KasparzRacing cars can hit 250mph. Drag cars can hit 350mph. And you don't complain about that? Are you riding 350mph with your car on road? Overclocking is like car racing, just pick different tracks and try to reach finish as fast as you can. Nothing else matters. Serious benchmarkers never play any game, ever. Overclocking is kind of sport.

I agree
overclocking is a obsession
but some people think if that card takes highest point from old benchmark program they think its a better card than other one. this cant be a proper result. thatswhy I give attention to latest benchmark programs. IMO ofcourse

3dmark05 is more cpu/memory limited than 3dmark06. The same with 3dmark03 before that etc etc.

Think of them as separate benchmarks, and not as updates.

HellasVagabondLook at the X2900XT threads , you will discover MANY benchmarks in which the GTS comes ontop :)

not when oced and not on comperable rigs, just look at the 3dmark 06 compilation the hd2900xt is even beating the fastest single gtx rig.

seriously without having both you're simply speculating, others like me have seen both in action and no the gts doesn't beat it in most games, nor in many, rather a few that ati is having driver issues with atm.

I had both yogurt and thats why you havent checked the other threads....
And i aint talking about 3dMARK but GAMES....Thats what im interested in not 3dMark...

tried running the hd on a REAL psu? lol.

the things a total power hog meaning that when ocing, using a 620w isn't recomended for ideal performance.

and yeah some games just don't run that well on the hd right now, but come on it took a while for the 8800's to get to where they are now driver wise.

KasparzCars are nothing compared to flat and house prices in Latvia. Afaik, its highest in all EU countries. I wish i was born in USA.

Really? I didnt realise that....higher than UK?

yogurt_21not when oced and not on comperable rigs, just look at the 3dmark 06 compilation the hd2900xt is even beating the fastest single gtx rig.

seriously without having both you're simply speculating, others like me have seen both in action and no the gts doesn't beat it in most games, nor in many, rather a few that ati is having driver issues with atm.

Your right there but even the person who this thread is about could beat all of those scores, look at the top ten single card results and see what card is consistently there. Again we keep having this discussion, these are DX10 cards, lets see how they compare with DX10 games, fact is in price terms the 2900XT sits closest to the 640MB 8800GTS, well certainly in the UK and from what I have seen the 2900XT wins it in around 65% of the benches I have seen and that is good enough for me.

But when you say look at the bench scores (2006) between the 2 cards in comparable systems then we should all look to the speed of the fastest 2900XT against the speeds of the 8800GTS's, the 2900 is in a rig doing 4.1Gig!

Thing is, I just got a 640MB 8800GTS for my Birthday last week and I paid less for it than the 320MB Version so I am happy, for me, £65 or $127 less than a 2900XT so I can live with the fact the 2900XT is faster than my card in some benches....bang 4 buck and all that.

well in bang for you buck you're 1000% right the gts is the card as even though they're priced similarly the gts doesn't require an uber expensive psu to run it. so its not just that you found the gts on sale its that you found it on sale and didn't have to upgrade anything else.

Tatty_Onethese are DX10 cards, lets see how they compare with DX10 games

Can the 2900XT run any yet? They perform horribly in Company of heroes, artifact in Call of juarez and couldnt run lost planet (i think this ones fixed now tho)

So comparison wise, the GTX can do a lot more.

And no matter what you say, all those overclocking records are done with CPU's at massive clockspeeds - incredible cooling, either chilled water or LN2 is needed to reach those clocks - you CANT use those systems for gaming.


And to those who rant on about 3dmark 05 - i'm sorry, but its graphics couldnt be ran at 30FPS when it was released. 05 still brings most systems to its knees now, and its a good representation of modern games running at max graphics - 3dmark06 is more or less the same, only one resolution up and with HDR tests as well.

yogurt_21not when oced and not on comperable rigs, just look at the 3dmark 06 compilation the hd2900xt is even beating the fastest single gtx rig.

seriously without having both you're simply speculating, others like me have seen both in action and no the gts doesn't beat it in most games, nor in many, rather a few that ati is having driver issues with atm.

