Amd 2900xt

[Joel]

Anyone have one / experience with one?

I am thinking about buying one. The performance is getting better and better with every driver release, and now that it cleans the 8800GTS 640 across the board for the same price, it's looking better than ever.

[David]

Anyone have one / experience with one?

I am thinking about buying one. The performance is getting better and better with every driver release, and now that it cleans the 8800GTS 640 across the board for the same price, it's looking better than ever.

Does it? I have not read anything recent on the card.

[Joel]

Does it? I have not read anything recent on the card.

It performs far better than it did at release; here is a semi-update article. Aside from buggy games, it clearly outperforms the 8800GTS 640 by quite a bit.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?op...1744&Itemid=40

[YARDofSTUF]

Does it still require a nuclear reactor for power?

[Joel]

Does it still require a nuclear reactor for power?

210 watts.

If you had like a 550 or so you'd be fine. Honestly though, it needs the power because of how large the GPU is. Technically speaking (on paper), the card is actually very impressive. I still think there is quite a bit of performance to come with driver updates.

Not to mention, they're switching to 65nm in a month which should both run cooler and require less power.

[YARDofSTUF]

210 watts.

If you had like a 550 or so you'd be fine. Honestly though, it needs the power because of how large the GPU is. Technically speaking (on paper), the card is actually very impressive. I still think there is quite a bit of performance to come with driver updates.

Not to mention, they're switching to 65nm in a month which should both run cooler and require less power.

Maybe it'll be decent, be nice to see more newer reviews on it, that one seems funny with how their clock speed changes here and there.

[Sava700]

210 watts.

If you had like a 550 or so you'd be fine. Honestly though, it needs the power because of how large the GPU is. Technically speaking (on paper), the card is actually very impressive. I still think there is quite a bit of performance to come with driver updates.

Not to mention, they're switching to 65nm in a month which should both run cooler and require less power.

Ok wait, is this the same card as the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT 512mb?

[Joel]

Ok wait, is this the same card as the ATI Radeon HD 2900 XT 512mb?

That's what it is. They have a 1GB version, but so far it's worthless.

[Sava700]

That's what it is. They have a 1GB version, but so far it's worthless.

Ok, then you might want to check out this
http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/431/

The reviews you saw just are not true. I've seen this card first hand also and I can tell you right now compared to the GTS its crap.

Okay, so here's how the verdict goes. AMD-ATI has had a very rough time launching this product. It was delayed and delayed and then delayed again. Obviously when you have 700 million transistors in a product, yet don't see the performance you expect, you try and solve tweak things. Now let's be fair here. Everybody was expecting and hoping for a product that would wipe the floor clean with NVIDIA's GeForce 8800 GTX/Ultra. That's just not the case. Performance wise the Radeon HD 2900 XT has a very hard time coming even close to these product in a lot of scenarios.

It is what it is, and the HD 2900 XT performance wise ended up in the lower to mid part of the high-end segment. Sometimes it has a hard time keeping up with a 320MB 8800 GTS, and in other scenarios we see performance close or equal to the GeForce 8800 GTX. Now that would be weird if we all had to pay 600 USD/EUR for it. AMD knows this, and knows it very well. This is why, and honestly this is fantastic, the product is launched at a 399 MSRP. Now I have been talking with a lot of board partners already and here in Europe the product will launch at 350 EUR; and that's just golden.

Also for power when you look at it System under load you have it hitting 400watts vs the 8800Ultra card at around 371 according to the above review..thats a big difference.

And to be honest ATI hasn't caught up with Nvidia for drivers yet as Nvidia has really been kicking out some nice ones here lately for both XP and Vista.

I wouldn't pass up a GTS for this card, but then again I wouldn't get either I'd go for the GTX for the extra cash..its worth it.

[Sava700]

Also keep in mind your matching a 512mb card against a 640mb card, to me the numbers say it all plus just lookin through that review with those two and others in graphics you can clearly see whats better...sure some of the scores reflect the ATI card higher but look at what your gaining.... scores? Hell I'm more interested in Gaming performance and I've seen both in action.

[Joel]

Also keep in mind your matching a 512mb card against a 640mb card, to me the numbers say it all plus just lookin through that review with those two and others in graphics you can clearly see whats better...sure some of the scores reflect the ATI card higher but look at what your gaining.... scores? Hell I'm more interested in Gaming performance and I've seen both in action.

Good sir, that review is from May 12, 2007. They were losing to not only the 8800GTS 640s, but also the X1950XTXs, ATis previous generation card.

The review I posted was with the Catalyst 7.7, the newest available.

It is very important to read the review dates right now with the 2900XTs.

Btw, on paper, the 2900XT blows the 8800GTS away aside from the extra 100MB of memory.

[Sava700]

Good sir, that review is from May 12, 2007. They were losing to not only the 8800GTS 640s, but also the X1950XTXs, ATis previous generation card.

The review I posted was with the Catalyst 7.7, the newest available.

It is very important to read the review dates right now with the 2900XTs.

Btw, on paper, the 2900XT blows the 8800GTS away aside from the extra 100MB of memory.

the drivers are not going to make that much of a difference. Your looking a large amount of memory difference you HAVE to keep aside. The review is old but it stands true to what the results show.. if you don't believe me run over to guru3d's forums and read up on it..hell even post a thread like this one i'm sure you will get alot of the same results as I just put up.

I'm not trying to sell ya a Nvidia card..just trying to help you make the right decision.

[YARDofSTUF]

....Drivers can make all that difference, nvidia did it once in the geforce mx days.

I'd like to see more newer reviews.

[Sava700]

....Drivers can make all that difference, nvidia did it once in the geforce mx days.

