ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT

[W1zzard]

AMD's new flagship video card is the Radeon HD 2900 XT which is based on the brand-new R600 GPU. It comes at an amazing $399 price point and offers many unique features. While performance may not be as fast as the GeForce 8800 GTX, its price will definitely make this card a good choice for users who are looking for the best price/performance ratio.

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[erocker]

Well ATi, I'm buying one tomorrow... so when those new drivers coming out? Looks like an overclocking monster!!!
*FIRST REPLY!!! (seriously I think it's my first!)

 

[zaqwsx]

Cant wait till i get my hands on the xtx when it comes out

 

[aximbigfan]

that is it? we waited months for that? wow. didnt do as good as i hoped, but that flash video of the demo is looks really, really good...


chris

 

[pbmaster]

Looks like an awesome buy...beat the 8800 GTX in several of the benches

 

[erocker]

Anyone hear of a card that has something in between a 128bit and a 512bit memory bus? WTF?

 

[Steevo]

A little bit of freon and some long lines will remove the noise.

 

[Cybie1111]

The price was much better than I thought. Well.. the 3dmark whores would love the card.

 

[Taz100420]

we need DX10 games to test the true power of this beast.
I want one still.....

 

[strick94u]

Errrrrrrrr? I fully expected ATI to come out guns blazing putting the smack down on Nvidia.
I can't wait till the xtx comes out who said that? Happy 2900xt release day

 

[DaMulta]

That was a good review Wiz two thumbs up!

Why did you use 7.1 instead of 7.4?

 

[DrunkenMafia]

Looks nice but I am kinda dissappointed, I was hoping for a little more.. I must say though the 400us tag is pretty sweet, still means it will be like 800aus though... to much.

Man that thing sux some juice too... that is unblelievable, I guess nvidia win hands down there.

Hey W1zz did they give you 2 cards to do some crossfire testing??? That would be nice to see, I mean 2 of those is still cheaper than 1 of those 8800 ultra cards... I wonder how they compare..

S I C K Review as always W1zz. Good on ya, lucky bastard!!

 

[TooFast]

Cant wait till i get my hands on the xtx when it comes out

Many of you have heard that for overclocking you will need to plug in one 2x3 6-pin PCIe power connector and one 2x4 8-pin PCIe power connector. This effectively gives you 300 watts to your 2900 XT, up from the stock 225w. If you are wondering why ATI did not launch with the top end “XTX” GPU to compete with NVIDIA, well the reason is you already have XTX if you buy the XT. ATI simply could not get the power usage down into a reasonable envelope for retail sale. Selling 300 watt video cards is simply not going to fly in the mass market. Remember how many support issues that NVIDIA and its partners had to deal with at the beginning of GeForce 8800 sales? Just think if it would have been a 300 watt video card instead of a 160w?

this is the xtx

 

[TooFast]

I;m not happy but im still getting 2 right away! still 28$ cheaper than the gtx ultra and crossfire will kill it.

 

[DaMulta]

Maybe they will offer some kind of crossfire kit. Make it cheaper to buy two at once. That would be urber cool in my book. And if two of them does out perform a signal GTX Ultra while being cheaper. Now thats just a good marketing point.

 

[Grings]

Two would eat a ridiculous amount of power

 

[TooFast]

they need to cheat like nshtia did with their 7950gtx
x2950 dual. Thats the only way I see ATI making it to the top this round.

 

[erocker]

Yeah, ATi should just charge 2 of thier cards for the price of 1 GTX. Can't wait to see those hd2600xt bench's, though I am sadened by the 128bit memory bus. 2900pro? That's what I'm going to want.

 

[t_ski]

they need to cheat like nshtia did with their 7950gtx
x2950 dual. Thats the only way I see ATI making it to the top this round.

Some AIB partners were making different cards. I think there was a X1950 x 2 card made by Sapphire. Buy two of those and you had Quad Crossfire.

 

[a111087]

2900XT was suppose to compete with 8800gts not gtx! even AMD guys said it and as you can see by some of the test, the drivers aren't completely optimized yet

 

[TooFast]

2900XT was suppose to compete with 8800gts not gtx! even AMD guys said it and as you can see by some of the test, the drivers aren't completely optimized yet

x1800 all over again, sorry worse.

 

[Seany1212]

Does this have a physics GPU too? also this is only the 512mb one, it still keeps up with the 748mb (or whatever it is) one of the G80, i say show me the gig

 

[tkpenalty]

The graphics card really seems to be hampered by the Drivers, happens all the time anyways. The 2900XT is not a contender for the 8800GTX dude.... 8800GTS more like.

Either way, such a low price tag, and sheesh... means i wont have to spend a fortune to get a new and zippy graphics card. Try running NFS:C, w1zzard, you will see the HD 2900XT probably beat the 8800.

 

[Ashen]

Anyone hear of a card that has something in between a 128bit and a 512bit memory bus? WTF?

no thats nvidia with their 384bit buss (256+128bit) ati is using a 512bit, 256bit, 128bit buss on diffrent cards now, and its not all bad to offer 128bit, depending on design of the card it wont hurt perf

this isnt dissapointing to me, run the g80 with first gen drivers and test it against this card with current drivers(ones from the day it came out)

remmber when the x800 came out, then after a while ati put out a driver that boosted perf drasticly on 256mb cards, i got up to a 97% boost in some games(almost 2x the fps....thats on top of already stunning fps it came out with)

give amdti some time to optimize the drivers, and they will endup bringing out a 2nd gen card thats better shortly, much like they did with the x1800 vs x1900..

and how are the vista drivers conpared to nvidia? they cant be any worse!!!!!

i personaly dont give a shit about vista perf, i want xp benches, i use 2003 and it uses xp drivers

 

[mR Yellow]

I must say i'm very dissapointed with the 2900XT! I was expecting more. I was hoping ATi/AMD would do well cause i've always loved ATi cards.

I was thinking of getting one of these...hoping it would be much faster than my 8800GTS.
I get 10 800 in 3dMark06 with my GTS OC'ed, so i don't really see it as a worthwhile upgrade.

The card is 7 months late! So i expected more.