GDDR4 HD 2900 on the way

[Jimmy 2004]

Although this was posted in the forums a couple of days ago, there is now some more official news of the first ATI HD 2900 XT using GDDR4 memory that will be available for retail, as well as a few more places to purchase it. The card will initially be exclusively available from Diamond Multimedia, featuring 1GB of GDDR4 memory along with all the other 2900 perks such as built in HDMI and 5.1 surround sound. The card will officially be launched on 14th June, and the current list of retailers is as follows: Biohazard Computer Systems, Extreme PC, Falcon North West, Maingear, Memory Express, NCIX, Smooth Creations, Velocity Micro, Vigor Gaming, XI, ABS, Cyberpowerpc, Polywell, ibuypower and Canada Computers. Pricing is generally around $650, and most of those sites should accept pre-orders. Presumably this is essentially the HD 2900 XTX, as that was originally going to be the 2900 with GDDR4 memory, however the name is still XT - perhaps ATI has more to come in the HD 2900 series? At present this should be the most powerful ATI card.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

 

[Wile E]

Bah! Give me Newegg, or give me death! lol

 

[ex_reven]

Bah! Give me Newegg, or give me death! lol

LMFAO

Much performance difference?

 

[Easy Rhino]

650 bucks?? psft. is it gonna be 250 bucks faster than the gddr3 version?

 

[crow1001]

If that's all you get is an extra 500mb of memory in DDR4 then i cant see it having much performance over the DRR3 version and it is certainly not worth the extra cash, could be wrong but i doubt it.

 

[mandelore]

the card is clocked higher on the core as default, think 825 compared to 750

 

[Agility]

Still it aren't worth for that price. 250bucks is $400SGD more for here. Thats like $1000 for each GDDR4 2900XT here in singapore.

 

[zekrahminator]

The green camp has won this battle, ATI needs to focus on delivering what's going to slaughter the next generation.

 

[zOaib]

well if it beats out the 8800 ultra then the price is more or less OK , since u can buy an 8800 ultra for around 650 - 670 now in USD.

 

[WarEagleAU]

I think its priced a little bit too high if you ask me. Im sure GDDR4 costs alot more, but its not enough to warrant that huge of a price increase. Seeing how nothing out now really can use 1GB of memory (I think its ATI just wanting to have more gpu memory personally, just to best NV) its a bit overkill as well. What they should have done is offered 512MB of GDDR4 for like a $75 increase.

I agree with Mandelore, that if it spars well with the ultra, then fine, but still, its not worth it at that price. ATI should have brought it in at around $500 USD at most. Then it would definately take a nice share away from NV. I honestly dont think these graphics card companies are paying attention to the consumers or what they want and what they can afford. I cant just go plop down 500 hard ones for a card no matter how bad I want it. I know there are some out there who can and Im happy for them. However, they need to offer great products for a great value and a cramped up card isnt worth the money they charge.

 

[DaMulta]

:shadedshu

The green camp has won this battle, ATI needs to focus on delivering what's going to slaughter the next generation.

No U!!!

 

[Easy Rhino]

well perhaps the 2950XTX will have 1 gig gddr4 clocked at 900mhz core and be 500 bucks when crysis hits stores

 

[WarEagleAU]

Id hope so. It would just make sense for ATI and hell for NV for that matter to offer competitive pricing on their models.

 

[HellasVagabond]

Considering that even the 8800GTS kicks X2900XT butt in plenty of Games and the 8800GTX wins in more than 9/10 of the Games that they have benched it again the X2900XT i dont think that 75mhz on the core and another 512ram DDR4 ( Performance wise the DDR4 only brings more MHZ than DDR3 and more FPS in higher resolutions...Call me 30+inch LCD ) will make it even able to beat the 8800GTX so talking about the ULTRA surely is a silly thing to say. Lets not forget that the 825mhz version of the X2900XT CANT get more OC since it will propably melt while at it
On the other hand the 8800ULTRA gets plenty more mhz when OCed :

" The 8800 Ultra at standard at 612 / 1500 / 2160 clocks (core / shaders / memory). But there's definitely room for some more. The card can be pushed towards a core frequency of 690 MHz, the memory at 2500 (2x1250) MHz and the Shaders at 1728 MHz."

ATI has infact lost the fight ( for now ) since i doubt they can bring something else soon enough in the game which can deliver a 30-40% punch more than the X2900XT in order to beat the 8800GTX and the 8800ULTRA.

 

[mdm-adph]

...I honestly don't think these graphics card companies are paying attention to the consumers or what they want and what they can afford. I cant just go plop down 500 hard ones for a card no matter how bad I want it...