I'd like to see more newer reviews.

agreed.


with that Joel..just make sure you really read up on it before buying!

[Joel]

agreed.


with that Joel..just make sure you really read up on it before buying!

Aye thanks for the info.. If you look through the review I posted, you'll see that they compare the Catalyst 7.7s to the 7.6, and the difference is fairly substantial across the board (10% or so if I remember correctly).

That said, I too would like to find more newer reviews. It's unfortunate the drivers sucked as bad as they did when the card was reviewed. You have to think though, if you're still seeing increases that much on a single release, there is still a bit of performance to come out of the card.

[Sava700]

Aye thanks for the info.. If you look through the review I posted, you'll see that they compare the Catalyst 7.7s to the 7.6, and the difference is fairly substantial across the board (10% or so if I remember correctly).

That said, I too would like to find more newer reviews. It's unfortunate the drivers sucked as bad as they did when the card was reviewed. You have to think though, if you're still seeing increases that much on a single release, there is still a bit of performance to come out of the card.

The drivers used in guru3d's review back then were ATI Catalyst 8.37.4.2 47323 and the NVIDIA ForceWare 158.22, You go now and look both companies have released drivers since then but Nvidia has released far more in the means of enhancements and "upgrades" towards making improvements in Vista not to mention way better IQ in XP.

But that card along with a reference counterpart(8800 GTS 640) both prob show performance and IQ increases with any driver release or what sometimes happens even on a newer dated release I've seen cards go the other way. So just cause the drivers are newer don't always mean they are the best and each work different with different cards and systems.

I say look at the whole picture... loook at the watt usage, amount of Ram, Amount of bench results of which results higher overall, and which is cheaper(this sometimes means just that "crap card").

[Joel]

The drivers used in guru3d's review back then were ATI Catalyst 8.37.4.2 47323 and the NVIDIA ForceWare 158.22, You go now and look both companies have released drivers since then but Nvidia has released far more in the means of enhancements and "upgrades" towards making improvements in Vista not to mention way better IQ in XP.

But that card along with a reference counterpart(8800 GTS 640) both prob show performance and IQ increases with any driver release or what sometimes happens even on a newer dated release I've seen cards go the other way. So just cause the drivers are newer don't always mean they are the best and each work different with different cards and systems.

I say look at the whole picture... loook at the watt usage, amount of Ram, Amount of bench results of which results higher overall, and which is cheaper(this sometimes means just that "crap card").

Well, they're both the same price (~$389). The power usage is a very good point, but I have a more than capable PSU and don't pay for electricity here (office.. It's included in the rent), lol.

I don't know.. I've always found ATi image quality better than nVidia, and I've heard the Vista drivers are better for the ATi than nVidia right now.

Also, you really cannot trust the old reviews.. They're all from the same month and driver versions the card released with. Only the new ones, from mid-July on should be counted.

So no one has one?

[Sava700]

So no one has one?

well I did say I've seen one in action and I've seen the GTS in action....

the GTS hands down for IQ and performance...

[Joel]

Well since no one else had one, I figured I'd get one and chime in since if nothing else, it's not much worse than the 8800GTS (;.

Problem is, I got it.. Plugged it in and everything, then turn it on: there are artifacts ALL over the screen, even on post. Segments of colored dots, looked like GPU issues to me - once that starts you can't get into the OS or anything as it'll crash.

So I RMA that one, and the second one comes in. Get it all hooked up and 10 minutes later it's doing the same thing. Here's where it gets odd though. I noticed with the first card that if you touched it in the right place, it would boot fine without any artifacts, however after a few minutes it would revert back and you wouldn't be able to boot. This made me wonder - I know it isn't a wide-spread heat issue as it does it directly on a cold boot.

I just took the HS off and put it back on. Right after that it worked for a minute, but then reverted. I just played with it a little and now it's working (posting with it in there) and I just ran a few games for a few minutes to stress test it.. Ran without issue.

So the question then is what is causing it to artifact and crap on a cold boot when, once touched in the right place, it'll play games no problem (basically the card isn't dead)? What's moving? Perhaps, when it stops working after 10 minutes something is heating up and moving, or the fan is moving and it causes something to move. I'm not sure but I know the card is fine, and I know that this is the second card doing this so the next one probably would too.

Opinions ftw.

[Sava700]

Well since no one else had one, I figured I'd get one and chime in since if nothing else, it's not much worse than the 8800GTS (;.

Problem is, I got it.. Plugged it in and everything, then turn it on: there are artifacts ALL over the screen, even on post. Segments of colored dots, looked like GPU issues to me - once that starts you can't get into the OS or anything as it'll crash.

So I RMA that one, and the second one comes in. Get it all hooked up and 10 minutes later it's doing the same thing. Here's where it gets odd though. I noticed with the first card that if you touched it in the right place, it would boot fine without any artifacts, however after a few minutes it would revert back and you wouldn't be able to boot. This made me wonder - I know it isn't a wide-spread heat issue as it does it directly on a cold boot.

I just took the HS off and put it back on. Right after that it worked for a minute, but then reverted. I just played with it a little and now it's working (posting with it in there) and I just ran a few games for a few minutes to stress test it.. Ran without issue.

So the question then is what is causing it to artifact and crap on a cold boot when, once touched in the right place, it'll play games no problem (basically the card isn't dead)? What's moving? Perhaps, when it stops working after 10 minutes something is heating up and moving, or the fan is moving and it causes something to move. I'm not sure but I know the card is fine, and I know that this is the second card doing this so the next one probably would too.

Opinions ftw.

I wouldn't expect anything less from ATI.... sorry thats not much help but thats my opinion on it as I already tried to convince you which way to go.