DH Review: Radeon HD2900XT (Asus and Sapphire)

caqde

Thats the consumer part of the industry not me. And for me I think I would like to know what is possible out of a comparable card. What can I expect over the life of this product. And honestly if the industry based everything on what is going on now then that saddens me.

Wouldn't you like to know how this card will run when you are actually going to need it?

Get a bit better? Do you call 40% a bit better? Because that is what a driver has shown. If you look at a few of the reviews on the card you will notice that compared to an older driver ATI had for this card that is being used for some reviews (8.36 vs 8.37) the HD2900XT had a speed increase of 40% on one program in that particular review. I don't know about you, but 40% is a pretty substantial increase to me. Heck even late drivers for the X1900XT gave out increases like this and I would likely guess that the 8800GTX drivers give out benifits like this too, but they just don't tell us.

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dipstick

Personally I think it would be nuts to buy this card atm. Not because of its shortcomings but because there are newer, revised, models in the works and they will be released very soon. I would be lying if I said I wasn't pissed off when the X1900 came out two months after I picked up my new X1800 and from the looks of it, it will be happening all over again. ATi has something nice on their hands but its just not ready for prime time.
Nice review as usual guys, thanks

Mayro

I had to log in to through my two cents in....

First off, I agree with everyone in thinking that it is funny for them to release a card in which the competition is clearly going to kick the crap out of it.

Also, in 3 months, when the games actually start coming out... like Hl2:Ep2 and Unreal 3 and the new farcry, the refresh cards that actually dont suck as much will come out at the same price.

Im still using a 2.4c p4 and a 9800 pro and there isnt very many games that I STILL! cannot play.

6-9 months from now, we will have non crappy quad cores, DDR3 and more than likely the next gen video cards from ATI and Nvidia... I dont know about you, but with the trend that computer hardware is going, it almost makes me want to pick a new hobby.

brutusmaximus

What on earth are you talking about. Do you go out to buy a card now, that you are going to use in 6 months time while currently you keep it in the box? you buy a card when you are going to use it. You are a consumer as much as you would like to admit you aren't. We all are. we are enthusiasts, but we are consumers.

Yes, and DH did that. I buy a card to use it, not keep it in a drawer.


Yes and I call that a new update on the card, just like they did with the X1800 - X1900 etc. In your alloted time of 6 months, this card will be replaced, so in theory the time you would keep it for this miraculous driver to suddenly "fix" everything, it is already replaced by a newer, faster, lower power draining, quieter model.

I really am not sure the point you are making. Sure every product in this area gets better drivers down the line, but the time scales and release dates on these products are so fine, that by the time they improve the drivers, the card is already replaced. This has been proven for the last 2 years. I mean are you going to buy this card yourself to wait 6 months for it to start performing the way it should right now when you buy it ? If so, you are certainly in the minority, those who wait will have the X3000 which will hopefully fix the massive array of issues this hardware currently has.

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Veridian3

To address some of the driver points, AMD's driver engineers have not been sitting on their hands for months. This card was due last year and driver work began ages ago. Granted the final cards were not ready until more recently however i would say about 4months minimum of real development and two of development on final cards have been performed so far.

OldBuzzard

I'm not going to decide who's the 'winner' until we see what both cards do in DX10.

I remember what happened in the switch from DX8 to DX9, and I'm not making a decision until I see DX10 results. Especially since I'm a Flight Simmer, and have FSX, and the DX10 update for it is getting close.

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tornadog

so did AMD fire all the good engineers when they acquired ATI??

bug77

No, they're probably the same engineers that brought us the X1800 flop. You know, the ones that can't deliver a good midrange card since the Radeon 9500/9500Pro.

redsolar

Great review. It's good to see the choice still remains (although the RED corner looks more bleak at the moment).

I would hope not too many people decide to choose 2900 series for video/HTPC systems, or if they do - make sure they have some pretty long cables to use and a nice remote to shoot through walls . And of course, the price consideration - one could with some reservation build a 2400-2600 based HTPC for a price of one card.

I agree with OldBuzzard - some tests suggests inefficiencies in game engines, not letting all potential to be open. Although there is little hope there will ever be one, which uses those specific Radeon features (proven many times before, since r9700/n5x00 series).

I can only shake head at power consumption... in the age of ROHS and "green PC" this one certainly does not fit. Although no powerhouses really do anyway.

Overall great, consistent and interesting review to read. Thanks Stuart and Allan.

