Let the DX10 Card Battle begin...

Less texture units and raster operations than the G80... maybe there's the problem? >_>

I just don't get it. Is the superscalar architecture *that* inefficient?

It has potential, great HD movie acceleration, cool idea with the ablility to plug your soundcard into it for hdmi.

Performance is OK, but hard to say with the premature drivers for it.

The big negatives for me.

Its WAY too hot!, and it draws way too much power! If it can match the GTX with better drivers it can redeme itself, otherwise it needs to be in the 300$ price range to compete with the 8800GTS.

Maybe DX9 doesn't wanna run properly on it? The FX series couldnt run DX9 properly because they were optimized for DX8 . I don't get it either why it runs so slowly . Perhaps OCing will help alot . Currently it's running like a 8800 GTS / GTX depends on the game .

Shader clock ? A third clock ?

You can always blame the retarded drivers too. They seem to be the main reason of lousy FPS here .

HD 2900 XT

benchamark DirectX10
46fps
1024x768
no filters

@Mike: The super-scalar architecture requires very efficient drivers to work well.

A few notes for all who care: 1. The XT uses an 80nm process and yet takes much more power than the GTS and gets a lot hotter.2. The XT has 1.0ns Hynix memory, so it probably wont reach speeds higher than 1000Mhz, but since it has a 512-bit memory bus, it probably dosent need anymore.3. The XT is only slightly longer than the X1900s and is slightly shorter than the GTS 4. The XT requires an 8-pin power connector to overclock. 5. The XT has 25% more SPs that the GTX does, but it's shader clock is only half.

@Track: There are inherent limitations to how efficient the card can be based on the workload produced by the application you're running. But right now the card would have to be approximately 50% efficient to get the benchmark scores it's currently getting against the GTX. While it's true that an improved driver can do a better job of resequencing shader instructions to run more efficiently, there seems to be a big problem here somewhere.

@Mike: Well lets start off by saying that the XT does not actually have 320 SPs, but actually only 160. All of the DX10 have both standard ALUs and "special function" ALUs. The GTX has 128 standard and 128 "special function", so in all it has 256 SPs. ATI is just counting both.. wich is a downright lie, i think. So now the only thing that can save the XT is it's "Superscalar" architecture wich we know little about. But since the XT has only 160 SPs and half the shader clock, u have to assume that the Superscalar architecture is doing something, since otherwise the performance would be much lower. Meaning that the drivers out must not be too horrible, and to add to that, the alpha drivers released have been showing the same performance as the ones currently out.

@Track: R600 has 5 ALUs per 'pipe' and 64 pipes. One of these ALUs can do both regular and special operations. On G80, each pipe has only 1 ALU, and that ALU can do both special and regular operations. So R600 definitely does have 320 shader processors...the only question is whether or not the extra MUL (which is like half a MADD) on G80 should be counted as a shader processor, putting G80 at 256. Right now I think I have it as close to correct as I can really justify. I'll change it as more information becomes available and if I deem it necessary. Right now just consider R600 to have a shit ton of shader processing power, but its superscalar architecture just can't make use of it.

@Mike: This is my source - "ATI states that these are 320 true streaming processors. NVIDIA has been circulating a rather frank document to press stating their views on how they think ATI is counting the processors. They are stating that ATI is counting the standard ALUs and special-function ALUs to reach the number of 320. NVIDIA states that for their GPUs, if you count their units in the same way and add it up, an 8800 GTX has 128 standard ALUs and 128 special-function units for a total of 256 processors"
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTM0MSwzLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==
And the XT dosent really have that much shader power.. even if it has 320 SPs, they are still clocked much much lower.

@Track: I read that article and, frankly, I know more about computer architecture than Brent Justice does. If you look at the specs above you'll see that in a perfect scenario when all the shader processors are running at 100% efficiency, R600 has quite a bit more shader power than G80. Again, the extra MUL isn't being taken into account here, mostly because nobody can seem to get it to do anything.