I just beat that 2900xt with my 8800 gts 640 in the 3dmark06 bench and my cpu is running about 200 mghz slower than the cpu doing the 2900xts bench. There is also a 8800gtx with a cpu running around 300 mghz slower than the cpu testing the 2900xt in that bench and the 8800 gtx is beating it .

taken from Techpower up Alcapone's 3dmark06 list
ATI list
1, lane - Sapphire HD2900XT @ 880/999 - 13335 - E6700 @ 4120Mhz - 412FSB

Nvidia list
2, ADV4NCED - BFG 8800GTXOC @ 641/980 - 12912 - E6600 @ 3775.1Mhz - 419.4FSB
3, cowie - eVGA 8800GTS @ 726/998 - 12428 - E6600 @ 3746Mhz - 416.2FSB

Nevermind guys , some people still think that the X2900XT is what we all Had Expected it to be.......

Tatty_OneReally? I didnt realise that....higher than UK?

MUCH higher. I really mean MUCH. For equal price you can buy 3room flat in new house, i can buy 1room flat in old one.

HellasVagabondNevermind guys , some people still think that the X2900XT is what we all Had Expected it to be.......

www.tweaktown.com/articles/1122/2/page_2_asus_hd_2900_xt_package/index.html
Check this review that was done with 7.5 catalyst.
www.tweaktown.com/articles/1123/8
And now check this, and see that 7.6 catalyst improves performance even more.

HellasVagabondNevermind guys , some people still think that the X2900XT is what we all Had Expected it to be.......

Oh it's a good card and once the drivers get fixed it will be a great card . I should have said if or I hope since I truely like AMD.

MusselsCan the 2900XT run any yet? They perform horribly in Company of heroes, artifact in Call of juarez and couldnt run lost planet (i think this ones fixed now tho)

So comparison wise, the GTX can do a lot more.

And no matter what you say, all those overclocking records are done with CPU's at massive clockspeeds - incredible cooling, either chilled water or LN2 is needed to reach those clocks - you CANT use those systems for gaming.


And to those who rant on about 3dmark 05 - i'm sorry, but its graphics couldnt be ran at 30FPS when it was released. 05 still brings most systems to its knees now, and its a good representation of modern games running at max graphics - 3dmark06 is more or less the same, only one resolution up and with HDR tests as well.

I think you will probably find that was mainly a driver issue, the drivers used if you read the same review I did were almost virgin, let's not have too short a memory regarding the driver issues NVidia had on release of the 8800 series and generally still now performance is improving with each new driver set, although I do seem to recall mant ATi supporters saying that ATi would never release a card with crap driver/software support?

Oh lets NOT forget the 8800 issues, they sucked. The X2900's arent all there yet, we dont have the full story - it seems they're a fast card, but need incredible amounts of power (electrical and CPU) to get their full potential out of them.

trt740Oh it's a good card and once the drivers get fixed it will be a great card . I should have said if or I hope since I truely like AMD.

cats 7.6 is out and even a dx10 call of juarez patch is avaliable now
now lets see if we can truly see what r600 capable of.

I hoped too much from r600
it dissappointed me
I'm waiting r650-70 or g90
I dont want to play dx10 games with 20fps

Its not what everyone expected and i think ALL of us agree on that.
Now as for the drivers, ATI delayed the card to correct driver errors for a month or two. The Drivers SHOULD had been optimised in that time.
The 8800 GTX had Driver issues thus it wasnt that faster than the GTS series..The GTS series didnt have any significant driver issues.
The 8800 GTS wins over the X2900XT in some VERY POPULAR games, while the X2900XT wins over in FEAR , Oblivion , Prey and Half Life 2....2 out of 4 games where proved to be ATI optimised since the 1st day they launched.
The 8800GTX obliterates the X2900 in 8-9 out of 10 benchmarks...No word about the ULTRA which hasnt got a problem to score 10 out of 10 in the benchmarks.
These are facts gentlemen...Now we can wait for ATI to reach Version 8.0 of the Catalysts and see improvement but by then Nvidia will have rolled out their next GPU.

I too wish that the X2900XT was an 8800 killer, if so prices would drop and Nvidia would have already launched their new GPU....But because of ATIs failure Nvidia has the GTX / Ultra price SkyHigh and is waiting till late this year to launch their next card.

