The Reference HD 2900 XT

Before we take a look at the performance of the 2900 XT let’s take a quick look at the reference card and how it compares to other available products.

Shown above is the 2900 XT when compared to the recent 8800GTX from Nvidia and despite featuring very similar coolers the XT is thankfully about ¾ of an inch shorter. From our own experience we can say that this is great as the GTX has a habit of not fitting inside a number of average sized cases. Also in the above image is a X1950 Pro, which is ¾ of an inch shorter again.

Above we can see the rear view of the reference card compared to the GTX. Clearly visible is the backplate which AMD are using to hold on the cooler. Also visible are the SLI and CrossFire connectors on each card which are in similar areas (top right) however quite different in appearance.

And for those real hardcore users above is the 2900 XT compared to the great Voodoo 5- 5500 PCI!. It might feel in recent times that graphics cards have been getting larger with every generation however as the above picture shows the 5500, released in 2000, with its 2 cores running at 166Mhz connected to 64Mb of memory, was ever so slightly larger than the 2900 XT.