Welcome to the world of American (and increasingly, <i>global</i>) corporatism -- it doesn't matter what <i>you</i> want; you are the "product." The shareholders of these companies are the "customers" they're trying to make happy.

 

[WarEagleAU]

::nod mdm-adph:: I kind of figured that.

@HellasVagabond: where is it the 8800GTS kicked the HD2900XT's butt in every game? From the reviews and benches Ive seen, the 2900XT battled the 8800GTS well and won about most benches and also even took a few from the 8800GTX (I think like 1 or 2). Its on the TPU forums somewhere. But seriously, where did ya get that? (In no way am I trying to be mean or start an arguement, Im just curious as it contradicts everything Ive read and seen. A link would be great! )

 

[Jimmy 2004]

Having 1GB of memory could definitely make a difference to noobs who can afford good PCs. Their brains will think OMFG, its got more rams... it must be more 1337 - fortunately the combination of spending lots of money on PCs and having little understanding of them isn't stereotypical of the market - generally the people who don't know much about PCs won't be spending $650 on a graphics card - but then again, there will probably be even less people who know about PCs that would waste that much money on something that probably doesn't perform much better than a card half its price.

 

[DaMulta]

Considering that even the 8800GTS kicks X2900XT butt in plenty of Games and the 8800GTX wins in more than 9/10 of the Games that they have benched it again the X2900XT i dont think that 75mhz on the core and another 512ram DDR4 ( Performance wise the DDR4 only brings more MHZ than DDR3 and more FPS in higher resolutions...Call me 30+inch LCD ) will make it even able to beat the 8800GTX so talking about the ULTRA surely is a silly thing to say. Lets not forget that the 825mhz version of the X2900XT CANT get more OC since it will propably melt while at it
On the other hand the 8800ULTRA gets plenty more mhz when OCed :

" The 8800 Ultra at standard at 612 / 1500 / 2160 clocks (core / shaders / memory). But there's definitely room for some more. The card can be pushed towards a core frequency of 690 MHz, the memory at 2500 (2x1250) MHz and the Shaders at 1728 MHz."

ATI has infact lost the fight ( for now ) since i doubt they can bring something else soon enough in the game which can deliver a 30-40% punch more than the X2900XT in order to beat the 8800GTX and the 8800ULTRA.

http://techreport.com/reviews/2007q2/radeon-hd-2900xt/index.x?pg=14

 

[Xaser04]

http://techreport.com/reviews/2007q2/radeon-hd-2900xt/index.x?pg=14

How about posting an actual game benchmark rather than a synthetic benchmark which the 2900xt happens to do really well in.

 

[Jimmy 2004]

How about posting an actual game benchmark rather than a synthetic benchmark which the 2900xt happens to do really well in.

It's true - the 2900 does well in 3Dmark but from what I've seen the GTX beats it in most tests. One test can never be conclusive - in general that review shows the cards being very similar in SLI/Crossfire but the GTX normally beats the 2900 XT as a single card.

 

[DaMulta]

How about posting an actual game benchmark rather than a synthetic benchmark which the 2900xt happens to do really well in.

LINK

Most of the review are with the first driver right now. Things will get better as more drivers are release. Also i remember reading hell of thread for months how the 8800 drivers sucked ass, so it's not just ATi that did that.

 

[DaMulta]

Even Wiz used driver 7.1 on his review of the card.
http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=30179

We are up to 7.5 now.

 

[dsdsdk]

are we talking singlecard og dual card performance? how many users have SLI/CF vs non-SLI/CF?

 

[Kasparz]

It's true - the 2900 does well in 3Dmark but from what I've seen the GTX beats it in most tests. One test can never be conclusive - in general that review shows the cards being very similar in SLI/Crossfire but the GTX normally beats the 2900 XT as a single card.

HD2900XT does great in games, and its better than 8800GTS 640. Yes, i mean better in terms of performance with new 7.5 drivers, and probably next 7.6 will improve performence even more. HD2900 have software voltage control possibility, so we need just to wait when W1zzard will release new version of Atitools. And i really like ATI red heatsink covers. Only minus is power consumption, but an extra 50w over GTS wouldn't hurt that much, if you have computer for 2k$. Still HD2900XT have little potential in driver arena and overclocking.

 

[Urbklr]

The Diamond HD 2900XT 1GB Card is clocked at 825MHz Core and 2.1GHZ memory, up from 740/1.6GHz. It should come close to the scores overclockers are pulling outa there HD 2900XT's. HD 2900xt@ 900 core/990MHz mem hit 20,000 in 3Dmark06!