The only remaining hope - price changes, and hopefully, $100 drop will make it a considerably more appealing choice within 1 month.

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JohnDoe47

I'm saying that they should have tested the GTS with the drivers that were first issued alongside the 2900XT to make it a fair comparison silly boy

JohnDoe47

I remember the days with my Asus 9600XT...I thought the 9600 was middle class?

JohnDoe47

WELL WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE...

It would seem that the Radeon 2900XT has outclassed the GTS in 3D mark according to hardware zone...

http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles...3&id=2260&pg=6

Sandok

That's flawed thinking... In 5 months ATI will have better drivers but by then, NVidia will have even BETTER drivers. Which ever way you look at it, NV has a 5 month headstart so this just reflects what is the truth... Coming late to the market has its kinks you know

JohnDoe47

Clearly its a driver issue if these results are accurate...

REGENERATION

Nice review guys. The HD 2900 XT is really disappointing and looks like Radeon FX instead. We all knew about it and still got surprised. The performance is not that good, and the price is not suitable as well, and if it’s not enough, then there are some issues around it and all these delays. I don’t know why they released it in this condition, I’d delay it even more and make it perfect. After all, Vista is not popular now and there are no DirectX 10 games (And the upcoming titles list is too small and may take a while). Sad day for us - ATI fans, and surely sad for hardware consumers. I hope Nvidia will not take advantage of it and start treating their customers like crap. Let’s hope ATI will work something out and do something about this situation. Meanwhile, we can just blame the AMD merger for it.

bug77

Yes, but that was the second respin. The 9500 is the legend (particularly the 256bit version that put "unlocking" on the map).

Zardon

Yes, Hardocp dealt with this quite well in their review, worth checking out. Long story short, "who cares". its a synthetic benchmarking application, no one "plays" it and its uses in the real world are extremely limited. Driver Heaven hasnt supported or used 3dmark in any testing for a long time, for precisely this reason.

brutusmaximus

So let me get this clear, you are calling me stupid, then stating that you want a review up on the 14th of May 2007 on a well respected tech site to use Nvidia drivers of say September 2006 while ATI drivers in the testing should be those posted today? Do I really need to explain in a post why this is utterly useless to anyone except Michael J Fox?

You cannot "balance" hardware and drivers that enthusiasts can use today by forcing those on nvidia cards to run 9-12 month old drivers. This is ridiculous and I hope if you get your head out of your a$$ and think about it you will come back and say "you know, im talking crap, sorry guys".

Let's quote a theorectical scenario here. Guy walks into a store.

Guy "i would like to purchase a video card please for £250".
Salesman "sure sir, would you like this Nvidia GTS or the new Radeon 2900?"
Guy "erm, im not sure, which is faster?"
Salesman "the GTS, well apart from 3dmark that is"
Guy "ok so is 3dmark a game?"
Salesman "no its a benchmark to see how fast your graphics card is"
Guy "ok when you say faster, do you mean it shows how much faster it is in every game I will buy?"
Salesman "no, not at all, in fact quite the opposite is true"
Guy **stratches head** "ok, so what about noise levels I like to watch HD movies"
Salesman "Well the 2900 is pretty loud will that annoy you?"
Guy "yeah I guess it would, what about my power supply, its only a 350w?"
Salesman "well the 2900 will use about 200 of that on its own."
Guy "well really this is a no brainer, is the GTS more expensive?"
Salesman "no its about the same price but I don't recommend you buy it"
Guy "why? what you have told me the GTS is a superior card"
Salesman "yes but you should run nvidia drivers from September of 2006 to make it fairer"
Guy "dude wtf are you smoking, why?"
Salesman "I don't know really, I read on the net that some guys on forums said that to make it fairer, you should run year old drivers on the GTS, then performance should be closer".

Guy walks out of store and goes to purchase a shotgun.

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Partizan

Brutusmaximus great story

I decided I will wait for R650. Hope ATi (AMD) will learn from their mistake.

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WhO_KnOwS

I didn't intend to post anything at first, but after seeing so many posts about how older nVidia drivers should have been used I just have to speak my mind.

First of all, how can anyone even consider the above mentioned situation to be fair? Sure, ATI only had a few months to work on the final R600 support, but both nVidia and ATI had an equal amount of time to get their Vista support sorted. A few months ago ATI had the advantage. To be fair, even now ATI's Vista support isn't bad. It's just that nVidia managed to catch up driver-wise.
So yeah, in a few months time the performance of the R600 core will probably be a bit better (I don't expect miracles). But that does by no means justify comparing ATI's current Vista performance with nVidias pre-february Vista performance.

