Radeon HD 2900XT - (R600)

[GunnerMan]

You know, I have always looked at ATi as a may I call it a "fan boy" card because everyone I know that owns one would not give up ATi for the world and bashes Nvidia like it is the end of the world. Before I buy any video card I want to see how much improvement AMDs K10 arch. does with the CPU communicating directly with the GPU on ATi cards. Even that wont matter much in the end though because the tech will be figured out just like ATi did with Crossfire and it will work with both cards. Now considering the 8800 was released about when dx10 just had its debut and it still can compete with ATIs latest is pretty good I must say. Like I said I want to see what AMD and Nvidia pull out of the hat in the next few months to see what the deal is. Its all speculation untill then.

[DizZa]

The performance is okay for a card that gets released to the public six months later.


I wouldn't see any reason for trading my 8800GTS for a 2900.

Same, the 8800 is still a great card.

You know, I have always looked at ATi as a may I call it a "fan boy" card because everyone I know that owns one would not give up ATi for the world and bashes

LOL! I was on your msn list (with my old addy) and I once talked to you about how much by X850XTPE kiled the 6800ultra.

For more ATi loving goodness, add me at sou-super6[at]hotmail.com.

[Mees]

Thank you Mr. ATi. You made us tell people to wait for the R600.

I still can't believe it while looking at those specs, how could they mess up that bad?! My 7900GTX is faster!!!

[DizZa]

Thank you Mr. ATi. You made us tell people to wait for the R600.

I still can't believe it while looking at those specs, how could they mess up that bad?! My 7900GTX is faster!!!

http://www.computerbase.de/news/treiber ... vergleich/

That $400 'messup' performed slightly slower than a $800 videocad.  ::)

http://www.computerbase.de/news/treiber ... vergleich/

[GunnerMan]

Isint that what I just said? Ati comes out with their Nvidia competitor months after Nvidia releases a new gen card, now if your a company that sees another company that has a good thing goin are you gonna stick with your original plan and get equal or less performance or are your going to assure you make your plan a little better to try and get the edge. Thats exactly what ATi does, and thats why I used such a harsh term...because people say OMFG BBQ ATi rox00rz it beat Nvidia by 4 FPS it kicked its arse, I attend many LAN partys and I hear it a lot. Just like Ct said the circle continues and someone always needs to be on bottom. Im not about loving any company.

[Nick N]

Its like this.. The card just hit the market. I remember when 8800 hit and it took about 4+ months in driver updates to raise benchmark scores 800-1K and to also get the really, really nasty bugs out which they are still chasing, especially in Vista.


I am no fan of either although nothing would please me more than to see ATi back in the game to keep the pressure on Nvidia (and that in turn keeps ATi on their toes) to quit shoving user R&D products on the market and using their customers to do their research and development work.

One thing about this card, you wont have the problems is Vista the Nvidia cards still have to this day, and will until they get their 80nm core on the market with the corrected design.


Quite a bit about the R600 is not even being looked at because currently software is not designed to take advantage of what the core offers, yet.


Nividas 90 and 80nm core products can never get full Vista certification. The drivers can, but the hardware lacks the internal abilities MS specifics must be in place for the hardware itself to have full Vista certs. Nvidia intends to use a loophole in the guidelines to claim Vista hardware Cert but its not true. They wont be able to change that until the next core release later this year or early next.


This card represents one part of a entire new approach by AMD in how the GPU(s) have direct access to every CPU core in a tower. The R600 is the only GPU which has that ability, it only lacks the 2nd half of the puzzle which is the chipset AMD is producing right now, and the CPU's which are also designed for that purpose. Having the R600 GPU's in direct communication in real time and at the same speed as 2-4-8 cores, I do not think I have to tell you what that means. Right now the GPU is totally limited by the chipset bus. Thats all about to change.


AMD has already use 2 R600 GPU's on the new chipset design to demonstrate 1+ teraflop in a HOME TOWER. Being that was only found in mainframes up until 3 months ago, the R600 goes WAY past being a GPU and what it it represents is they are on the edge of a major breakthrough to the market ... and Nvidia will have to follow or be left behind.

I am sure they will follow and that is why I said, I am not a fan of either.. right now I want that competition to force innovation on the market so we all win.


If ATi did not go the direction they are, Nvidia would sit on their arses and collect high dollar on low grade bullchit technology.

[Ashton Lawson]

I just heard, that a guy (forgot the name) tried to cool the R600 with LN, and at 1 Ghz something, the R600's heat was overpowering the nitrogen!!!

how the hell does that happen???

