you have some good drivers. Can you bench NeverWinter Nights 2? It's another ATi gets crushed by NVIDIA game, plus the game is ow so darn hard to get good FPS on.

Sure, I'll install it right now. After I eat my dinner I'll see how it does.

[bloodbanger]

No, because that will make some people hold off and wait, and they need these to SELL. Creating more hype about the next card will only hurt their sales.

Yeah,i can understand that,but on the other handon't you think what's happening right now wouldn't hurt their sales either???

[Eastcoasthandle]

Hey guys,

I just installed the HD2900XT and loaded the driver from ATI website and this unknown device show up. I only have X-FI as a PCI but already loaded the driver for that.

Any fixes? thanks


PS : The Driver CD with the card didn't even work....

Please install the original driver disc that comes with the video card and see if it will auto update. If not do a search on the disc. Also, if by any chance you have a P5W DH Deluxe the unknown device maybe resolved by inserting the original cd from that MB. It will auto start and the "unknown device" will disappear. Again, that's if you have a P5W DH Deluxe and it's a MB related device.

[mascaras]

thats the WDM driver


regards

[dragonhunter]

THank you all, the problem is fixed using the Driver CD. Somehow it ran so I copied to my USB Drive for future use if needed.

[Zytek_Fan]

If AMD/ATi can get the leakage issues sorted out, then R600 could be the monster it was supposed to be.

[KTE]

Stephane Matbe is a known trusted guy, not some unknown guy. He is fully credible, more than most reviewers out there who have corp affiliations and display favoritism. He might even be around to comment but he's done a very good job of reviewing the card, better than a lot of the nV fanboys or site hit gainers did by far (ahem foolish Genmay *cough* I mean [H]).

There IS a driver release coming that is "said" to sort many performance lags out.

Thanks for posting it v_rr.

[KTE]

Hope you got LN2 if you want to attempt clocks like that...

Watercooling is what that should say.

[Sumanji]

I think some people got too high hopes for the drivers... lets face it, R600 is a bummer getting replaced by R650 in 2-3 months.

They both use the same architecture, so whatever software improvements they make for R600 will most likely benefit R650 as well and that's pretty good incentive to develop better drivers right

That smells so much of fake it hurts. Also look where the PWM should be...where is it

It's right there under a long silver heatsink... look properly next time

[Shintai]

They both use the same architecture, so whatever software improvements they make for R600 will most likely benefit R650 as well and that's pretty good incentive to develop better drivers right


It's right there under a long silver heatsink... look properly next time

I hope R650 is more than just a shrink. I believe its more in the area of R520->R580 with architectual fixes. And specially the AA engine needs a big fix in R600.

The PWM is misplaced then. Kinda odd for boards that should be equal yes? Also you forgot to comment the conflicting fan blades.

[Shintai]

They both use the same architecture, so whatever software improvements they make for R600 will most likely benefit R650 as well and that's pretty good incentive to develop better drivers right


It's right there under a long silver heatsink... look properly next time

I hope R650 is more than just a shrink. I believe its more in the area of R520->R580 with architectual fixes. And specially the AA engine needs a big fix in R600.

The PWM is misplaced then, in best case it can be cooling the 7 transistors infront of the PWM. Also you forgot to comment the conflicting fan blades.

Then add the image quality of the coolers and cards look differently. And that the power connector for the fans aint connected to the card either.
http://img475.imageshack.us/img475/3...ay0704lte3.jpg

I could be wrong, but it sure is suspicious.

[Sumanji]

I hope R650 is more than just a shrink. I believe its more in the area of R520->R580 with architectual fixes. And specially the AA engine needs a big fix in R600.

I highly doubt it will be anything that major; mainly because AMD can't afford to waste time doing this. It will be shrunk so that the clocks can be ramped greatly without power/heat issues. AMD will compete with 8900 using brute force because it's easier

The PWM is misplaced then. Kinda odd for boards that should be equal yes?

No it's most probably not misplaced either. Read this.

Also you forgot to comment the conflicting fan blades.

That's because they don't conflict. Draw some circles on the pic in paint if you can be bothered to confirm you're wrong.

[Noobie]

They both use the same architecture, so whatever software improvements they make for R600 will most likely benefit R650 as well and that's pretty good incentive to develop better drivers right




It's right there under a long silver heatsink... look properly next time

Have you tried running G80 drivers on G84? It won't work.

[Sumanji]

Have you tried running G80 drivers on G84? It won't work.

Have you tried running 7900GTX drivers on a 7800GTX? X1900 on an X1800? X850 on an X800? FX5900 on an FX5800?

(Want me to carry on, or have you spotted the pattern yet?)

[GLENBOY]

anybody got aquamark running on the hd2900, i think it needs an updated direcpll.dll , like the x1900 cards did , it does the test fine but right at the end it black screens before the score is shown

[Tim]

Some very nice performance for the 2900XT in Lost Planet, edging past the 8800GTS 640mb, about 3,5 - 4fps difference, nice.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...ance/page6.asp

[Noobie]

Have you tried running 7900GTX drivers on a 7800GTX? X1900 on an X1800? X850 on an X800? FX5900 on an FX5800?

(Want me to carry on, or have you spotted the pattern yet?)

These cards are unified, and nothing like the old cards. I am not saying it is impossible, I am saying that it is not something that should be assumed.

Some very nice performance for the 2900XT in Lost Planet, edging past the 8800GTS 640mb, about 3,5 - 4fps difference, nice.