Why not using GFlops? 520 for 8800GTX and 475 for HD2900XT...
It isn't apples to apples anyway...
Shouldn't the HD2900XT be cheaper than the 8800GTX?

I may switch to glops at some point, the whole issue is still up in the air.

@Mike: This is what Mr. Justice had to say about his blunder: "Both pieces of information we have posted come directly from NV and ATI themselves. NVIDIA quoted their shader architecture and ATI quoted us their shader architecture and that is what we posted."

http://www.legitreviews.com/article/504/3/
Atleast it can beat the 8800 GTX in DX10 .

@anonymous: just because the XT beat the GTX in a single game dosent mean that EVERY DX10 game will play better with the XT. DX10 games dont have anything linking them together.. its like saying that the GTX is better with DX9.0 games - completely meaningless.
And the fact that it beats the GTX in a very few ammount of games, is because those games use less complex shaders and so the R600's far less complex design works well with them.

Does anyone know yet if this card will work in an Asrock 775Dual-Vsta motherboard? Or am I going to have to carry on praying for a DX10 successor to the 7900GS?

Shader Operations: NaN Operations/sec
whats up with that?
seems the 8800s do the same thing when i mess with the clock numbers? bug?

@JamieUK:The DX10 successor to the 7900 GS is the 8800 GTS. The DX10 equivilant to the 7900 GS is the 8600 GT.

@Track - I didn't mean that , but you can't be sure at that right now , since you cannot really test it in DX10 right now . There are VERY few reviews where they tested it in DX10 , so far what I've seen the HD 2900 XT does get higher FPS/ about the same amount of FPS as the GTX .

@anonymous: Why do u think that there is going to be a performance difference between running a game in DX9.0 and DX10? Its the same game.

The 8600GTS is a significantly worse performer than the 7900GS and costs £30 (so ~$60) more than the 512MB version of the 7900GS. In fact 7950GTs can be found for 8600GTS prices now.

As for the 8800GTS, it is not compatible with the hugely popular Asrock 7750dual transition Motherboards.

@Track . You are suggesting that the 2900 xt has a weakness in comparison to the GTX in shader ability. That's ridiculous. The 2900xt has the potential to crank out a quarter million shader operations per second. ATI's stong point over Nvidia has consistently been it's superiority in raw shader power, i.e. x1800's x1900's vs. 7900's. that hasn't changed. The issue is whether they can utilize the full potential of this cards' obvious far superior ability over the 8800gts with some driver optimization. I still have a stong feeling that once they fix the driver bugs this will be a very stong performer, and a total success in DX10.

Once again track it seems you haven't done your homework. Current data suggest a DX10 environment has a potential 20% efficiency over DX9 in the same game. There is definitely a difference in the way to code is run in DX10 vs. DX9 and it is expected that the new architecture of the R600 will eventually take advantage of this even more so than the G80. But once again the situation just like drivers, we'll have to see how long it takes before this "potential" can be utilized and optimized for a real world setting.

Really we need to let this card settle, let the drivers mature, the user-reported issues get solved and most of all get those DX10 games out. Then we'll see what this card really can or can't do, or we'll decide to wait for G90/R650.

uhhh this is like the first card give it a break the 8 series has like 5 cards before the 8800 GTX

F@%* Amd! I will never buy another one of your cards again! I'm waiting for the 89xx to kick your asses back to germany.

I ordered a 2900XT. It is better then the nvdia 640mb card and cheaper(atleast where i bought it). The drivers will be better so i think it is a good price/value for this card now. The powerconsuption isnt that much like AMD scared us with. It will run with a good 550w ups. (20amp on the 12v line)

Now why are you pissed off at AMD ?

the good
powerful entry into the DX10 market
Good solid performance even with obvious junk drivers
Shows good potential, as well as a good match for the original intended competition.
the bad
not direct competition to the 8800 GTX 768MB
power hungry
a good house heater

