# MSI HD 2900XT Poses Nude



## Bastieeeh (May 9, 2007)

The next R600 based HD 2900XT graphics card finally made it to the Internet. MSI's yet to be a launched top model posed nude and in all it's glory while being photographed by the talented folks from coolaler.com. Please excuse that we can only post the harmless pictures at our frontpage.

*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## Garb3 (May 9, 2007)

all these new hd card look cool i might have to save up and get one like


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## EastCoasthandle (May 9, 2007)

You know, I gotta feeling if we see a HD 2900xtx it will require 8-pin PCIe 2.0 connection for standard clock.   I wonder if the xtx may come with 2 8pin connectors  ?  After looking at those pics it's a bit of guess work of how you install the 6-pin into the 8-pin socket.  Do you go to the far left or right? Oh well, that's what the instructions are for   I do like how the wording is no longer etched into the GPU.  I had to sand down my WB because it embed itself (sort of speak) onto the copper.  Now I don't have to worry about that.  I also hope that the raised shim doesn't cause any problems for my WB.  It looks as if the shim is flush with the GPU... Hmm, is that memory on the front and back of the card?







If this is memory then this configuration (memory on both front and back of the card) is usually 1 gig.  However, I am not sure about this card.  *If* this card does use 16 memory modules:
are they 32 megs each to make up 512Megs?
are they 64 megs each to make up 1 gig?


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## GJSNeptune (May 9, 2007)

The 8800 Ultra looks more slick, but I'm rooting for AMD to blow us away.


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## tkpenalty (May 9, 2007)

Shit they all look impressive. Its the same size as my X1950PRO 

Does anyone smell a VRM issue?

No the 8 pin is only used to add extra stability for overclocking, amd obviously wants to set world records, etc. U only need 2 6 pins and it will be more than enough.

The PCB is sorta thick-ish isnt it? Reminds me of DFI mobos.


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## new_rez (May 9, 2007)

I really want one of these, it does look mint. Don't you have to buy a new PSU with the extra connectors, or can you buy some molex converters?!


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## EastCoasthandle (May 9, 2007)

new_rez said:


> I really want one of these, it does look mint. Don't you have to buy a new PSU with the extra connectors, or can you buy some molex converters?!



You are going to have to buy a new PSU if you want to OC.  The 8-pin PCI-e cable outputs 150 Watts part of PCI-e 2.0.  While the 6 pin PCI-e cable outputs only 75 watts.  REGARDLESS of the amount of power the PSU can produce.  You are going to have to wait for reviews to come out in order to know if 2 6-pin PCI-e cables are enough to provide the power needed during gaming, etc.
Although I am taking a guess, I would have 1, 6-pin PCI-e and 1, 8-pin PCI-e just to avoid any headaches.


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## unsmart (May 9, 2007)

tkpenalty said:


> Shit they all look impressive. Its the same size as my X1950PRO
> 
> Does anyone smell a VRM issue?
> 
> ...


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## WarEagleAU (May 9, 2007)

That is so sweet looking I about messed my pants. I am definately getting one of these and I dont care how much the wife barks at me.


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## DaMulta (May 9, 2007)

EastCoasthandle said:


> You are going to have to buy a new PSU if you want to OC.  The 8-pin PCI-e cable outputs 150 Watts called PCI-e 2.0.  While the 6 pin PCI-e cable outputs only 75 watts.  REGARDLESS of the amount of power the PSU can produce.  You are going to have to wait for reviews to come out in order to know if 2 6-pin PCI-e cables are enough to provide the power needed during gaming, etc.


Yea but can't you use two of them(6pin) and end up with 150 watts?


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## EastCoasthandle (May 9, 2007)

DaMulta said:


> Yea but can't you use two of them(6pin) and end up with 150 watts?


Actually you will get a total of 225 watts
75 watts from the 6 pin PCIe
75 watts from the 6-pin PCIe
75 watts from the PCIe video slot
----------------------------
225 watts of power available.  How much power is needed to run this card at standard clocks?  I seriously doubt its 225 watts because there is no headroom.

Now how much power does this video card need?  By using the new 8-pin PCI-e cable (along with the other 6-pin and video slot) will have 300 watts of power available just to OC the HD 2900xt.  That's the problem I am seeing here.  No, I don't believe it will take 300 watts of power to OC it.  But you do need to have it available.  That's 75 watts of head room.
75   watts from the 6-pin PCIe
75   watts from the 8-pin PCIe
150 watts from the video slot
-------------------------------
300 watts of power available


Therefore, can you get away with using 2, 6-pin PCIe cables and get the MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE of standard clocks?  We will have to wait until the reviews come out to verify this.  However, until then, I would simply use what's required for the video card:
6-pin PCI-e
8-pin PCI-e
Even if you are running the card at standard clock, IMHO.  I look at this no different then those who used 20-pin on a 24-pin MB to be honest.  Sure they got away with it but the MB needs 24 pin PSU in order to get the full benefits from the MB.