On another note, it seems that the R600 is indeed turning out to be the new FX series. However bad this might sound, don't forget that what killed the FX cards was the relatively slow Pixel Shader 2.0 rendering, something that shouldn't happen to the R600, it being based around DX10.

That being said, I'd still go for a 8800GTS card right now, regardless of my love for ATI cards. The 8800GTS being the cheaper, more silent, faster and less power hungry card that would be the only smart choice really.

EDIT: Going with a smaller manufacturing process should allow ATI to save their reputation. Hopefully it won't take too long for something in that vein to happen.

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NAZ2222

Can someone tell me why does the DH review makes HD2900Xt look so bad, when in the already discussed hardwarezone the HD2900Xt complety destroys the GTS 640, and even surpassing in some tests the GTX??? http://www.hardwarezone.com/articles...260&cid=3&pg=7

I find this odd, since in their tests the HD never is below the GTS(not talking about 3dmark)!!

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Necrosis

Joy, I love reading fan boy remarks on release day.

Necrosis

Read the last 6-7 posts above this.

Sandok

Trust me, the general message is that the ATI card isn't any better than a GTS, by far. DH has a very fair and very professional team with no bias WHATSOEVER, even though many repute this as a "Ati fanboy" site (which is far from the truth of course).

Is the ATI HD2900XT a bad card? No but compared to a GTS in price/memory/performance, it isn't better and that's what this review is suggesting.

Veridian3

Firstly we didnt make the card look so bad, we just reported it as it is.

Secondly i dont like to comment on other peoples reviews too much however i would say that the hardwarezone results are vastly different from every respected site out there (including us and [H] ). The reason could be the use of settings in game. We for example used the settings most people would aim for in Fear (i.e. max detail) where as HZ might not have. Also they seemed to try for some lesser AF settings (why would anyone want to limit themselves to 8xAA on a $399 card?? )

People wanting to use the XT would want the highest IQ possible so thats what we (and all good sites should) test at.

I also noticed that the HZ results contradict many other sites which found that there was a bug in the 2900 driver that caused it to perform worse than the x1950 at Farcry... not sure how they got theirs working. (Not that anyone should really worry too much about a game released over 3 years ago)

NAZ2222

Yes I share the same opinion about DH professionalism, it must be a driver issue, just look at the DH oblivion score!!

another reviews that prove the same:
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/503/6/
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...2128872,00.asp

although there are others reviews that show an inferior 2900XT,like guru3d!

in tweaktown theres a catch of reviews of the HD2900Xt flowing arround in the web
http://www.tweaktown.com/news/7492/r...ves/index.html

in my opinion ATi maybe have done better than everyone is saying, the card will cost in my country (Portugal) less than 400, exacty the same of the evga GTS 640! it may sound a little bit louder, but is not that much above the GTX, and in the Inq review, the card is cooler than GTS and GTX in 3D mode(not in 2D)! the 65nm part should resolve this and the "ultra" "shoe rock"!!

dont throw the card away just yet!!

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brutusmaximus

one sale to the dude in the batman suit I think. well at least the $400 will help driver development.

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Veridian3

I guarantee anyone saying that the 2900 isnt much louder than the GTX has tested it in a noisy environment such as an office. In a quieter environment (e.g. home) there is a huge difference in the noise levels. As an example i had the card installed in a case, within a locked cabinet (well ventilated) and i could still hear it very clearly in the background, so much so that i had to turn various movies up to uncomfortable levels to drown it out.

Without looking at the Legitreviews article in detail i can see immediately one issue. They didnt use the latest 8800 driver for their testing, we did.

dipstick

Anandtech has their review up. Another nice read when you're all done reading through the DH review.
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2988

X1800XTTOP

Excellent review. My whole system is built to be noiseless. With my EAX1800XT TOP dead, i need to look for a new gpu - but also buy silent cooling for it, as i dont think any of the coolers on GTS, GTX and XT will be "silent enough" for me.

The performance of the XT is less that expected, but here in sweden the price is _exactly_ as the cheapest GTS - with many GTS's models that are more expensive.

I do hope drivers will improve performance, as a X1950XTX has been shown to beat the HD2900XT in many, many cases - wich just shouldnt be acceptable.

I still think ill go for the HD2900 - eg i will take my chances with ATi and their drivers, but again what worries me the most is sound - heres some hope for passive cooling for DX10 cards (like accelero S1) ^_^