Ok granted the card runs hot, and it's a power hog. Oh well that's something that'll be down to a personal choice when choosing a new card. On the other hand for the first ATI DX10 card it's a good start. From most benchmarks, people claim it's worse than the 8800 GTS 640MB, where as most reviews (average) it to be somewhere between the 8800 GTS 640MB and the 8800 GTX 768MB. If one compares to the 8800 GTS 640MB it comes out on top in some areas, as does the GTS. if one compares it to the 8800 GTX 768MB again it does come out in some areas, but like the GTS it fails in others. People bash the card, but no-one seems to remember nVidia has had a lot more time to work on the 8800's, not to mention while he 8800''s are good DX9 cards Vista and DX10 drivers are still a bit haywire. Something ATI does actually have 9though very immature)

But does it work on Asrock 775-Dual or Asrock 4Core-Dual Motherboards? That's the big question.

draws way too much power and is not that much faster to a 8800GTS no thanks.

There are sum major diffrences between the ATi Nvida designs, that people are missing I think.
Texture Units: Nv gtx =32 ATi =16
Raster Operators: Nv gtx =24 ATi =16
So from the start ATI has less Pixel Fill Rate Texture Fill Rate.
http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=4946&s=14
Look at the insane Vertex Shader score for the ATI.
To show some evidence of what I am saying
YES I know 3D mark is not a really good compare but will have to do for now.

As for power usage look at the clock on the ATi GPU clock 743MHz, clock your GTX up to that and see what the power usage would be.
(If you can, bet probably not on air cooling for long term)

Power usage should drop a lot with the move to 65nm, at the moment I believe this card is really a protoypye for the next die shrink, remember the Nv 6800 Ultra cards, where crazy at the time for running hot using power.

This videocard is also not meant to be compeating against the GTX but the GTS 640MB.

As for the drivers there is still room for improvement, happens with all new products for any company.
(Lets see in 2 months whats happening)

To finish of I am not loyal to any company.

Agreed, why do people keep insisting this thing is a fluke? The XT was never intended to compete against the GTX by any means (the XTX was but who knows what has become of it)
GPU clock does vary though I've seen most at either 750or 440. The ideal 743mhz clock is kinda odd.

Swebarb: no one says you have to buy it. Each to their own as they say.
JamieUK: Fortunatly those two boards are based off of VIA North bridge chipsets so compatibility shouldn't be an issue. I would however, recommend if you switch from nVidia cards to ATI cards that you make sure to wipe all traces of the nVidia drivers before even installing the hardware.

I currently have the x1600pro AGP (from my AthlonXP days and partly why I got an Asrock board) and a 7950gt is currently the best price/performance option in the UK (£120) that I know for a fact works on my board.

If an HD2900xt works then that changes.

Darn I didn't even notice that.The Asrock 775-Dual is an AGP based board, one the other hand the ATI HD2900 XT is PCI-e. In plain terms it won't work, unless one of the companies makes a AGP version (I highly doubt it) you're stuck with the current card. Not to mention you're very limited to upgrades.

Any video card will normally word on a VIA chipset based board. It's just a matter of making sure any pervious drivers are gone to avoid conflicts.

The 775dual has an AGP slot and a PCI-E slot (that is actually only PCI-E x4) which is compatible with the x1950/79xx series PCI-E cards and the new but dreadful 86xx series cards. In a small number of cases the 8800GTS will run too, but it's the exception rather than the rule.

so yah , im new when it comes video cards
which is better
ATi Radeon HD 2900 XT or GeForce 8800 GTS

The amount of pixel fill rate and texture fill rate is very close on the 8800GTS and HD 2900 XT ... the problem must be in the drivers.