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## DaMulta (May 9, 2007)

This card is PCI-E 2.0 compatible as well right? Which would mean even more watts available over the bus.


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## EastCoasthandle (May 9, 2007)

DaMulta said:


> This card is PCI-E 2.0 compatible as well right? Which would mean even more watts available over the bus.



It's part of PCI-e 2.0 (I stand corrected).  PCIe 2.0 spec will double the per-lane speed to 500MB/s, boosting a x16 link to 8GB/s and, doubling the bit rate to 5GT/s. With that comes higher power requirements.  Thus the need for 8-pin PCI-e cable rated at 150 watts.
Look at question 11
If this video card is fully PCI-e 2.0 compliant then we haven't really tapped into it's full potential until we start seeing MBs that support PCI-e 2.0 (if a MB revision is required or just a bios update, not sure). But I've read no news if this video card is just using the extra power because it's power hungry or if the card is using the new standard.  It's unclear at this time.


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## Bastieeeh (May 9, 2007)

EastCoasthandle said:


> I also hope that the raised shim doesn't cause any problems for my WB.  It looks as if the shim is flush with the GPU... Hmm, is that memory on the front and back of the card?
> If this is memory then this configuration (memory on both front and back of the card) is usually 1 gig.  However, I am not sure about this card.  *If* this card does use 16 memory modules:
> are they 32 megs each to make up 512Megs?
> are they 64 megs each to make up 1 gig?



The card is a 512MB model and uses 16x32MB GDDR3 memory chips. So 1GB GDDR3 cards (not named XTX) will be possible.
The shim is not flush with the GPU and therefore many waterblocks won't be compatible.


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## BXtreme (May 9, 2007)

OMG This 2900XT is a really beautiful card


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## EastCoasthandle (May 9, 2007)

Bastieeeh said:


> The card is a 512MB model and uses 16x32MB GDDR3 memory chips. So 1GB GDDR3 cards (not named XTX) will be possible.
> The shim is not flush with the GPU and therefore many waterblocks won't be compatible.



Are you saying that the gpu is lower  then the shim?
Edit: Wait, that can't be right take a look at this:




The GPU appears to be higher then the shim from the impression left in the HS base.  And, there is nothing special about the width of the HS base.  Am I missing something?


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## MaxBurn (May 9, 2007)

EastCoasthandle said:


> Are you saying that the gpu is lower  then the shim?
> Edit: Wait, that can't be right take a look at this:
> 
> 
> ...



Yes, it appears that the area around where the thermal paste shown is machined out so the shim on the GPU can fit in there.


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## EastCoasthandle (May 9, 2007)

MaxBurn said:


> Yes, it appears that the area around where the thermal paste shown is machined out so the shim on the GPU can fit in there.


I see, well only time will tell if the Maze4/5 will work as it has a similar setup to the HS.


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## L|NK|N (May 9, 2007)

Insert a big goon drooooooooling all over the place here!


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## Casheti (May 9, 2007)

Oh my God...it's truly amazing. You see those pictures up top? Those are pictures of a BEAST!

I want one


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## selway89 (May 9, 2007)

OOoo i want to replace my X1950XT with that!!!

Anyone want to buy me one?  

Although it would be bottlenecked by my Athlon64 4000 @ 3ghz, will need serious cpu power to get out of bottlenecks.

But looks sweet, me wants !!!


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## Casheti (May 9, 2007)

You think you'd be bottlenecked? 

Pentium D 2.8GHz lol...


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## m3lisk (May 9, 2007)

WarEagleAU said:


> That is so sweet looking I about messed my pants. I am definately getting one of these and I dont care how much the wife barks at me.


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## WarEagleAU (May 9, 2007)

ROFL. ::bows:: thank you thank you. My words will live on immortal in linkins sig. HAHAHAHA


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## Frogger (May 9, 2007)

I Think I'm in LOVE boy'o'boy next week .......


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## Grings (May 9, 2007)

tkpenalty said:


> Shit they all look impressive. Its the same size as my X1950PRO
> 
> Does anyone smell a VRM issue?
> 
> ...



thats a lot longer than an x1950 pro, unless youve stretched it of course


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## a111087 (May 9, 2007)

mmmm... copper heatsink


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## SK-1 (May 9, 2007)

Looks like ATI waited to see if the 8800 cooler worked and then copied.Looks very close to me.


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## EastCoasthandle (May 9, 2007)

Frogger said:


> I Think I'm in LOVE boy'o'boy next week .......



Did you fall in love with bad booty?  I hope this isn't accurate.  Is this another fud campaign?


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## OnBoard (May 9, 2007)

Stock heatsink that doesn't cover the whole core and memory on both sides again, eeew. Other than that it looks nice and if you mess around with orginal thermalpaste, it will do. But why on earth they don't put the paste on an angle like the core?