HellasVagabondIts not what everyone expected and i think ALL of us agree on that.
Now as for the drivers, ATI delayed the card to correct driver errors for a month or two. The Drivers SHOULD had been optimised in that time.
The 8800 GTX had Driver issues thus it wasnt that faster than the GTS series..The GTS series didnt have any significant driver issues.
The 8800 GTS wins over the X2900XT in some VERY POPULAR games, while the X2900XT wins over in FEAR , Oblivion , Prey and Half Life 2....2 out of 4 games where proved to be ATI optimised since the 1st day they launched.
The 8800GTX obliterates the X2900 in 8-9 out of 10 benchmarks...No word about the ULTRA which hasnt got a problem to score 10 out of 10 in the benchmarks.
These are facts gentlemen...Now we can wait for ATI to reach Version 8.0 of the Catalysts and see improvement but by then Nvidia will have rolled out their next GPU.

I too wish that the X2900XT was an 8800 killer, if so prices would drop and Nvidia would have already launched their new GPU....But because of ATIs failure Nvidia has the GTX / Ultra price SkyHigh and is waiting till late this year to launch their next card.

Agreed but you have omitted one thing...the 8800GTS and the lot had immense driver/compatibility issues with Vista, and that after all is the DX10 platform so fairly significant i would say.

I know about the vista incompatibilities but when the 8800 was first launched so did Vista so you cant really say it was incompatibilties on an rather Untested System.
On the other hand ATI launched the X2900XT 7 months after the Debut of Vista so it shouldnt have any problems, yet it does...

HellasVagabondNow as for the drivers, ATI delayed the card to correct driver errors for a month or two. The Drivers SHOULD had been optimised in that time.

Again I step in to tell you that's it's absolutely impossible to fully optimize drivers without customer feedback. Neither ATI or nVidia have the ability to test on every possible hardware and software combination.

Agreed but what kind of optimisation do you really think ATI can do in order to improve performance ? We aint talking about incompatibilities nor graphic glitches but performance.
Its a matter of time before ATI starts to drop the IQ in order to get some boost in FPS and already the X2900XT has problems regarding its IQ.

HellasVagabondAgreed but what kind of optimisation do you really think ATI can do in order to improve performance ? We aint talking about incompatibilities nor graphic glitches but performance.

I dunno, what kind of improvements did 8800's see since release?

HellasVagabondIts a matter of time before ATI starts to drop the IQ in order to get some boost in FPS

I fully disagree there. I see nothing that would support that theory.

HellasVagabondand already the X2900XT has problems regarding its IQ.

I won't disagree there, as far as AA is concerned. 7.6 seems better to me tho. Could just be the placebo effect tho. I'll wait to see confirmation from others.

Nvidia DIDNT delay the cards release....And we didnt see any great performance improvements in the GTS series...Like i said that was a GTX problem.
Well when a company releases a new product that cant compete with an older product of another company its bound to happen....Besides why do you think the IQ in the X2900XT has problems ? When they fix it entirely i think you will loose FPS rather than getting more...IF they fix it that is.....

HellasVagabondNvidia DIDNT delay the cards release....And we didnt see any great performance improvements in the GTS series...Like i said that was a GTX problem.
Well when a company releases a new product that cant compete with an older product of another company its bound to happen....Besides why do you think the IQ in the X2900XT has problems ? When they fix it entirely i think you will loose FPS rather than getting more...IF they fix it that is.....

What does the delayed 2900 launch have anything to do with this? And the GTS did see improvements since launch. And the 2900 competes very well with it's intended target, even more with every driver revision (what, 2 total now? How many has nVidia had for the 8800s?).

I can't say why the 2900 has AA IQ problems, I don't know enough about the technical aspects of driver coding or hardware design to know for sure. Do you code drivers for, or design GPUs? What exactly qualifies you to say that it's hardware related, or improvements to it will lead to a loss in fps?

Nice benchmark scores there

however I notice that Kingpin isn't on the 3Dmark05 leaderboard with his 8800Ultras (he in is third with SLI 8800GTX)

Should be an interesting time ahead.