Both the ATI HD 2900XT and the nVidia 8800GTS are good cards, performance wise......they're about even. While the fan-boys battle it out the reviews show that while the 8800GTS and HD 2900XT are both impressive cards each has it's high and low points. Because of the 512-bit memory bus the HD 2900 XT does much better than the 8800 GTS at high resolution/settings, on the other hand (and perhaps it's just drivers) the 8800GTS does better at the low resolutions/settings. Kage101 overall I'd say it's up to you at a coin toss, both cards are about on an even playing field. Though from some accounts I pick the HD 2900XT as it seems to fall in between a 8800GTS 640MB and a 8800 GTX 768MB. Just be aware the HD 2900XT has higher heat and power consumption than the 8800GTS.

Actually the HD 2900 XT has a higher power consumption and its hotter than the 8800 GTX . But 90 degrees loading temperature isn't high for this card , it can go higher without problems .

I have just dowloaded the instructions manual. Weird. It tells you how to install and make a lot of things with your card in Win95, 98, Me, 2000 and XP but no word about Vista... I thought this would be a card aiming for Vista.

If you're using Vista, then reinstall XP, that's my suggestion . There are no DX10 games out yet, that would make Vista useful, and DX9 runs better on XP. Also XP isn't such a pointless resource hog, that Vista is . But I suppose the manual on Vista is roughly the same as on XP .

If you wanna know the real number of shaders for any HD 2xxx card Divide by 5 and multiply the total by 4.

2900 320/5=64|64*4=256

2600 120/5=24|24*4=96

2300 40/5=8|8x4=32

Nvidia is gonna be in big trouble soon. Ati just needs to update their drivers for the 2-series, Btw i dont think nvidia will refresh they 8 series of cards most likely they'll just skip to 9-series and repeat the cycle they started with the 8-series(High end before christmas time, Low end 6 months later)

ATI has to create very good drivers , if the drivers aren't as good as they can get , the performance will be lower than the card theoretically can do .

i have no idea why people keep saying vista is such a resource hog, when i get the same frames in the games i play for xp and vista. people tend to forget wat happened ever since the 9 series of cards when the new gen comes out. the exact same patterns have pretty much been repeated, nvidia going for clock speeds, ati going for things lik shader count and in the end ati has won it, hell in the 7 series nvidias cards couldnt even handle AA and HDR

Vista eats up RAM . If you haven't got a high end C2D or a massive amount of RAM , it IS a resource hog .

This card needs 2/3 of my PSU's power alone . Wow . Anyway , a great card , but way too hot and energy consuming in my opinion .

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/1115/12/page_12_benchmarks_high_quality_aa_and_af/index.html


the matured drivers are having a huge impact on performance for the positive.

Found this http://66.249.91.104/translate_c?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&langpair=de%7Cen&u=http://www.pcgameshardware.de/%3Fmenu%3Dbrowser%26article_id%3D575520%26image_id%3D601060&prev=/language_tools
from this site
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pcgameshardware.de%2F%3Farticle_id%3D602373%26page%3D3&langpair=de%7Cen&hl=en&safe=off&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools
, is that true? If it is, then it's better to own a HD 2900 XT than a 8800 GTX if you want to play Crysis on max settings. But we'll see when Crysis actually does come out. And hell... the matured drivers did a GREAT job!

isa very very intressting...



a grain of sand, none the less, the first grain i've seen

Not very cool this card, i mean better chose a 8800 GTX WAYY better and the power consumption, just like core 2 duo vs pentium processor, pentium eat all your electricity like this card

The 8800 GTX costs quite a bit more than this card .

Any reviews of the 1GB GDDR4 HD 2900 XT out yet ?

any news about new drivers yet?

One new driver release... awhile ago .
Did quite a nice job on improving performance .

The only people who should be worried about power consumption are people with laptops, i really dont care how much power is draw or how much heat it emits as long as it works and with

"The only people who should be worried about power consumption are people with laptops, i really dont care how much power is draw or how much heat it emits as long as it works and with " Couldn't agree more. If I get a new PC before the R650 cards/G90 cards come out , it'll probably have a HD 2900 XT in it .

review of the 1gb part:

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/diamond_radeon_2900_xt_1gb/


Im suprised firingsquad didn't investigate uber high resolutions, which is where I suspect this card would shine.