Backside memory is more of an issues as it will be on different temp as the front side always. After market cooling will look ugly having heatsinks on bothsides and cooling will be hard. Sure it's fast enough now stock but year or two and it will be mainstream and need overclocking and I'd hate to have that memory conficuration.

But 256MB version should have no issues, gimme one


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## Darkrealms (May 9, 2007)

EastCoasthandle said:


> Actually you will get a total of 225 watts
> 75 watts from the 6 pin PCIe
> 75 watts from the 6-pin PCIe
> 75 watts from the PCIe video slot
> ...



LoL, and I was under the impression the video card companies were supposed to be working on less power reqs not more.  So now I need a new PSU because my Antec doesn't have a 8pin power slot and IF I SLI 550watts may not be enough now. . .  
Sorry guys I don't think so.  It looks like another video card to me.


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## Chewy (May 9, 2007)

its 6 pin compatable   I just hope this thing pwnz cause than I'll buy one.. otherwise I may wait till nexted fleet of dx10 cards.

 I think this is the most highly anticipated and expected to be good dollar value ati card, it better do good.


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## Frogger (May 9, 2007)

EastCoasthandle said:


> Did you fall in love with bad booty?  I hope this isn't accurate.  Is this another fud campaign?



like to see the 975 testing and some CF ...then ....


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## Protius (May 9, 2007)

birthday money in hand, waiting for the 14th...


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## m3lisk (May 10, 2007)

EastCoasthandle said:


> Did you fall in love with bad booty?  I hope this isn't accurate.  Is this another fud campaign?



God, I hope those are _REALLY, REALLY_ inaccurate. Oblivion was made for ATI, how could it perform so badly? No way would ATI come out with a card that sucks compared to an nVidia card... or have they let us all down?


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## yogurt_21 (May 10, 2007)

ummmm the dude had the cards in his lap with his hands all over them, no antistatic bags, no wristband, no static buffer whatsoever. do you really think someone like that is smart enough to put together a proper rig with a proper psu and drivers? I think not, he's practically doing the cards. lol


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## DaMulta (May 10, 2007)

yogurt_21 said:


> ummmm the dude had the cards in his lap with his hands all over them, no antistatic bags, no wristband, no static buffer whatsoever. do you really think someone like that is smart enough to put together a proper rig with a proper psu and drivers? I think not, he's practically doing the cards. lol



I do that stuff all the time. In fact I have parts laying all over my PC room with no static protection at all. When you mess with the stuff all the time you tend not to think about antistaic bags.


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## gR3iF (May 10, 2007)

Look on the Catalyst pictures the card has an amount of 512mb of ram.
Or is there a new Technology to eliminate ram due to 2D clocks?


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## ex_reven (May 10, 2007)

DaMulta said:


> I do that stuff all the time. In fact I have parts laying all over my PC room with no static protection at all. When you mess with the stuff all the time you tend not to think about antistaic bags.



ditto
especially with my old computer stuff 

My dvd drives get "thrown"


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## OnBoard (May 10, 2007)

If you have a woolshirt on and rub yourself on a carseat, no I wouldn't go near any computer stuff. Hurts enough your hand to touch some metal afterwards, not thinking what it would do for circuitry. But it's fine to touch 'em on normal conditions. I do put memory on their boxes if not in use and store GPUs in antistatic bags, but I do have my previous mobo with it's memory besides me on the floor (on top mobo-box)


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## ex_reven (May 10, 2007)

If he was on carpet id see it as a problem. But the wood floor is alright since you dont static zap the cards when you walk around and generate static between yourself and the carpet.

Although with a card that expensive I dont think id risk it...


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## Wile E (May 10, 2007)

I'm guilty of not using anti-static bags or straps when handling my stuff. I just make sure I zap myself on something metal before I touch anything. lol

Now, back on track, that's a good looking card. The anticipation of finding out what these can do is killing me. Not to mention the addition of some competition to the market, hopefully driving down prices. I have $450-500 saved to spend on a card, and I want the most bang for my buck, be it ATI or nVidia.


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## Murasame (May 10, 2007)

Problem is when the nda is finally lifted and the benches come out they will all be dx9benches. Which may not be "zomg this card gets likez 200frames in oblivion lolz!" good. I still don't think much about 8800 or r600 benches till they start testing these cards on crysis or 3d mark 07 comes out. I do love they way these cards look though.


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## EastCoasthandle (May 11, 2007)

ex_reven said:


> If he was on carpet id see it as a problem. But the wood floor is alright since you dont static zap the cards when you walk around and generate static between yourself and the carpet.
> 
> Although with a card that expensive I dont think id risk it...


The dude is wearing socks


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## EastCoasthandle (May 13, 2007)

Reviews so far
OCWB which uses 8.37 drivers
VR-Zone using 8.37 drivers
Mirror

Tweaktown review taken down..


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## TylerZambori (May 13, 2007)

WarEagleAU said:


> That is so sweet looking I about messed my pants. I am definately getting one of these and I dont care how much the wife barks at me.



We don't want to think about you messing your pants!!! Please!


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