[DizZa]

I just heard, that a guy (forgot the name) tried to cool the R600 with LN, and at 1 Ghz something, the R600's heat was overpowering the nitrogen!!!

how the hell does that happen???

It doesn't. He has done something wrong or he is lying.

[GuitarFreak]

Still consumes upwards of 400w. Once they get that fixed and the drivers fixed, may be better. Also, any word on when nvidia is releasing the 8900?

[ProudPilot]

I've got the 2900HD XT running in my computer right now. Paired with DDR400 4GB, 64 X2 3800+, and 1 TB of storage via RAID 0. How does it run FSX?

Perfect and Absolutely terrible!

I've got everything to either the mid range or high, most of the scenery settings are at the 1m (texture I think is 60cm), and it runs pegged at 25fps. Traffic is null, but I put EVERYTHING to max (traffic, scenery, in building storms, at O'hare at 5pm) and it was stable at 4.5 fps. So now you ask, what's so bad? The DRIVER. If you change panels faster than about one per 2 seconds, it crashes the game, via a driver crash. I'm on the beta drivers, and I've submitted a ticket. Hopefully this will get fixed fast cause it's BEAUTIFUL with the 2900HD. BTW, this might only be a driver issue with Vista, I'm running Ultimate 64bit right now.

Everything else runs fairly fine, but sometimes the driver does indeed crash randomly. It restarts very quick (under a second), and it just closes any open windows. I really like the card, and this is the first one that I've bought on opening day! NewEgg Baby!

[Nick N]

I've got the 2900HD XT running in my computer right now. Paired with DDR400 4GB, 64 X2 3800+, and 1 TB of storage via RAID 0. How does it run FSX?

Perfect and Absolutely terrible!

I've got everything to either the mid range or high, most of the scenery settings are at the 1m (texture I think is 60cm), and it runs pegged at 25fps. Traffic is null, but I put EVERYTHING to max (traffic, scenery, in building storms, at O'hare at 5pm) and it was stable at 4.5 fps. So now you ask, what's so bad? The DRIVER. If you change panels faster than about one per 2 seconds, it crashes the game, via a driver crash. I'm on the beta drivers, and I've submitted a ticket. Hopefully this will get fixed fast cause it's BEAUTIFUL with the 2900HD. BTW, this might only be a driver issue with Vista, I'm running Ultimate 64bit right now.

Everything else runs fairly fine, but sometimes the driver does indeed crash randomly. It restarts very quick (under a second), and it just closes any open windows. I really like the card, and this is the first one that I've bought on opening day! NewEgg Baby!

you are choking the card into the ground on a 3800+ CPU and DDR400 memory

It needs a X2 6000+ which is actually not even up to the job 100% An E6700-QX6800 is really needed with todays hardware but AMD will have the Barc and other releases out in the next 60 days for AMD use with the card.


As for the drivers, although the last RTM release had a kink in them for some games, I have not seen this crash in Vista or XP

[ProudPilot]

Oh, I know my system is "underpowered" for it. Unfortunetly, after the first $2500 and my right arm to build my computer, I just couldn't part with my left arm, as I'm using it even now to type this out. Instead I sold my left leg to buy the 2900HD XT, and I'm rather happy about it. I didn't need no stinkin rudder pedals as it were!

Ok, just kidding, but seriously, I don't think 90% of people have a system up to my specs, they could be better, and I could be a millionaire too... ya sure. It does run fine, and there will be many times where my cpu is not the limiting factor and it's more on the memory. With DX10 though, a lot of processes should be moved off of the CPU and onto the GPU directly.

Anyways, that's how it runs until a new driver, and until then I've said my peace. It's a worthwild upgrade, but $400+ is a hunk of change.

[Nick N]

Oh, I know my system is "underpowered" for it. Unfortunetly, after the first $2500 and my right arm to build my computer, I just couldn't part with my left arm, as I'm using it even now to type this out. Instead I sold my left leg to buy the 2900HD XT, and I'm rather happy about it. I didn't need no stinkin rudder pedals as it were!

Ok, just kidding, but seriously, I don't think 90% of people have a system up to my specs, they could be better, and I could be a millionaire too... ya sure. It does run fine, and there will be many times where my cpu is not the limiting factor and it's more on the memory. With DX10 though, a lot of processes should be moved off of the CPU and onto the GPU directly.

Anyways, that's how it runs until a new driver, and until then I've said my peace. It's a worthwild upgrade, but $400+ is a hunk of change.

naaaaaaa  

400 bucks is 18 large specialty pan pizza's to go at papa johns

[Ashton Lawson]

Guru3D Review - Crossfire

just a quick addition, guru3d.com have done a review of two 2900 XTs in Crossfire, which should be interesting...