Uber high resolutions ? Perhaps they didn't have a monitor that went higher than 2560x1600 . Also , the 1GB one was clocked at stock . Core and stream processors I mean . Only memory was clocked at 2000 . Why didn't they test the 825/2100 HD 2900 XT GDDR4 1GB one ?

i have decided to buy a x2900xt which one should i go with the Assus one or the Sapphire one?

http://www.sapphiretech.com/fc/products/products_overview.php?gpid=184


http://www.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=2&l2=8&l3=544&l4=0&model=1673&modelmenu=1


any help will be more than welcome

should I buy this card? will it be able to handle all games in high:?

I don't think that there is a card out there that will handle ALL games on highest settings, but this comes pretty damn close. As for if you should buy it... You've got a choice between 2 mid-high range cards: 640M 8800 GTS and this card. Right now it looks like the real decision lies in whether you like AMD/ATI or Nvidia more.

ive been using this card for almost a month now.performance wise i say that this card is very good.i ahev no problem running lost planet, call of juarez and all other games out there.this is definitely a good bargain

any1 experience gibberish screen on their asus 2900xt?
http://forums.hardwarezone.com/showthread.php?t=1659449

@anonymous : that's either because the PSU is faulty or the specific card , that that user owns is faulty , or simply it's not getting not enough power to run... or run the cooling .

2 b real, I don't understand half of the things all of you were talkink about,but, I wanna now witch one is better after all: the nvidia 8800 series or the ati 2900? I wanna buy one but I can't make up my mind... plz help me.... I'm noob.. :D

Do not buy this card. Buy the 8800 GTS 640. End of story.

Do not buy the 8800 GTS 640MB over this . End of story . The 8800 GTS makes less heat , noise and draws less power , but it's still slower . Actually , better yet , don't get either one... wait for the GeForce 9 and HD 3k/HD 2950 series .

Until price on 2900 goes down 640 gts outdoes it.

It costs like 20 dollars more than the GTS 640MB .

They're close enough at this point that $20 makes the difference in my opinion. I think that you're right on waiting for the next generation cards though. After seeing the difference between the GeForce 6 and 7 series on DX9...

@Radiator alot of ppl face the same issue, so wat u mentioned shldn't be the case

I've seen mentioned that GF 9800 series will come out in November but I haven't seen anything about 2950pro, which will be based on 55nm, be as fast as 2900xt, and is due dec/jan. It's not really out yet but hey - it's still news.

I hope with the HD 2950 series they can improve something atleast . Currently , without AA , the HD 2900's are faster than 8800's , but ... since it's a high end card , reviews and people will put antialiasing on , so unless they improve AA performance on the 2950's , they are screwed .
http://techreport.com/articles.x/12956/4 There must be a major architecture flaw in the R600 .
It looses 24% performance in LP , while the 8800 GTX looses 6% performance , when 4x AA is turned on .

I am a supporter for ATi, but the only thing i hate is their card's memory clock is always slower than nViDia's and nViDia's card always win ATi in Texture Unit and Raster Operaters but ATi beat nViDia with their process GPU and the amount of Shader Processors

The HD 2900 XT has a significantly larger memory bus than the 8800 GTX , so there is no real need to bump the memory to 1ghz or higher . There seems to be a major flaw in the core , because without antialiasing , it is faster than the 8800 GTX ( not by a large margin , maybe a few FPS faster , depends on the game , might be slower ) , with antialiasing , it matches the 8800 GTS ( depends on the game , but usually about as fast as a 8800 GTS ) .
Lol edit : I can't believe I wasn't aware of this until now . The HD 2900 XT's ROPs don't process antialiasing , it's shaders do , that explains the whole deal with crappy AA performance . It's probably because future DX10 games will be forcing cards(probably) to use their shaders to process antialiasing .

so is this a good thing or a bad thing?