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/...ance/page6.asp

Those FSquad drivers are the same as TechReport uses in their review. Those drivers seem to quite nice for some games. The HD2900XT beats the 8800 GTS 640 MB OC by 0.3 FPS average on Call Of Juarez. http://www.techreport.com/reviews/20.../index.x?pg=14

[cantankerous]

The GTS has higher minimums however which will help smooth out the gameplay when the fps drops. I would rather have 3fps more in minimums than 0.3fps in maximums any day.

[cantankerous]

If it truly is a 20% overclocking bringing the core to 890 that proves that this thing scales well as long as heat is removed. I am saying this in assumption that the new, non referenced cooler does better than the stock to allow such a higher core. I have not heard of much above 850 or so with stock cooler for overclocks. Some can't even do that and fall short in the 84x range.

Problem with that other cooler is the hot air is not expelled from the system like it is on the stock. No more will I have 90c video card air stay in my case. Damn Accelero X2 ruined that for me.

New sapphire x2900 with 20% OC






http://www.fx57.net/?p=669

and 2 zalmans vf900???


regards

[Noobie]

The GTS has higher minimums however which will help smooth out the gameplay when the fps drops. I would rather have 3fps more in minimums than 0.3fps in maximums any day.

Yeah, but that 3 fps minimum difference is caused by the HD deciding it needs to re-calibrate the heads, and thus the texture wasn't loaded in time causing a sudden drop in FPS.

They used a median low. Whatever that may mean. I imagine it is the median of all numbers that are below the average FPS; but what if NVIDIA has 49% very low numbers and 51% 15 FPS numbers, whereas the ATI has 51% 11.7 numbers and 49% 25 FPS numbers, then you have the same median, but ATI clearly is the winner of choice.

Did I already mention that most reviews suck out there? I like the HardOcp manner of displaying the FPS over an interval of time. However they need to provide more screenshots (a screenshot after every 10 seconds would be ideal), since they change the settings for each videocard. They provide screenshots to show the difference, but the difference changes depending on the scene. Taking an automated screenshot every 10 seconds at least is time-feasible. But shutouts to HardOcp for their testing-methodology.

[cadaveca]

NWN2, details maxed, outdoor town, 1680x1050, 16FPS avg

[fornowagain]

http://www.custompc.co.uk/custompc/n...rformance.html

AMD explains Radeon HD 2900XT's poor AA performance 1:16PM, Monday 14th May 2007

The R600 is finally here, and in keeping with its mysteriously long gestation, in at least in its first incarnation as the HD 2900XT, AMD's new GPU still poses a lot of questions. One of the things we noticed during our in-depth testing of the card is that compared to its principle rival, the Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS 640MB, the HD 2900XT performs poorly in many games when anti-aliasing is enabled.

In F.E.A.R., at 1,600 x 1,200, with AA and AF disabled, the HD 2900XT easily outstripped the 640MB 8800 GTS, delivering a minimum that was 23fps higher than the latter's. However, with 4x AA, the HD 2900XT's minimum framerate dived from 82fps to 21fps, while the 640MB 8800 GTS produced a minimum of 30fps. Adding 4x AA results in a 74% drop for the Radeon, compared to only a 49% drop for the GeForce.

The Radeon's framerates suffer disproportionately with anisotropic filtering, too. Again testing in F.E.A.R. at 1,600 x 1,200, we saw the HD 2900XT's minimum FPS drop by 10 per cent with 16x anisotropic enabled, compared to 3 per cent for the GTS, although the HD 2900XT still had a faster average. It was a slightly different result at 2,560 x 1,600, as the HD 2900XT's massive bandwidth gave it a boost, although adding 16x AF still had more impact than it did on the 640MB GTS.

As most gamers will want AA and AF enabled in games, the HD 2900XT's poor performance with these processing options enabled is a serious problem for the card and ATi. We asked ATi to comment on this surprising result and the company revealed that the HD 2000-series architecture has been optimised for what it calls 'shader-based AA'. Some games, including S.T.A.L.K.E.R., already use shader-based AA, although in our tests the 640MB 8800 GTS proved to be faster than the HD 2900XT.

We asked Richard Huddy, Worldwide Developer Relations Manager of AMD's Graphics Products Group, to go into more detail about why the Radeon HD 2000-series architecture has been optimised for shader-based AA rather than traditional multi-sample AA. He told us that 'with the most recent generations of games we've seen an emphasis on shader complexity (mostly more maths) with less of the overall processing time spent on the final part of the rendering process which is "the AA resolve". The resolve still needs to happen, but it's becoming a smaller and smaller part of the overall load. Add to that the fact that HDR rendering requires a non-linear AA resolve and you can see that the old fashioned linear AA resolve hardware is becoming less and less significant.' Huddy also explained that traditional AA 'doesn't work correctly [in games with] HDR because pixel brightness is non-linear in HDR rendering.'

While many reviews of the HD 2900XT have made unflattering comparisons between it and Nvidia's GeForce 8800-series, Huddy was upbeat about AMD's new chip. 'Even at high resolutions, geometry aliasing is a growing problem that can only really be addressed by shader-based anti-aliasing. You'll see that there is a trend of reducing importance for the standard linear AA resolve operation, and growing importance for custom resolves and shader-based AA. For all these reasons we've focused our hardware efforts on shader horsepower rather than the older fixed-function operations. That's why we have so much more pure floating point horsepower in the HD 2900XT GPU than NVIDIA has in its 8800 cards... There's more value in a future-proof design such as ours because it focuses on problems of increasing importance, rather than on problems of diminishing importance."