NVIDIA 8800 GTX beats AMD ATI Radeon HD 2900 XTX

[Jimmy 2004]

After impressive benchmark results for the Radeon HD 2900 XT, the Radeon HD X2900 XTX (AMD's flagship DirectX 10 card) has failed to impress in the same way. When compared to NVIDIA's 8800 GTX, the 2900 XTX is lagging behind in frames per second when it comes to games such as Company of Heroes, F.E.A.R., Half Life 2: Episode 1 and Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. You can see the results for yourself (as well as pictures of the card) by clicking the images below - all tests were run on an ASUS P5N32-E SLI motherboard with a Core 2 Extreme QX6800 processor and 800MHz Corsair XMS2 RAM. The HD 2900 XTX is based on the same GPU as the HD 2900 XT, but uses GDDR4 memory running at 1010MHz instead of GDDR3 memory running at 800MHz. There aren't any comparisons between the cards when they are overclocked, nor is there any data on DirectX 10 performance, but at present it looks like NVIDIA could be a step ahead of AMD. The card used by DailyTech was a sample released to board members in the second week of April, and the benchmarks were made with the drivers AMD plans to provide when the new cards hit retail.



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[GJSNeptune]

Wow. Impressive. Poor AMD.

 

[Taz100420]

as soon as it comes out, Ill be the judge.
one says Ati is better then another says Nvidia is better, WTF?!?!?!?

 

[GJSNeptune]

The 8800 is just a damn powerhouse. I hope AMD can manifest a miracle. I don't want to see them die, nor do I want ATI to disappear.

 

[BXtreme]

If 2900XTX can't keep up with the 8800GTX, then 8900 series will seriously overpriced AND it'll pwn the whole R600 series
C'mon AMDTI, you can do it *crosses fingers and hoping they'll do something about it*....

 

[demonbrawn]

Don't those games favor Nvidia anyway? I know for sure that Elder Scrolls and FEAR do. Either way, I guess the score shouldn't have THAT high of a disparity.... sad day for AMD/ATI

 

[ChaoticBlankness]

As far as I'm concerned these results aren't conclusive. There have been zero final drivers released!

When an HD 2900XT is in "our" hands, then we can judge.

 

[erocker]

What a lame news story considering it's not released yet. I want some REAL news.

 

[Taz100420]

As far as I'm concerned these results aren't conclusive. There have been zero final drivers released!

When an HD 2900XT is in "our" hands, then we can judge.

exactly my point!

 

[ktr]

lol, the xt performed around the same as the xtx, surely something is wrong...maybe the computer cannot handle the true power of the XTX

any who...consumers win

 

[SkylinGTR26]

wow, this is clearly some crappy benchmarks IMO.
AMD come out of the gutter PLEASE!

Intel and Nvidia have been pwning too long, come back AMD!!!

 

[ktr]

Maybe this xtx is like the GX2...it only performes well when you crank up the heat...

We need some dx10 benchs, only then we can surely tell the winner is.

 

[Jimmy 2004]

lol, the xt performed around the same as the xtx, surely something is wrong...maybe the computer cannot handle the true power of the XTX

any who...consumers win

It's very possible that (once at speeds such as those) memory speed/quantity becomes less of an issue in modern games and the GPU becomes the bottleneck - which would explain such results. At the end of the day, there could well be an excess of memory on the XTX.

 

[EviLZeD]

this cant be accurate im sure when its finally out itll perform much better maybe its the drivers

 

[ktr]

It's very possible that (once at speeds such as those) memory speed/quantity becomes less of an issue in modern games and the GPU becomes the bottleneck - which would explain such results. At the end of the day, there could well be an excess of memory on the XTX.

who knows, maybe the xtx performs better on its own ati/amd chipset...not on the i680.

lol, nvidia secretly program the bios of the i680 to reduce performance when it detects a r600....

 

[wickerman]

Honestly I can see good things to come with those numbers. The high resolution numbers are pretty close (and why buy a $500 card to pair with a $100 1280x1024 monitor ) and typically thats where performance suffers with immature drivers. I would certainly hope to see a quick turn around like ATI did with the x1900 to x1950 going the extra step to increase performance, and decrease power and heat numbers.

Its worth noting the 8800GTX used was clocked at a higher 650mhz core (compared to 575mhz stock) which is closer to the rumored "8800 ultra", but saying an overclocked 8800GTX is faster than a stock x2900xtx is not much different than what people said before with the core 2 being much faster than the AMD X2 offerings when one overclocks the core 2 to 3ghz or so.

If AMD improves upon the performance of the x1950xtx, adds the DX10 compliance, and they offer it at a competitive price I see no reason why the card wont sell well. Anyone who has watched the launches of new video cards since...well..the dawn of the mainstream video card...knows that there is always hype, let down, and typically just flat out lies or BS speculation about numbers, but the bottom line is bring a decent card to market and it will sell.
Hell if AMD can match the 8800GTX in performance and have a new F@H client Id prolly upgrade my 8800GTS 320 for the hell of it, if the price is right.

 

[BXtreme]

I agree! The XT and XTX performed near and poor due to the same laggy beta drivers...so AMDTI couldn't make the drivers....
Nvidia succeeded in delivering the cards first AND in making gd drivers then

 

[EviLZeD]

maybe its direct x 10 performance will be better

 

[15th Warlock]

There were rumors that AMD is having problems with the GDDR4 version of this card, there's a reason this card has not been released yet, let's wait for benchmarks with the final cards, instead of engineering samples.

The performance gap, it seems, won't be as big as most ppl (myself included) expected though, and it may be nil once the 8800 Ultra is released, although it may be overpriced and have low availability. But everything indicates that nVidia will ruin AMD's launch once again...

I was hoping AMD's cards would create a price war, which would benefit all consumers... but if these benchmarks are any indication of what to expect, I doubt nVidia will be forced to lower the prices of the GTX and Ultra models too much... the GTS is another story though.

If nVidia however, was forced to compete against AMD cards by lowering their prices, and AMD would have to follow suit accordingly, this would create a cycle that would be of great benefit for all of us waiting to migrate to DX10 cards; AMD's performance dominance however (or lack of) is imperative to create the required conditions for this to happen...

 

[ktr]

all aboard the banwagon...

 

[a111087]

i wouldn't make any decisions based on this numbers, until 2900 is not on newegg every bench mark is pretty ... well, not fake, but a lot could change after the release

 

[Eric_Cartman]

i have to say i am surprised that 1gb of ddr4 didn't help the card, oh wait, no i'm not

cards don't need more than 512mb for dx9 stuff, dx10 might be different, but nothing uses that yet so we don't know

interesting to see that the 2900xt outperforms the 2900xtx in some of the tests, looks like ati has a long way to go with their drivers

 

[mandelore]

HANG ON:

just checked the benchy website and the 8800 card is overclocked, the 2900xtx is not.. thats not fair

(fair enuff it may be vendor oc'd, but you know, apples for apples etc) using a not stock manufacturer card for the bench is lame imo

So, we get ahold of one and oc it like a whore, then lets compare the cards. Feel somewhat better now, since once the drivers are sorted out, it may not be so terrible, and lets wait for proper dx10 benchies, after all who knows how they will both perform in dx10 benchmarks, the 2900xtx may simply blow the rival out of the water??

 

[a111087]

HANG ON:

just checked the benchy website and the 8800 card is overclocked, the 2900xtx is not.. thats not fair

BURN 8800!!! BURN IT !!!

 

[GJSNeptune]

Heh, well that leaves us to wonder how well the 2900XT will OC. Maybe it won't so well, maybe it'll pummel the 8800. Can't wait to see.