This card? It's better than the 8800 GTS when AA is enabled. It's better than the 8800 GTX, when AA is disabled. So, if you want to have super high FPS with AA, the 8800 GTX would be better, if you just want high frames per second without a high amount of Antialiasing, then the HD 2900 XT would be better.

@Radiator, strange this is, this card will have a longer 'useful' life in a computer. By the time the 8800 and this can't handle new games with AA, this will shine above the 8800.

Another thing people need to consider are the drivers. This card is getting better all the time, as the initial drivers were rather poor. Whilst the 8800s will be at their peak for driver optimisations.

All ATi/AMD had to do is drop the process and get some more speed out of the card before the 9800 drops. Ala the 850XT...

"@Radiator, strange this is, this card will have a longer 'useful' life in a computer. By the time the 8800 and this can't handle new games with AA, this will shine above the 8800." That has been my point all along.
But with current games , the 8800's use their ROPs to perform AA, while the HD 2900's use their shaders .
In newer games, all games will force all cards to use their shaders to do AA.

on the paper ATi's Graphics card always win against Nvidia but on the game that labeled TWIMTBP, Nvidia graphics card will perform better..And now, mostly Game Labeled TWIMTBP..

Somebody supplised you false-information mate . If a game is labeled by the TWIMTBP sign , nVidia's cards aren't always faster .

ATi's shader clock is always slower than nvidia's

People seem to not realize that ATI built the graphics card for the xbox360, which is made by microsoft... the very same microsoft that made DX10... ATI built this card from the ground up to perform well in DX10 games with microsofts help, and DX10 is where this card will shine, and this is also the reason why they delayed the card... They were praying for someone to release a true DX10 game or benchmark, they knew they would get beat by the 8800 in dx9 performance, because nvidia built the 8800 in the old-fashioned way, its not even a completely unified card...

Nvidia didnt build the 8800's int eh old fashioned way, this card was MEANT to beat the 8800gtx, but it proved to get nowwhere near as good scores because it needed extremly efficient drivers.


Lots fo problems with it, namely innefficient drivers took all its performance beacuse it needs to sort the workloud out a ton mroe then g80's to sue all tis shaders, its shader clock is like half that of the g80's beacuse its locked to it's core, so there goes half your performance.

Its just small things like that really.

Doesnt help that people try to use 4x SSAA to get screen thigns when cfaa is intended for this card since it uses shaders instead of ROPS.

We'll see after a driver update . Currently the HD 2900's arent doing well in DX10 either . May be a driver limitation in more than just a few games , but it just may be the core itself .
I'd wait for the next generation of cards from both ATi and nVidia .

this card is currently the only card which can handle Pixel Shader 4.0 perfectly

This card is junk.I hope ATI pulls their head out of their ***. Because if the HD 3870 fails. I am done with ATI. I will just go buy a TV tuner.

Well , the HD 3870 is faster than the HD 2900 XT and costs 220 dollars ... saved ATi in my eyes .

i think this card should replace the 8600gt in the

The only thing this card beat the 8800 series is their shader operations, which means they can produce better image quality than the 8800 series

can anyone tell me if a nvidia tnt2 m64 agp card would work on the asrock 775-dual vsta board i was considering using it until i get new one

This card is damn freaking huge, I had a really hard time stuffing it into my case. When I measured the card, it was 12" long :O

and the test of time shows that the 2900 XT is far slower than a GTX

Stop the fussing! Stop the fighting...dont you guys know that the 2900s are the kings of 3dmark06...in future they will really get to shine as the architecture of video games changes...Farcry2 will be the starting point lets see who wins

Agreed, this thing is just for real significantly slower than a 8800 GTX. Not to mention an Ultra. This thing is just a joke, Im sorry for anyone who bought it now that theres the 3870 and 8800 GT.

0 GFlops ?
As for Far Cry 2 ... I doubt it ... the superscalar architecture is horribly inefficient . It'll be atleast one or two more generations of ATi cards using the superscalar architecture , before you can directly compare the amount of shader operations between the ATi and nVidia ( scalar architecture ) cards .